Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

HiSPEED: a system for mining performance appraisal data and text

  • Applications
  • Published:
International Journal of Data Science and Analytics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Performance appraisal (PA) is a crucial HR process that enables an organization to periodically measure and evaluate every employee’s performance and also to drive performance improvements. In this paper, we describe a novel system called HiSPEED to analyze PA data using automated statistical, data mining and text mining techniques, to generate novel and actionable insights/patterns and to help in improving the quality and effectiveness of the PA process. The goal is to produce insights that can be used to answer (in part) the crucial “business questions” that HR executives and business leadership face in talent management. The business questions pertain to (1) improving the quality of the goal setting process, (2) improving the quality of the self-appraisal comments and supervisor feedback comments, (3) discovering high-quality supervisor suggestions for performance improvements, (4) discovering evidence provided by employees to support their self-assessments, (5) measuring the quality of supervisor assessments, (6) understanding the root causes of poor and exceptional performances, (7) detecting instances of personal and systemic biases and so forth. The paper discusses specially designed algorithms to answer these business questions and illustrates them by reporting the insights produced on a real-life PA dataset from a large multinational IT services organization.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Similar content being viewed by others

Explore related subjects

Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.

References

  1. Palshikar, G.K., Apte, M., Pawar, S., Ramrakhiyani, N.: Hispeed: a system for mining performance appraisal data and text. In: DSAA (2017)

  2. Murphy, K.R., Cleveland, J.: Understanding Performance Appraisal: Social, Organizational, and Goal-Based Perspectives. Sage, Thousand Oaks (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Viswesvaran, C.: Assessment of individual job performance: a review of the past century and a look ahead. Handb. Ind. Work Organ. Psychol. 1, 110–126 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Levy, P.E., Williams, J.R.: The social context of performance appraisal: a review and framework for the future. J. Manag. 30(6), 881–905 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Schraeder, M., Becton, J.B., Portis, R.: A critical examination of performance appraisals. J. Qual. Particip. 30(1), 20 (2007)

  6. Palshikar, G.K., Deshpande, S.S., Bhat, S.S.: Quest: discovering insights from survey responses. In: Proceedings of the Eighth Australasian Data Mining Conference, vol. 101, pp. 83–91 (2009)

  7. Hu, M., Liu, B.: Mining and summarizing customer reviews. In: Proceedings of the tenth ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, pp. 168–177. ACM (2004)

  8. Apte, M., Pawar, S., Patil, S., Baskaran, S., Shrivastava, A., Palshikar, G.K.: Short text matching in performance management. In: Proceedings of the COMAD, pp. 13–23 (2016)

  9. Pawar, S., Ramrakhiyani, N., Palshikar, G.K., Hingmire, S.: Deciphering review comments: identifying suggestions, appreciations and complaints. In: NLDB, pp. 204–211. Springer, Berlin (2015)

  10. Kate, R.: A dependency-based word subsequence kernel. Proc. EMNLP 2008, 400–409 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Baroni, M., Bernardini, S., Ferraresi, A., Zanchetta, E.: The wacky wide web: a collection of very large linguistically processed web-crawled corpora. Lang. Resour. Eval. 43, 209–226 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Deshpande, S., Palshikar, G.K., Athiappan, G.: An unsupervised approach to sentence classification. In: COMAD, p. 88 (2010)

  13. Palshikar, G., Apte, M., Pandita, D.: Weakly supervised classification of tweets for disaster management. In: ECIR Workshop SMERP (2017)

  14. Ramrakhiyani, N., Pawar, S., Palshikar, G., Apte, M.: Aspects from appraisals! a label propagation with prior induction approach. In: Proceedings of the NLDB 2016. LNCS vol. 9612, pp. 301–309 . Springer, Berlin (2016)

  15. Zhu, X., Ghahramani, Z., Lafferty, J.: Semi-supervised learning using gaussian fields and harmonic functions. In: ICML, pp. 912–919 (2003)

  16. Palshikar, G., Pawar, S., Chourasia, S., Ramrakhiyani, N.: Mining supervisor evaluation and peer feedback in performance appraisals. In: Proceedings of the CICLing (2017)

  17. Culbert, S.A.: Yes, everyone really does hate performance reviews. Wall. Street. J. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB127093422486175363 (2010)

  18. Gray, G.: Performance appraisal don’t work. Ind. Manag. 44(2), 15–17 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Thomas, S.L., Bretz Jr., R.D.: Research and practice in performance appraisal: evaluating employee performance in America’s largest companies. SAM Adv. Manag. J. 59–2, 28 (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Brown, M., Benson, J.: Rated to exhaustion? Reactions to performance appraisal processes. Ind. Relat. J. 34(1), 67–81 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Brown, M., Hyatt, D., Benson, J.: Consequences of the performance appraisal experience. Pers. Rev. 39–3, 375–396 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Mani, B.G.: Performance appraisal systems, productivity, and motivation: a case study. Public Pers. Manag. 31(2), 141–159 (2002)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  23. Keeping, L.M., Levy, P.E.: Performance appraisal reactions: measurement, modeling, and method bias. J. Appl. Psychol. 85(5), 708 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Kuvaas, B.: The interactive role of performance appraisal reactions and regular feedback. J. Manag. Psychol. 26(2), 123–137 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Loren, G.: The controversial practice of fd. Harv. Manag. Update (2001)

