Performance Appraisal Tutorial | Assignments of Weights

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Assignments of Weights

The importance of competencies and goals should be communicated to employees i by assigning them weights on the employee evaluation forms. It helps employees to prioritize their work and efforts on every day basis, and makes decisions when faced with competing demands. This is used when compensation is tied to performance ratings, and in organizations that have established their core values and objectives.

Organizational Values and Priorities

Weights to competencies and goals on an employee evaluation form should reflect the organizational values and priorities. Every care should be taken to avoid confusion, frustration and resentment. It is to make sure that everybody is aware of the weighting so that all will support it. Assign weights at the appropriate level.

There are two levels at which you can assign weights on an employee evaluation form.

Assigning a specific weight to each section on the form. For example, competencies = 30 percent, goals = 70 percent.
Assigning a specific weight to each item in a section. For example, if your employee evaluation form includes 5 competencies, you could assign each competency a different weight.
Leadership 20%
Communication 20%
Teamwork 15%
Innovation 10%
Customer focus 35%

This gives managers and employees a high-level sense of the values and priorities of the organization. Assigning weights to items in a section works well when the goals and competencies for a job are standard and they apply in the same way to everyone performing that role. It tends to be problematic when each employee has their own particular goals.

Some common challenges

Weighting in each section (if used) must add up to 100 percent, and the overall weighting of sections must add up to 100 percent. Weighting doesn’t replace human communication around priorities and the regular review of goals. It’s challenging to have discussions around organizational priorities and regularly review progress and the priority of goals as part of your performance management process.