Performance

OBHR101 MPW
AY1617 T1

Last week recap

EBM managerial solutions considering the
best and most recent evidence available
Why is it important
How to EBM and RM
Why was the lipstick experiment inconclusive?
H1-2: Non random selection, non random
assignment into groups, too many extraneous
variables not controlled for
H3: impossible to test *gotcha*
2

EBM & RM
Research methods help you to
1. Conduct your own research if your workplace
culture or boss embraces the attitude of
wisdom
2. Evaluate conclusions and courses of action being
offered to you
3. Consider what the existing research says about
your pending course of action

This week Performance

Why is performance important?
One of several important outcomes we are interested
in
Organizational survival
Human resource decisions, such as promotions,
transfers, and terminations
Evaluations identify training and development needs
Provision of feedback to employees on how the
organization views their performance
Basis for reward allocations
Other individual relevance? fairness concerns, selfactualization concerns, motivational concerns
4

Todays agenda
What exactly is performance? Vs What
performance is not?
Features of performance
How can we measure/evaluate performance?
Group project ratings
What to do after youve assessed someones
performance?
Feedback giving exercise
5

Tell me
How can we measure the performance of
someone who sells luxury cars?

What we often measure as

performance
Effectiveness of performance vs Performance
Sales revenue measures effectiveness of performance
Measures outcome, but NOT the behavior

Problematic because other factors besides employees

behavior influences the effectiveness
E.g. economic conditions, customer preference changes,
production bottlenecks, etc

Performance can be adequate but sales can be low

Rewarding or punishing people on the basis of
effectiveness can be very counterproductive
Performance effectiveness
7

Why do we sometimes measure

effectiveness instead of performance?
Performance is not always observable
Some times actions can only be known by
their effects
i.e. producing a result after much thought
Cant always measure thought
This is why we sometimes HAVE to rely on
outcomes

What performance is (I)

The total expected value to the
organization of the discrete behavioral
episodes that an individual carries out
over a period of time. (Motowidlo,
2003)

What performance is (I)

Breaking it down
Refers to behavior
Behaviors aggregated over time

Is expected value of the behavior by the

organization
Behaviors make a difference to
organizational goal accomplishment
Positive difference, negative difference,
slightly to extremely positive/negative
10

7-11 Thanks a Million Contest in USA

Executives read In Search of Excellence and wanted to
become close with customers and
develop a service obsession
Attempt to improve customer service by getting every clerk
in N. Am. to offer a greeting, smile, make eye contact and
thanks to every customer; management bonuses linked to
courtesy measures
Smiles up by 17%, greetings up by 25%,

How did this affect sales?

Stores with more sales had grumpiest clerks, they cleared lines
faster
Performance was getting people in and out fast not insincere
social niceties
11

What is performance
Task performance
Job specific

Associated with Knowledge,

Skills and Abilities (KSAs)
Perform-

ance

Things people are hired to do

Contextual performance
Common to many if not all jobs

Citizenship
behaviors

Associated with personality or

motivational variables
Citizenship is desirable but less
likely to be demanded

Counterproductive
behaviors

12

Contextual Performance
(the Good Side)
People do other things outside their job that
are also performance.
Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs)
Volunteering
Helping
Filling In
Praising the Organization
Defending the Values
13

Contextual Performance
(the Dark Side)
People do other things outside their job that
are also performance.
Counterproductive Work Behaviors (CWBs)
Lie
Cheat
Steal
Fight
Slack Off

14

OCBs vs CWBs.. reasons

OCB

CWB

Self

Sense of responsibility, personality,

enjoy the job, influenced by others in
the team, golden rule, team spirit,
sense of belonging

Pay, I couldnt make a difference, rules,

need a break, only a part-time job, dont
have enough experience to contribute, I
was tired, boss was a jerk

Others

Empathy, camaraderie, personality,

loved the job, wanted others to do
well, committed, boss around, pay it
forward, a good person, upbringing

Selfish, personality/ character, wanted to

exploit others, didnt feel part of the team,
not a team player!, someone else will do it,
lazy, temptation, unmotivated, politics/
boss set bad example, boss not around, no
one will know, misunderstanding with boss,
job dissatisfaction, stressful/emotional
situation, favoritism, low morale, lied to by
company, not recognized
Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) = tendency for people to place an undue
emphasis on internal characteristics of the agent (character or intention) > external
factors, in explaining another person's behavior. This contrasts with interpreting
one's own behavior, where situational factors are more easily recognized and can be
taken into account.
15

Why is contextual behavior important?

