Numbers Not The Best Team Member Rating Format

Most of our managers rate subordinates leniently. Say, on a scale of 4 (4 being the highest rating), a manager would rate an average performer in between 3-3.5 and an above average performer as 4. This doesn’t give a true picture of the performance and also the excellent performers might feel demotivated because their performance is not sufficiently distinguished. Please suggest how we can check this so that ratings give a true picture of performance?

The Team Doc Says…

Numbered ratings are so subjective. Someone I would rate at a 3 might be rated as a 3.5 by another supervisor just because of where we set the bar. It would be best just to can that rating system or define exactly what each rating number represents.

Another problem with numbered ratings, particularly if you have a veteran workforce, is that often supervisors will rate a team member higher because that’s the only way the person can get a raise. I’ve seen this happen way too often in organizations.

What you might want to do is add stakeholder input into the review process to validate the numbers. To do this, have the supervisor solicit feedback from three key stakeholders of the team member — not all peers. These should be from different levels of the organization.

The stakeholder feedback along with the supervisors feedback can then be used to create a truer rating and potential for growth goals for the employee.

Best regards,

Denise O’Berry
aka ‘Team Doc’