Ethical Issues in Performance Evaluations

Ever since I was a young student in elementary school, I would dread the day that report cards came out. Weeks and weeks of schoolwork, assignments, and tests all boiled down to a single evaluation each semester. The grades a person earns, according to teachers, reflect not only a person’s knowledge of the materials and test scores but also effort level, attitude, and citizenship. Much like report cards, employee performance evaluations (or appraisals) also can be nerve wracking and uncomfortable for people. For the manager, the process of rating an employee’s performance can be quite difficult because of many contributing factors that need to be taken into consideration. For the employee, a performance evaluation is a very important life changing event and because of this heightened level of awareness and sensitivity there are numerous moral, ethical, and legal aspects that come into play. Performance evaluations, defined as “the process of evaluating the effectiveness of an employee’s performance”, are frequently a disaster for several reasons ("Performance appraisal", 2009).

First, performance evaluations are usually done only annually, which is not nearly often enough. The purposes of a performance evaluation is to give employees feedback on their job performance, identify training needs, to provide an opportunity for organizational diagnosis and development, to facilitate communication, and to improve performance through counseling, coaching, and development. All of these are extremely worthwhile endeavors that are very difficult to accomplish on only an annual basis.

Second, they are much too formal and structured in their format. Most performance evaluation systems include forms that need to be filled out. These forms require signatures from both the manager or supervisor and also the employee. If the employee has a comment concerning the evaluation, it requires him or her to write it on the form. Additionally, performance evaluations are usually...