Question

Discuss the kinds of mistakes that you think might be easy to make when writing an evaluation report.

Answer 1

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate on the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary.

(Answer) An evaluation report is generally something that is written towards the end of a particular time period or at the end of a project. An evaluation can be written about the quality of the raw materials, the resources and even the personnel. The most common evaluations in human resources are on work evaluations of the employees.

In these cases, the team leaders or individuals on the upper levels of the hierarchy would ideally evaluate the work of their subordinates. This means that a manager might have to evaluate their employees based on skill, professional conduct, value to the company, the monetary value of the employee’s work, dependability, mental application and characteristics of this nature.

Since these evaluations are not always calculated by a computer and written out by human beings, there are problems with objectivity. This means that individuals might let personal biases, preferences, the halo effect and other such issues get in the way of being absolutely objective and professional. Personal connections tend to contaminate professional business evaluations and this can be evident in such reports.

Secondly, there are times where an employee’s true value or lack thereof, are based on actions and work that isn't always seen by the staff. Some employees can take the credit for another’s work, others can work more than they are paid for and they might never be noticed and some managers are simply not around their subordinates too much to notice the nuances that would help in these evaluations.

Thirdly, an evaluation is like a measure that helps a management team determines the kind of raise in salary that they wish to confer upon an employee. This means that a report of their final successes and failures is analysed, valued and an increment or promotion might be based on that. However, there are also characteristics that an employee might have that do not show up in contribution towards specific goals but rather towards long term rewards. Also, there can be employees who have attributes that add value to the team and company and that are not necessarily evident in these reports. Such employees tend to get overlooked and consequentially discouraged at the time of such reports. Therefore evaluation reports can have several drawbacks.