ABSTRACT
Managers, inevitably and continually, evaluate their employees. Likewise, co-workers, legislators, and customers constantly judge the work of an employee. Most of these evaluations are informal, casual, and subjective. Impressions form and reputations develop. Managers decide who to assign a given task, who to send to a training program, and who to promote to another position. Performance evaluation is integral to day-to-day administrative decisions and to long-range plans for reorganization and change. Given its importance, performance appraisal needs to be done carefully, with set standards and procedures. The traditional focus of evaluation is on individual workers. This may be inappropriate. Employees increasingly work primarily in groups. Perhaps teams rather than individuals would be the more relevant unit of analysis for performance appraisal. Systematic and careful evaluations are preferred over casual and impressionistic assessments. Since the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the emphasis has been to adopt evaluation systems that are more job-related and less personality- or trait-related.
