Critical Incident Method

Critical incident method:

This format of performance appraisal is a method which is involved identifying and describing specific incidents where employees did something really well or that needs improving during their performance period.

Overview

• 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 about employee performances.

Disadvantages of critical incident method:

This method suffers however form 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 to forget to do it.
• The supervisors have a tendency to unload a series of complaints about incidents during an annual performance review session.