Editing Performance appraisal (section)

==Legal implications==

There are [[federal law]]s addressing fair employment practices, and this also concerns performance appraisal (PA). [[Discrimination]] can occur within predictions of performance and evaluations of job behaviors.{{sfn|Howes|Muchinsky|2022|p={{page needed|date=September 2024}}}} The revision of many court cases has revealed the involvement of alleged discrimination which was often linked to the assessment of the employee's job performance.<ref name="Malos">{{cite book |last1=Malos |first1=S. B. |chapter=Current legal issues in performance appraisal |pages=49–94 |editor1-last=Smither |editor1-first=James W. |title=Performance Appraisal: State of the Art in Practice |date=1998 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-0-7879-0945-1 }}</ref>  Some of the laws which protect individuals against discrimination are "the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964|Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964]], the [[Civil Rights Act of 1991]], the [[Age Discrimination in Employment Act]] (ADEA), and the [[Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990|Americans with Disabilities Act]] (ADA)."{{sfn|Howes|Muchinsky|2022|p={{page needed|date=September 2024}}}} Lawsuits may also results from charges of an employer's negligence, defamation, or misrepresentation.{{sfn|Howes|Muchinsky|2022|p={{page needed|date=September 2024}}}} A few appraisal criteria to keep in mind for a legally sound PA is to keep the content of the appraisal objective, job-related, behavior-based, within the control of the ratee, and related to specific functions rather than a global assessment.<ref name="Malos"/> Some appraisal procedure suggestions for a legally sound PA is to standardize operations, communicate formally with employees, provide information of performance deficits and give opportunities to employees to correct those deficits, give employees access to appraisal results, provide written instructions for the training of raters, and use multiple, diverse and unbiased raters.<ref name="Malos"/>  These are valuable but not exhaustive lists of recommendations for PAs.

The Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidelines apply to any selection procedure that is used for making employment decisions, not only for hiring, but also for promotion, demotion, transfer, layoff, discharge, or early retirement. Therefore, employment appraisal procedures must be validated like tests or any other selection device. Employers who base their personnel decisions on the results of a well-designed performance review program that includes formal appraisal interviews are much more likely to be successful in defending themselves against claims of discrimination.{{sfn|Schultz|Schultz|2010|p=129}}