Rater Training

The appraisal of individual work performance occurs in some form or fashion in nearly every organization. Because these appraisals are typically used to provide feedback to employees and to make administrative decisions regarding promotions, bonuses, training, or termination, and because of the recognized importance of employees’ satisfaction with the appraisal for individual and organizational outcomes, the quality of performance appraisals is an important issue in both research and practice.

A number of approaches to ensuring the high quality of performance appraisal ratings have been researched and used in practice, including different types of performance appraisal instruments, methods, and rater training programs. Many rater training programs have been developed, and we review the most common of these here. We focus on rater training developed to improve the ...