Absolute Approaches of Performance

Rather than comparing or ranking their employees against one another, many companies use absolute approaches to evaluate the performance of their employees. Absolute approaches are an evaluation of employees’ performance by comparing employees against certain “absolute” standards (rather than against each other) along a number of performance dimensions (rather than simply making a global assessment about them).

Each employee is assessed in terms of how well he or she performs a myriad of performance dimensions based on some predetermined standards of performance. As a result, each employee’s evaluation is independent of other employees’ evaluations.

The most common attribute-based approach is the graphic rating scale. Using graphic rating scales, raters evaluate employees based on various traits, or attributes, they possess relevant to their performance.

Attribute-based approaches overcome some of the limitations of comparisons approaches because they rely on a variety of performance dimensions and evaluate employees along a range of performance standards. In the critical incident approach, the evaluation criteria consist of statements or examples of exceptionally good or poor performance employees display over the course of the evaluation period. When managers use the forced-choice approach, they must choose from a set of alternative statements regarding the ratee.

One approach that integrates some of the advantages of the graphic rating scales and the critical incident approach is the use of behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS). Similar to graphic rating scales, BARS require raters to evaluate individuals along a number of performance dimensions.

Although information for a BARS can be collected from many sources, including the ratee, doing all the information collecting as well as writing and scaling the critical incidents for each dimension of all of a firm’s jobs can be too time-consuming for some managers and companies.