EXECTIVE SUMMARY

Human Resource Management deals with the procurement, development, maintenance and motivation of human resources within the organisation. An important part of the motivation and upkeep of the human resources involves performance appraisal. Ethical behaviour in an organisation calls for performance appraisal. An organisations goals can only be achieved if the employees put in their best efforts; the best way to assess and improve their efforts is through performance appraisal. Performance Appraisal is the systematic evaluation of the performance of employees and to understand the abilities of a person for further growth and development. Performance appraisal as a system has developed over the years and so have the methods to achieve it. Human resources managers have moved worldwide from traditional methods of performance appraisal such as Checklist Methods, Confidential Reports and Ranking Methods to more modern approaches such as Management by Objectives, Assessment Centres, 360 degrees appraisal, etc. Prominent among the modern and successful methods of performance appraisal is Behaviourally Anchored Rating Scales, developed originally by Smith and Kendall The BARS method of evaluating employees carries typical job appraisals one step further: Instead of relying on behaviours that can be appraised in any position in a company, the BARS method bases evaluations on specific behaviours required for each individual position in an individual company.
As Smith and Kendall proclaim, this instrument is rooted and referable to actual behaviours.

BARS are scales used to rate performance. BARS are normally presented vertically with scale points ranging from five to nine. It is an appraisal method that aims to combine the benefits of narratives, critical incidents, and quantified ratings by anchoring a quantified scale with specific narrative examples of good, moderate, and poor performance. BARS were developed in response to dissatisfaction with the subjectivity involved in using traditional rating scales such as the graphic rating scales.

A review of BARS concluded that the strength of this rating format may lie primarily in the performance dimensions which are gathered rather than the distinction between behavioural and numerical scale anchors.

BARS are rating scales that add behavioural scale anchors to traditional rating scales (e.g., graphic rating scales). In comparison to other rating scales, BARS are intended to facilitate more accurate ratings of the target person's behaviour or performance.

The project concludes with the ability of BARs to surpass the many of the short comings of performance appraisal such as raters bias, leniency, central tendency, regency effect, etc.