Political Appraisals

Topic: Political Behavior in Performance Appraisals

Brief description: It is critical for employers to formulate a performance evaluation that is free of political appraising. Political appraising is when an appraiser gives an inaccurate appraisal in order to benefit themselves. There are many reasons why an evaluator would do this. One is that the appraiser may get bonuses or a better evaluation themselves if their team is evaluated higher. Another possibility is that an evaluator may have a problem with a particular employee and may know that the only way that they can eliminate them is by the individual getting poor evaluations, these are just a couple of the many reasons that there could be suspect evaluations.

Emotional Hook: I can’t imagine how bad it would suck to be released from a position because an employer gave me a poor evaluation that I did not deserve. I have to admit though that I have personally given individuals that I like a better evaluation than they deserved and now that I am older and able to look back at that I see that at times I may have been unfair to others that deserved chances at a promotion because I gave a friend that wasn’t as good of an employee a better evaluation.

Question: What are the best ways for an employer to eliminate political appraisals of its employees?