Rater bias in performance management refers to errors in judgment that can negatively impact employee evaluations, often stemming from personal opinions and unconscious influences. Various types of rater biases exist, including halo and horn effects, leniency and severity effects, and identity bias, all of which can distort performance reviews. To mitigate these biases, organizations can implement strategies such as maintaining written records, providing continuous feedback, defining clear goals, acting as moderators in evaluations, fostering a positive work culture, and ensuring HR supports employee relations.

1. Most disastrous Rater Bias in Performance
Management & How to overcome them......

2. WHAT IS RATER BIAS?
Rater Bias can be defined as an error in judgment while
reviewing employees performance. The error can be a result
of personal opinions and perspectives. The biases are
unreasonable and stereotyped in most cases and vary from
individual to individual. Since humans are fallible, biases can
also be an outcome of an unconscious mind. Rater Biases is
pervasive in nature and exist in all organization irrespective
of size. It is an indispensable part of performance
management system. It is not a healthy practice and often
tends to corrupt the workplace.

3. TYPES OF RATER BIAS
• HALO AND HORN EFFECT – This refers to the phenomena
where the manager tends to generalize ratings of an employee
based on some positive or negatives events. For example, if the
manager finds one positive aspect of an employee then he will
inflate the ratings in all areas. This is called the HALO effect.
Similarly, if the manager finds one negative aspect of an employee
then he will deflate the ratings in all areas by ignoring his recent
performance. This is called the HORN effect.

4. • LENIENCY AND SEVERITY EFFECT – According to the Leniency effect, the manager
tends to rate leniently as the name suggests. The employees are rated positively
irrespective of their performance. In the Severity effect, the manager is quite rigid while
rating employees. Therefore, there are chances that employees will get low ratings even if
they perform fairly well and show improvements in due course.
• CENTRAL TENDENCY – In this effect, the manager gives an average rating to all the
employees irrespective of their past or present performance. The manager might be
lethargic and instead of reviewing each individual employee he gives similar ratings to all.
In this case, the good performers suffer and low performers get an undue advantage
despite low efforts.
• RECENCY – In this effect, the manager overlooks the overall performance of an employee
and judges him/her on the recent performance. Some employees tend to fool the rater by
performing well prior to the review period and do not work throughout the year.
• AFFINITY BIAS – According to this effect, the rater tends to give high ratings to
employees with whom they have certain similarities in terms of attitudes, perception,
educational background, experiences, hometown etc.

5. • ALIENATION BIAS – As the name suggests, in this effect, the rater tends to alienates
the employee with whom he may not have anything in common. This practice is very
unreasonable as performance should be the prime factor of consideration while reviewing
employees.
• COMPARATIVE BIAS – In this effect, the rater makes a comparison among the
employees of the organization instead of reviewing individual performance. This reduces
the morale of the employees.

6. • NEGATIVE EVENT – If a negative event is associated with the performance of an
employee then the rater will tend to rate him/her based on that negative event in spite of
current positive events. One negative event revolves around the rater forever and he/she
is unable to notice the positive aspects.
• FIRST IMPRESSION ERROR – In this error, the rater forms a premature opinion about
an employee. The premature opinion may be positive or negative. Based on that
premature opinion the rater judges the employee in the future review period.
• SITUATIONAL BIAS – In this type, the rater inflates or deflates the ratings of an
employee based on factors which are beyond employee’s control to the employee.
• DISPOSITIONAL BIAS – In this case, the rater seeks opinions from supervisors of the
employees instead of personally reviewing the employee’s performance.
• IDENTITY BIAS – In this case, the rater discriminates employees on grounds of sex, age,
religion, caste, creed, social status, educational background, etc. The performance of
employees is not taken into consideration.

7. OVERCOMING RATER BIAS
• WRITTEN RECORDS – To avoid rater bias the managers
should resort to document trails i.e. They should keep a track of
the performance of each employee in a written form on a day-
to-day basis. For instance, after each meeting, the manager
should note down the performance of each individual employee
in a brief manner. This technique will help managers to judge
employee on the basis of written records over a period of time.
Since humans are bound to make errors, proper documentation
will help avoid such biases by giving a clear picture of the
employees’ performance.

8. • CONTINUOS FEEDBACK – The top managers of an organization should be open
to employees. A Feedback form can be designed and distributed to all members
of an organization. This feedback forms will help to receive feedbacks from all
hierarchical positions. The feedback form can be anonymous so that employees
do not hesitate to speak their heart out.

9. • CLEAR GOALS DEFINITION – The top management should clearly define the goals and
targets for each individual departments and thereafter break down into each individual.
The goals should be communicated to each individual in an organization. Each one of
them should know the requirements of the job. The managers should also communicate
and elaborate the performance evaluation process of each employee. All the employees
should have an abreast knowledge of the goals and evaluation of goals.
• ROLE OF MODERATOR – The top management should act as a moderator in the
performance appraisal process. They should see whether there is a balance in the review
process and no favoritism is associated with an employee. The moderator should ensure
that the ratings are genuine and correct with regard to each employee.
• WORK CULTURE – The top manager should maintain a culture of trust in an
organization. All members of an organization tend to follow the footsteps of their
managers and supervisors. Therefore, top managers should ensure that favoritism and
nepotism do not exist in the organization and each member should be treated equally.
The top performers should be rewarded and low performers should be given training so
that the employees feel a sense of belongingness towards their job.

10. • ROLE OF HR – The HR should act as a savior for employees. The HR should ensure
that all the problems of each employee are redressed as soon as possible. The HR
should initiate a healthy employee-employer relationship. Excursions, team outing,
competitions etc. should be organized so that a friendly work environment prevails.
The top managers should not be too rigid while dealing with employees. The
employees should be able to discuss their problems with their managers without
any hesitation.
Here’s an article on 10 ways for continuous performance evaluation and feedback
in performance management –
https://grosum.com/blog/10_ways_for_continuous_performance_evaluation_a
nd_feedback/