On individuals performing behaviors
OCBs better relationships with supervisor, reduced
turnover, increased engagement

On organizations
Can contribute (or be detrimental) to organizational
effectiveness through its effects on psychological,
social and organizational context of work

On others in the org

Affect other individuals directly
Reciprocity
Organizational culture/team climate
16

Unethical citizenship behavior

17

Performance parameters
Controlled vs automatic processing
Typical vs maximal performance

18

Controlled vs Automatic
Controlled

Automatic
processing

processing
Careful attention,
requires mental effort
e.g. new tasks,
inconsistent tasks that
retain novelty over time
and never become
routine

Requires little or no
mental resources
e.g. routine tasks,
consistent tasks

Some predictors of task performance:

Inconsistent tasks general ability
Transition from new to routine learning experience and
practice
So when selecting people for a job, you need to take into
account the nature of the task
19

Typical vs Maximal
Typical performance = will do
performance, e.g., 70% effort for 8
hrs
Maximal performance = can do
performance, e.g., 100% effort for 3
hrs
20

Typical vs Maximal
Supermarket study (Sackett, Zedeck, & Fogli, 1988)
Discreetly monitored cashier speed and accuracy for four
weeks (typical performance)
Developed a work sample to measure speed and accuracy
(maximal performance)
Work sample tests: Hands-on simulations of part or all of the job that
must be performed by applicants.

Results

Week-to-week correlation: .90

Typical-to-maximal performance correlation: .14
Cognitive ability-to-maximal performance: .21
Cognitive ability-to-typical performance: .00
21

What does your performance look like?

Profs planking
70

Seconds (Max)
1

0.9
60

60

0.8
53

0.7
50
0.6
0.5
40
0.4
0.3
30
0.2

32

0.1
20
0
1

5 15

10

0
day 1

day 2

day 3

0
day 4

day 5

No. of seconds in plank per day

22

Performance as Dynamic Concept

Individual performance not stable over time.
Short-term fluctuations (e.g., typical versus max.)
Long-term trends (e.g., learning)

Transition and maintenance stages (Murphy, 1989)

Transition New on job, new tasks; skill acquisition
required
Maintenance Skills learned; task accomplishment
automatic; Dispositional factors relevant

23

Performance is dynamic
Performance Distributions
People have different distributions of
performance
What affects this?
Person a
Person b

Person c

24

Factors affecting performance

Personality (next week)
Motivation (week 6 & 7)
Resource availability
Physical resources
Mental/emotional resources

Life events?
loved ones ill or passed away, falling in love,
getting married, buying a new house, having a
child?
25

Another way of thinking about

performance as dynamic
Most part of the 8 hour work day, people do many
things that neither help nor hinder the organization
Punctuated by occasions that do make a difference:
Behavioral episodes
How to distinguish performance from non
performance? How do we pick out behavioral
episodes?
1. Task inventory approach- o*net
http://www.onetonline.org/
2. Critical incidents
26

Measuring Performance
(Performance Appraisal)
Generally, two broad goals
Evaluate the proficiency of employees
Make ratings
Evaluate efficiency

Provide feedback
Set goals
Develop to improve performance

27

Performance Measures
Two general issues with all measures of job
performance
Contamination: Irrelevant sources of information
contaminate the performance appraisal
E.g. Knowing your subordinates college GPA causes
you to give them higher ratings
Deficiency: The performance appraisal does not cover
all the important aspects of job performance
E.g. appraisal of task performance with no questions
about contextual performance
28

Measuring performance
1.

Results Based or Objective Measures: If ends count, rather than

means, then management should evaluate an employees task
outcomes.
E.g. needle-stick injury, near misses,

2.

Behaviors
Measured behaviors neednt be limited to those directly related to individual
productivity
OCBs, helping others, making suggestions for improvements, and volunteering
for extra duties make work groups and organizations more effective and often
are incorporated into evaluations of employee performance.

3.