  26. Pfeffer, J., Sutton, R.I.: Evidence-based management. Harv. Bus. Rev. 84(1), 62 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Shirouzu, N.: Ford stops using letter rankings to rate White-Collar Employees. Wall. Street. J. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB994804781223744805 (2001)

  28. Vaishnav, C., Khakifirooz, A., Devos, M.: Punishing by reward: when your performance bell-curve stop working for you. In: Proceedings of the International Conference of System Dynamics Society (2006)

  29. Guralnik, O., Rozmarin, E., So, A.: Forced distribution: is it right for you? Hum. Resour. Dev. Q. 15(3), 339–345 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Chattopadhayay, R., Ghosh, A.K.: Performance appraisal based on a forced distribution system: its drawbacks and remedies. Int. J. Prod. Perform. Manag. 61(8), 881–896 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Roch, S.G., Sternburgh, A.M., Caputo, P.M.: Absolute vs relative performance rating formats: Implications for fairness and organizational justice. Int. J. Sel. Assess. 15(3), 302–316 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Tsui, A.S., Barry, B.: Research notes: Interpersonal affect and rating errors. Acad. Manag. J. 29(3), 586–599 (1986)

    Google Scholar 

  33. Varma, A., Denisi, A.S., Peters, L.H.: Interpersonal affect and performance appraisal: a field study. Pers. Psychol. 49(2), 341–360 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Robbins, T.L., DeNisi, A.S.: A closer look at interpersonal affect as a distinct influence on cognitive processing in performance evaluations. J. Appl. Psychol. 79(3), 341 (1994)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Borman, W.C., White, L.A., Dorsey, D.W.: Effects of ratee task performance and interpersonal factors on supervisor and peer performance ratings. J. Appl. Psychol. 80(1), 168 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Solomonson, A.L., Lance, C.E.: Examination of the relationship between true halo and halo error in performance ratings. J. Appl. Psychol. 82(5), 665 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Murphy, K.R., Balzer, W.K.: Rater errors and rating accuracy. J. Appl. Psychol. 74(4), 619 (1989)

  38. Miller, C.E., Thornton, C.L.: How accurate are your performance appraisals? Pers. Adm. 35(2), 153–162 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  39. Roch, S.G., O’Sullivan, B.J.: Frame of reference rater training issues: recall, time and behavior observation training. Int. J. Train. Dev. 7(2), 93–107 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Brett, J.F., Atwater, L.E.: 360 feedback: accuracy, reactions, and perceptions of usefulness. J. Appl. Psychol. 86(5), 930 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Palmer, J.K., Feldman, J.M.: Accountability and need for cognition effects on contrast, halo, and accuracy in performance ratings. J. Psychol. 139(2), 119–138 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Kasten, R., Weintraub, Z.: Rating errors and rating accuracy: a field experiment. Hum. Perform. 12(2), 137–153 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Johnson, J.W., Ferstl, K.L.: The effects of interrater and self-other agreement on performance improvement following upward feedback. Pers. Psychol. 52(2), 271–303 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Furnham, A., Stringfield, P.: Gender differences in rating reports: female managers are harsher raters, particularly of males. J. Manag. Psychol. 16(4), 281–288 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Bernardin, H.J., Cooke, D.K., Villanova, P.: Conscientiousness and agreeableness as predictors of rating leniency. J. Appl. Psychol. 85(2), 232 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Ng, K.-Y., Koh, C., Ang, S., Kennedy, J.C., Chan, K.-Y.: Rating leniency and halo in multisource feedback ratings: testing cultural assumptions of power distance and individualism–collectivism. J. Appl. Psychol. 96(5), 1033 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Frink, D.D., Ferris, G.R.: Accountability, impression management, and goal setting in the performance evaluation process. Hum. Relat. 51(10), 1259–1283 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  48. London, M., Mone, E.M., Scott, J.C.: Performance management and assessment: methods for improved rater accuracy and employee goal setting. Hum. Resour. Manag. 43–4, 319–336 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Fox, S., Dinur, Y.: Validity of self-assessment: a field evaluation. Pers. Psychol. 41(3), 581–592 (1988)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Grote D.: Let’s abolish self-appraisal. Harv. Bus. Rev. Blog Netw. https://hbr.org/2011/07/lets-abolish-self-appraisal.html (2011)

  51. Smither, J.W., Walker, A.G.: Are the characteristics of narrative comments related to improvement in multirater feedback ratings over time? J. Appl. Psychol. 89(3), 575 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Valenti, S., Neri, F., Cucchiarelli, A.: An overview of current research on automated essay grading. J. Inf. Technol. Educ. 2, 319–330 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  53. Khamis, N., Rilling, J., Witte, R.: Assessing the quality factors found in in-line documentation written in natural language: the javadocminer. Data Knowl. Eng. 87, 19–40 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr. Ritu Anand for her unwavering support. We also thank Preeti Gulati, Amol Khanapurkar, Dharshana Ramachandran, Swapnil Hingmire, Sriram Baskaran, Amol Aaeer, and members of the TCS HR and CTO teams.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Manoj Apte.

Additional information

This paper is an extended version of the DSAA’2017 application track paper titled “HiSPEED: A System for Mining Performance Appraisal Data and Text” [1]

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Palshikar, G.K., Apte, M., Pawar, S. et al. HiSPEED: a system for mining performance appraisal data and text. Int J Data Sci Anal 8, 95–111 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41060-018-0142-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41060-018-0142-x

Keywords