Hi Amendon,
The typical biases in the performance management are
1: Recency effect : this is typically the case that some body might have performed very poorly for the last 9 months, but as the appraisal nears, he/she will do something dramatic to impress the boss and the boss overlooks the performance for the whole 9 months but only take the positive ones.
2: Rewarding only activities but not results :
This is a typical bias where most Indian managers carry. They appreciate people for putting lot of HARD Work(Staying late nights in office/working on Holidays) etc. They actually begin sympathising with their team member instead of assessing his efficiency in getting the work done within the available resources. In this case the boss will not even bother whether he accomplished the results.
3: Generous versus strict managers.
In an organisation, there will be very strict managers or generous managers. Both are wrong. The PA system should ensure that the ratings are normalised across groups/divisions so that a given rating , say oustanding is understood and measured same way across the organisation lest the employees should not unduly suffer or unduly benefit. This is a big task for HR to accomplish. THis needs to be done where the employees are more than 100.
4: Bias against Gender/Race/Religion:
These biases sets in very easily. Hence the PA system should be designed in a way that only Results are measured and not any other subjective aspect is brought in. The more discretion that we allow the managers, the more bias we allow into the system. This is especially true in multinational companies where the boss is a foreigner and carry certain biases.
5: Safe Play :
Most managers do not want to carry out the so called dirty work. If a person is not upto to the mark they tend to give safe/average ratings which does not carry any risk from the employee nor the management, which is wrong. They need to objectively assess and communicate the accurate feedback to the concerned employee, else they are unprofessional. Managers professionalism is put to test only in such difficult situations.
6: Prejudices about the performance of the employee.
Managers would have already made up their mind before even reading the filled in Performance appraisal form(Self appraisal). They are quite impatient in FINISHING OFF this work, without objectively assessing all the areas. There is a heavy bias already set in.
Regards
Srivathsa