Traits
The weakest set of criteria
Traits may or may not be highly correlated with positive task outcomes
Even though reality that traits are frequently used in organizations for
assessing performance

29

Behavioral Observation SCALES (BOS)

Evaluates behaviors, not traits not attributes
Uses critical incidents
Gives context of that behavior, the behavior
itself and its consequences
Essentially make a rating on each critical
incident
5-pt rating scale for the frequency that an
employee engages in each behavioral item
30

Critical Incident: Restaurant Server

Context: It was a Friday night and the restaurant was
extremely busy. Every table was full. One of the servers
was sick and called out of work.
Behavior: the employee picked up the sick servers tables
and waited on them in addition to his regular tables. The
service he provided to all tables was excellent.
Consequences: As a result, the restaurant was able to
keep all the tables full that night and all the customers
were satisfied.

31

BOS example
(Gatewood & Feild, 2001)

Criterion: Reviews Previous Work Performance

1 Communicates mistakes in job activities to subordinates
Almost never 1 2 3 4 5 Almost Always
2 Praises subordinates for good work behavior
Almost never 1 2 3 4 5 Almost Always
3 Discusses hindrances in completing projects
Almost never 1 2 3 4 5 Almost Always

12 Reviews inventory of necessary parts and equipment

Almost never 1 2 3 4 5 Almost Always
Total Score________________

32

BOS
Benefits?
Conveys what needs to be done in order
to be effective
Factual, objective, unbiased, not decided
ex post facto

33

Group Activity part 1

Develop 2 critical incidents for the job of PROJECT
TEAM MEMBER. Remember, each critical incident
shares the following pieces of information:
Context What was happening that led to the behavior
Behavior Observable behavior/action taken by the
employee
Consequences consequences or results of behavior

34

Group Activity
For example a negative C.I.:
Context: Group was discussing logistical arrangements for
next meeting. Project team member suggested 5 hour
meeting was necessary. Another team member disagreed.
Behavior: Project team member verbally abused another
member
Consequences: The two argued for 20 minutes and the
group never came to agreement about the next meeting
time

35

Group Activity (Contd)

Take 20 minutes for this
Each group develops EITHER positive OR
negative examples, as you are assigned.
Google doc:
http://tinyurl.com/mpw16171w3g12

36

Group Activity Part 2

BOS development
Part 2 Development of the BOS for the job of
PROJECT TEAM MEMBER.
Categorizing items I will do this

37

38

39

Rating Sources

Supervisor
Peers
Subordinates
Customers/External Stakeholders
Self
What are potential biases?
What would discrepancies tell us?
Who best to evaluate leadership for example?

40

360 Feedback
Performance rated by multiple sources (supervisor,
subordinates, coworkers, customers, etc)
Should NOT be used for performance appraisal
Designed expressly for development
Supervisors show high degrees of internal agreement,
coworkers and subordinates do not. Supervisors are
lenient, coworkers are error prone.
Therefore, do not average within or across sources, but present
info from each source for developmental feedback

41

Biases in Ratings
Leniency
rate most people too easily (high ratings)

Severity
rate most people too harshly (low ratings)

Central Tendency
rate most people as average

Halo/Horns
the tendency to rate a particular employee about the same on
all scales/dimensions of performance - due to a general
impression of the worker

Decoy Effect
42

Biases in Ratings? ME?

Are you fairly immune to biases?

43

Which applicant would you hire?

Candidate

Work Sample

Promotability interview
score
80

66

80

44

Which applicant would you hire?

Candidate

Work Sample

Promotability interview
score
80

66

54

45

The Decoy Effect

An irrelevant 3rd option can influence how
people decide between 2 viable options.

Candidate A
Candidate B
Candidate C

Work Sample Rating

5
7
4

Promotability Rating
80
66
80

Candidate A
Candidate B
Candidate C

Work Sample Rating

5
7
7

Promotability Rating
80
66
54

A = 93%
B = 7%
C = 0%
A = 30%
B = 70%
C = 0%

46

Decoy effect: Why?

