Adjective Rating Scales - Definition & Meaning

Published in Human Resources Terms by MBA Skool Team

What is Adjective Rating Scales?

Performance Appraisal Process forms a crucial part of an employee’s lifecycle in an organisation. There are several means of performance appraisal being used by organisations around the globe today, out of which Adjective Rating Scales is one of the oldest and most popular methods.


The Adjective Rating Scale is an absolute standard method for appraisal wherein the individual is measured against a set benchmark. It lists multiple traits on which each employee is assessed, like quality of work, quantity of work done, cooperation with other employees across organisational hierarchy and job knowledge. Each trait has either 5 or 10 points defined across a range for ranking each employee on each trait.

Performance Factor

Performance Rating

 

 

 

 

Quality of work is the accuracy, Skill and completeness of work

Consistently unsatisfactory

Occasionally unsatisfactory

Consistently satisfactory

Sometimes superior

Consistently superior

Quality of work is the volume of work done in a normal workday

Consistently unsatisfactory

Occasionally unsatisfactory

Consistently satisfactory

Sometimes superior

Consistently superior

Job knowledge if information pertinent to the job for the individual to have satisfactory job performance

Consistently unsatisfactory

Occasionally unsatisfactory

Consistently satisfactory

Sometimes superior

Consistently superior

Dependability is following directions and company policies without supervision.

Consistently unsatisfactory

Occasionally unsatisfactory

Consistently satisfactory

Sometimes superior

Consistently superior

 

How to use?

The supervisor goes down to each trait as defined in the scale and chooses one point across the continuum that aptly defined the employee’s characteristics. To ensure effectiveness of this appraisal method, the meaning of each item in the scale as well as the scale points must be unmistakeably understood by the supervisor.


Advantages:

There are several other means of appraisal like critical incident method, Behaviourally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS), checklist and essay methods but this method continues to be popular owing to several advantages. Adjective Rating Scales are easy to formulate and require less time to administer. They provide for standardisation of traits so that employees across any level in the organisation can be assessed equally. Also, as they quantifiably assess employees, the outcomes of the appraisal process can be defended easily in case of being challenged.

 

Hence, this concludes the definition of Adjective Rating Scales along with its overview.

This article has been researched & authored by the Business Concepts Team. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.

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