Citizenship and task performance appraisals are crucial in organizations as they provide leaders with critical information, essential for people's management. Performance appraisal constitutes three functions; provision of adequate feedback for performance, serving as a basis for behavioral change and providing data to managers for future reference (Woehr & Huffcutt, 2018). In achieving these three functions, a rater must have high degrees of effectiveness. Effective performance appraisals demand high rater accuracy, which helps in minimizing errors leading to low efficiency. Four training programs are independently or collectively used in achieving rater effectiveness; rater-error training, performance dimension training, behavioral observation training, and frame-of-reference. Through these training strategies, a rater's effectiveness can not only be gauged but also improved tremendously. Effective performance appraisals demand the highest levels of rater accuracy and minimization of all types of errors. In their research, Christian Rosales Sanchez, Dolores Diaz-Cabrera, and Estefania Hernandez-Fernaud focused on the research question, "Does effectiveness in performance appraisal improve with rater training?" In this research, the researchers investigated the role of rater training in improving performance appraisal's overall effectiveness (Sanchez, Diaz-Cabrera, & Hernandez-Fernaud, 2019). In essence, good rater training implies a better understanding of appraisal areas, minimization of errors, and better performance of the appraisal activity, leading to increased rater effectiveness.
The research focuses on citizenship and task performance as they are used by all organizations that conduct appraisals among their workforce. Therefore, the paper aimed to establish if the practical and theoretical training for a performance rater improves his/her appraisal. The researchers developed three specific objectives from the study's primary objective, from which the research was based (Lee, 2015). The first aim was to investigate how various job performance levels, assessments, and dimensions are different based on the training strategy. The second specific objective was to investigate whether raters' observational accuracy varies according to the training strategy used. The final objective was to investigate whether raters modify the citizenship and task performance appraisals according to the type of training program they follow.
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In testing the research objectives, the researchers conducted two studies, whereby in the first study, they developed four hypotheses. The first hypothesis stated that raters who get training across all the performance dimensions and all the dimensions are more likely to score highly in general performance knowledge than other programs. The hypothesis was formulated under the assumption that the training programs focus on developing general knowledge on performance and its dimensions. Essentially, the program concentrates on general familiarization with every dimension. The second hypothesis states that the raters trained in rater-error training (RET) and the four program types are more likely to have higher appraisal biases than the other raters (Sanchez, Diaz-Cabrera, & Hernandez-Fernaud, 2019). RET training programs focus on developing a rater's awareness of biases affecting their appraisal accuracy. Raters who undergo this form of training are more likely to register low levels of bias as they are sensitive to them. Managers must expect the raters from RET training prams to register appraisals of high accuracy. The third hypothesis in this first study stated that groups trained in all four training programs and observational accuracy are more likely to observe occurrence or lack of occurrence of various events within their appraisal dimensions. Referred to as the BOT training, this type of training program aims to improve raters' observational capacity. In essence, the raters trained using this program have high observational accuracy relating to the appraised employees. High observational accuracy among raters from this kind of training is therefore achieved. The first study's final hypothesis stated that the groups trained in all the four training strategies are more likely to deliver a citizenship and task appraisal that is closer to the accurate expert judgment than the other raters. In this training program, rater error, frame-of-reference, observation, and dimensions are included, resulting in higher accuracy.
Just like in the first study, the authors formulated four hypotheses in the second study. In this study, the researchers aimed to test the effectiveness of two distinct training programs, which were performed exemplarily in the first study. The first hypothesis concerning this study was that groups that receive training are more likely to record higher general knowledge scores in performing appraisals than the other groups, the control groups (Sanchez, Diaz-Cabrera, & Hernandez-Fernaud, 2019). The second hypothesis states that the raters who received training from all the four provided program types are more likely to show high sensitivity in appraisal biasness than the control groups. In the third hypothesis, the researchers stated that raters trained across all four programs could easily identify the occurrence or non-occurrence of distinct events in their appraisal. The final hypothesis states that the raters trained across all four programs are more likely to provide a result closer to expert judgment.
The research design was a quasi-experimental, longitudinal, and factorial-multivariable type. Three-moment measures were received, with the first being before the training, the second being on completion, and the final being a follow-up, which came after a month. In this study, the moment measure was the within-group variable. The independent variable was the type of training and was divided into five groups. There were five dependent variables used in the study; performance knowledge and its dimensions, citizenship appraisal, task appraisal, knowledge of biases appraisal, and observational accuracy.
The authors used various measuring tools in the study, with the measures showing varying reliability levels. Videos, training manuals, questionnaires, checklists, and assessment scales were used. The videos were divided into two; training and short films, whereby the training videos indicated the performance samples, while the short films were used to assess observational accuracy (Sanchez, Diaz-Cabrera, & Hernandez-Fernaud, 2019). Videos were highly reliable measuring tools as they gauged the degree to which the participants upheld high observation accuracy. Questionnaires show low reliability as they limit how the participants can express their ideas in the research. In assessing observational accuracy, checklists were used, presenting high-reliability levels for the study.
The most important conclusion for this study is that trained groups are more likely to score highly in performance knowledge than control groups. According to this conclusion, raters trained through the four training programs have high effectiveness in their appraisal activities. Therefore, performance raters must be trained on minimization of errors, high observational accuracy, and high sensitivity of biasness across their appraisal activities. Through training, rater biases like the halo effect, the leniency bias, contrast bias, strictness bias, recency bias, and similar-to-me bias can be reduced (Martin & Bartol, 2016). Through this training, raters can easily detect unintentional errors and biases that could affect their overall effectiveness. Conclusively, rater effectiveness can be improved through performance dimension training, rater error training, behavioral observation, and frame-of-reference training. Raters with all these four training programs are more accurate and useful in their job.
References
Lee, C. (2015). Increasing performance appraisal effectiveness: Matching task types, appraisal process, and rater training. JSTOR. Retrieved from, https://www.jstor.org/stable/257973?seq=1
Martin, D. C. & Bartol, K. M. (2016). Training the raters: A key to effective performance appraisal. Sage Journals. Retrieved from, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/009102608601500201
Sanchez, C. R. Diaz-Cabrera, D. & Hernandez-Fernaud, E. (2019). Does effectiveness in performance appraisal improve with rater training? University of Rome.
Woehr, D. J. & Huffcutt, A. (2018). Rater training for performance appraisal. Research Gate. Retrieved from, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232533372_Rater_Training_for_Performance_Appraisal
