Critical Incident Method of Performance Appraisal

1.  Definition of Critical incident method

• Critical incident is a method used for many sectors.
• Critical incident method- Recording of events by appraiser. An incident is critical when it illustrates what the employers has done or failed to do
• The critical incidents for performance appraisal is a method in which the manager writes down positive and negative performance behavior of employees throughout the performance period.
• Each employee will be evaluated as such and one’s performance appraisal will be based on the logs that are put in the evaluation form.
• The manager maintains logs on each employee, whereby he periodically records critical incidents of the workers behavior.
• At the end of the rating period, these recorded critical incidents are used in the evaluation of the workers’ performance.
• The critical incidents file of performance appraisal is a form of documentation that reflect all data about employee performances.

2.  Disadvantages of critical Incident

This method suffers however from the following limitations:

• Critical incidents technique of evaluation is applied to evaluate the performance of superiors rather than of peers of subordinates.
• Negative incidents may be more noticeable than positive incidents.
• It results in very close supervision which may not be liked by the employee.
• The recording of incidents may be a chore for the manager concerned, who may be too busy or forget to do it.
• The supervisors have a tendency to unload a series of complaints about incidents during an annual performance review session.

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