One of the most basic causes of performance appraisal failure is that so few people understand just what a performance appraisal is. Listen up: A performance appraisal is a formal record of a manager’s opinion of the quality of an employee’s work.
The operant word here is opinion. Performance appraisal requires a manager to render his opinion about exactly how well an individual performed. It is not a document that can be empirically tested and proven. It is not the end product of a negotiation between the manager and the individual. It is a record of the manager’s judgment about exactly how good a job Joe or Jane has done over the past twelve months.
As long as that judgment is rendered based on the manager’s honest assessment of how well the job has been done without personal prejudices and biases coloring that assessment, the performance appraisal is virtually immune from a disgruntled employee’s legal challenge. The notion that delivering an honest but negative performance appraisal will lead to an appearance on the witness stand in a discrimination lawsuit is an unfounded myth.
Courts have consistently upheld the right of organizations to make business and employment-related decisions based on managers’ opinions as recorded in performance appraisals even when those opinions are based only on the manager’s observations, judgment and experience without provable, quantifiable data to support those opinions.
This deference by the courts to employers has been stated as the business judgment rule and has been acknowledged by the courts plainly: “We do not assume the role of a ‘super-personnel department,’ assessing the merits or even the rationality of employers’ nondiscriminatory business decisions.”
The appraisal is a record of a manager’s opinion. If the employee and the manager disagree about that opinion, the manager wins.
About the Author
Dick Grote is a management consultant in Dallas, Texas and the author of several books. His most recent book, How to Be Good at Performance Appraisals, was published by the Harvard Business Review Press in July 2011.