Dominance heuristic: choosing the
dominating candidate allows the decision
maker to avoid difficult trade-offs and
allows one to justify choices to oneself and
others.
Decisions are hard. Relative Decisions are
Easier

Context-dependent weighting: the

dimension on which both the decoy and
target candidate excel is given more weight
in the final choice.
47

Other biases
Warmth-Competence tradeoff in women (Cuddy, Fiske & Glick, 2004)

Hypothetical scenario, selection study

working mothers: rated high warmth, low competence
working women non mothers: rated low warmth high competence
When men become fathers: gain warmth and maintain perceived
competence
Less interest in hiring, promoting, educating working mothers vs
working dads and childless employees
Catch 22: Think about Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. When Mayer had her
first child in 2012, she took just two weeks leave before returning to
work. In 2015, she gave birth to twin girls, and returned to work in less
than a month.

Our own cultural frame of what performance is

48

Cultural differences in evaluation of

dynamic performance
Performance can vary in terms of:
Trend (going up or down)
Mean (above 0, below 0)
Variation (small deviations, large deviations)

49

Cultural differences in evaluation of

dynamic performance

Rate the employees performance over the past six

months by selecting a number between 100 (worst
performance) and 100 (best performance)
What do East Asians rate highly? What do Americans
rate highly? Why?
50

Cultural differences in evaluation of

dynamic performance
Underlying theoretical explanation of nave
extrapolation and cultural differences in thinking
styles
Nave extrapolation rate upward trends as more
favorable than downward trends even though
average performance is the same
Analytic thinking: change is rare and all else being
equal, stability of characteristics should be
assumed
Vs Holistic thinking: change is a natural and
frequently occurring event
51

Results
Analytic and holistic style raters gave more favorable
evaluations to the upward trend than to the downward
trend
Interaction: Trend had a stronger impact on analytic
style raters than on holistic style raters. This difference
is present only for upward trends. For downward
trends, no differences between thinking style ratings.
This interaction is explained through of expectations of
future performance
Analytic thinkers expected upward trending performers to
continue having good future performance, and rated them
as currently having high performance
52

So How Do we get around These?

1. Use good rating scales
2. Train raters
3. Use multiple evaluators
Take averages

4. Evaluate selectively
5. Provide employees with due process
(talk more about this in week 6/7)
Briefly: timely info about what is performance,
opportunity to respond to rating, unbiased ratings
53

Training Raters (they need it!)

Evidence that training makes people more accurate
Rater accuracy training: focus on the
multidimensionality of performance and the definition
and scaling of dimensions. Make them as detailed as
possible.
Reduced leniency errors
Frame of reference (FOR) training: focus on training
raters to have the same frame of reference. Good
performance means the same thing to everyone
so that the ratings of one supervisor are
interchangeable with another
54

Evaluate Selectively
Evaluate only those areas in which you have some
expertise.
Appraisers should be as close as possible, in terms of
organizational level, to the individual being evaluated.
* Practical advice: Appraisers should actually know
job scope!

Collect good data from those who can observe

behaviors

55

Feedback
Goals
Improvement of performance

Emphasis on weakness. Leads to

Defensive
Less desire to improve
Less satisfaction

Focus on strengths.. Leads to

Allow participation
Ask what is working
What is not working
56

Strength Based Feedback

(Aguinis, Gottfredson, & Joo 2011)

Revisit this in week 6, before we give feedback

in week 7 presentations

57

Strength Based Feedback

(Aguinis, Gottfredson, & Joo 2011)

58

Recap
Performance:
Why is it important
What it is, what it is not
How to measure
Features of performance
How to give feedback

59

Next week!
One thing that might affect performance Personality and learning at work
Readings: assigned article on intelligence and personality (Kim & Glomb,
2010) & chapter 5 excluding section on values
Class ticket: a number of personality tests to complete
http://tinyurl.com/mpwpersonality, response submitted on dropbox on
elearn
A. After taking the battery of personality tests, which results surprised you?
B. Guess profs Big Five Profile.
C. What are the main hypothses of the paper and are they proven? What does
the Kim & Glomb paper tell you about yourself (e.g. your combination of CA
& personality)?
D. Just give me a yes/no answer: Is intelligence fixed or something you can
change?
Q&A

60

Q&A Team 1
G12: Performance is particularly important for
pay and rewards. Team 1, please look at this
study on whether fat people are paid
differently. Also, are there gender differences?
Why?
Judge, T. A., & Cable, D. M. (2011). When it
comes to pay, do the thin win? The effect of
weight on pay for men and women. Journal of
Applied Psychology, 96(1), 95.
62