“Tipping” and Performance Appraisals
Posted on May 28, 2012 by Gail Danneman
Employees who regularly receive tips as part of their employment are receiving constant feedback about the quality of their work. For example, a waitress may serve twenty tables or more in one shift. All of those parties will likely leave a tip that represents the level of satisfaction the customers felt from the waitress’ performance. The waitress may learn to adjust her behavior or performance depending on the feedback she receives from the tip amounts. How can this be applied to corporate settings?
Providing employees with feedback regularly allows employees to develop. How can employees improve their weaknesses if they are unaware of what they are? Most organizations conduct performance appraisals once a year. While it is positive that organizations are letting employees know about their performance, it would be more beneficial to provide employees with feedback as behavior occurs. When managers complete performance appraisals, they tend to be subject to the recency effect, or what has happened recently.
The problem with this strategy is that performance that has occurred months ago may not be remembered or recalled when the manager is filling out an employee’s performance appraisal. With frequent feedback, employees are able to fix behavior problems more consistently and learn from situations right after they have occurred.
How often do you receive feedback at your job? How often would you like to receive feedback?
About Gail Danneman
Gail received a B.S. in Psychology from Xavier University and an M.S. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology. Her research interests include: recruitment & selection, employee engagement, turnover, training, and succession planning.
