Perceptual Errors

Perceptual errors can interfere with the making completely accurate judgements of others. Explain several of these errors and their impact in the workplace and how managers overcome these perceptual errors.

Managers commit mistakes while evaluating employees and their performance. Biases and judgment errors of various kinds may spoil the performance appraisal process. Bias here refers to inaccurate distortion of a measurement..

Perception

A process by which individuals organise and interpret their sensory impression in order to give meaning to their environment.

* People’s behaviour is based on their perception of what reality is, not on reality itself.

Perception is the process of receiving information about and making sense of the world around us. It involves deciding which information to notice, how to categorise that information, and how to interpret it within the framework of our existing knowledge – shape opinions, decisions and actions.

Perceptual Errors

Consist of two major types: perceptual set (beliefs about a target based on previous experience with that target) and stereotyping (holding beliefs about a target based on the group to which the target belongs).

Employee performance appraisals are generally considered the least favoured work activity for both employees and managers; however, performance appraisal errors make matters worse. Errors in performance appraisals can create employee dissatisfaction and lead to inaccurate compensation and missed career opportunities. The sources of performance appraisal errors include lack of documentation, inadequate feedback, poor leadership training and supervisor bias.

Primary and Recency Effect

The Primary and Recency Effect play an important role in perceptual error.

The Primary effect refers to the way in which information is perceived early in an encounter can influence how later information is interpreted. In this way initial first impressions of people we meet can influence how we respond to...