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The appraiser may be any person who has thorough knowledge about the job content, contents to be appraised, standards of contents and who observes the employee while performing a job. The appraiser should be capable of determining what is more important and what is relatively less important. He should prepare reports and make judgments without bias. Typical appraisers are: supervisors, peers, subordinates, employees themselves and users of services and consultants.

 

Supervisors

 

Supervisors include superiors of the employee, other superiors having knowledge about the work of the employee and departmental head or manager. The general practice is that immediate superiors appraise the performance, which in turn, is reviewed by the departmental head/manager. This is because supervisors are responsible for managing their subordinates and they have the opportunity to observe, direct and control the subordinates continuously. Moreover, they are accountable for the successful performance of their subordinates. Sometimes other supervisors, who have close contact with employee work also appraise with a view to provide additional information.

 

On the negative side, immediate supervisors may emphasize certain aspects of employee performance to the neglect of others. Also, managers have been known to manipulate evaluations to justify their decisions on pay increases and promotions. However, the immediate supervisor will continue to evaluate employee performance till a better alternative is available. Organizations, no doubt, will seek alternatives because of the weaknesses mentioned above and a desire to broaden the perspective of the appraisal.

 

Peers

 

Peer appraisal may be reliable if the work group is stable over a reasonably long period of time and performs tasks that require interaction. However, little research has been conducted to determine how peers establish standards for evaluating others or the overall effect of peer appraisal on the group's attitude. Whatever research was done on this topic was mostly done on military personnel at the management or pre-management level (officers or officer candidates) rather than on employees in business organizations. More often than not in business organizations if employees were to be evaluated by their peers, the whole exercise may degenerate into a popularity contest, paving the way for the impairment of work relationships.

 

Subordinates

 

The concept of having superiors rated by subordinates is being used in most organizations today, especially in developed countries. For instance in most US universities students evaluate a professor's performance in the classroom. Such a novel method can be useful in other organizational settings too provided the relationships between superiors and subordinates are cordial. Subordinates' ratings in such cases can be quite useful in identifying competent superiors. The rating of leaders by combat soldiers is an example. However, the fear of reprisal often compels a subordinate to be dishonest in his ratings. Though useful in universities and research institutions, this approach may not gain acceptance in traditional organizations where subordinates practically do not enjoy much discretion.

 

Self-appraisal

 

If individuals understand the objectives they are expected to achieve and the standards by which they are to be evaluated, they are to a great extent, in the best position to appraise their own performance. Also, since employee development means self-development, employees who appraise their own performance may become highly motivated.

 

Users of services

 

Employees' performance in service organizations relating to behaviors, promptness, speed in doing the job and accuracy can be better judged by the customers or users of services. For example, a teacher's performance is better judged by students and the performance of a conductor a bus is better judged by passengers.

 

Consultants

 

Sometimes consultants may be engaged for appraisal when employees or employers do not trust the supervisory appraisal and management does not trust the self-appraisal or peer appraisal or subordinate appraisal. In this situation, consultants are trained and they observe the employee at work for sufficiently long periods for the purpose of appraisal.

 

In view of the limitations associated with each and every method discussed above, several organizations follow a multiple rating system wherein several superiors separately fill out rating forms on the same subordinate. The results are then  tabulated.