Employees’ Perceptions of the Existing Performance Appraisal System: A Study of Sri Lanka Administrative Service (SLAS) Officers

A performance appraisal is a formal procedure wherein management assesses an employee's job performance against predetermined criteria, providing feedback, highlighting strengths and shortcomings, and establishing developmental objectives, which may influence compensation increments, bonuses, or promotions. In 1998, a formal Performance Appraisal (PA) system was introduced to the public sector of Sri Lanka following New Public Management, and it is still in use with few amendments. Nevertheless, the practice continues to dissatisfy some employees and is frequently considered unfair and ineffective. The amount of research examining employees’ perceptions of the PA system of Sri Lanka Administrative Service (SLAS) officers is insufficient. Therefore, this study intends to fill that knowledge gap. To analyse the employees’ acceptability of evaluation ratings generated by the existing PA system for SLAS officers, fifteen questionnaire items based on a five-point Likert scale were developed and distributed among 100 Grade III and II officers in the SLAS who use this PA system selected using a convenience sampling method. The two independent variables in this study are characteristics of the design of the PA and raters’ issues/supervisors’ characteristics and the dependent variable is acceptability of evaluation ratings generated by the PA system. The results showed that the design of the PA was not statistically significant and raters’ issues had an impact on acceptability of evaluation ratings. The coefficient of raters’ issue was -0.36, meaning that a one-unit increase in perceived issues with raters is associated with a 0.36 decrease in acceptability of evaluation ratings in the existing PA system for SLAS officers.