Definition: What is Rating Scale
Rating Scale is a tool that you use at your workplace to measure your employees’ performance and check how they are doing. It’s often used in organizations as it’s easier to show the employee achievements and overall performance in numbers using them.
That way, you can differentiate between employees as to who is performing exceptionally well and who you need to train, and more.
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Types of Rating Scales
Rating scales come in various types, each serving specific purposes. Here are some common types:
1. Graphic Rating Scale
Graphic Rating Scale uses a visual representation, often a scale or series of numbers, to assess performance—for example, rating your employees on a scale from 1 to 5 for some specific criteria.
2. Behaviourally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS)
It links the behaviours of employees to their performance levels and provide more specific feedback about them—for example, describing different behaviours at different performance levels for a salesperson.
3. Likert Scale
It measures attitudes or opinions using a range of responses from strongly agree to strongly disagree—for example, asking employees to rate their satisfaction with a new policy on a scale of 1 to 5.
4. Numerical Rating Scale
it assigns a numerical value to different levels of performance—for instance, rating your employees on a scale of 1 to 10 based on their meeting participation.
5. Forced Ranking
It requires managers to rank employees from highest to lowest performance—for example, sorting employees into categories like top, middle, and bottom performers.
6. Comparative Rating Scale
It involves comparing employees to each other rather than a set standard—for example, ranking employees in order of who has the most sales in a team.
7. Critical Incident Technique
It focuses on specific events or behaviours that highlight exceptional or poor performance—for example, documenting instances where an employee went above and beyond or faced challenges.
8. Self-Assessment
It allows employees to evaluate their own performance—for example, employees rating themselves on communication skills or project management.
9. 360-Degree Feedback
It collects feedback from various sources, including peers, subordinates, and supervisors—for example, gathering input on teamwork skills from colleagues and team members.
10. Hybrid Rating Scales
It combines elements of different rating scale types for a more comprehensive evaluation—for example, using a combination of numerical ratings and behavioural descriptions.
How to Make a Rating Scale
To create a rating scale, you’ll need to do a thoughtful planning and consider exact criteria for what you want to measure, then based on that you can begin the making of it. Here’s a process to help you with it.
- Begin by identifying the purpose of your rating scale. What are you creating it for: employee performance, customer satisfaction, or another specific aspect?
- Outline what criteria you want to assess.
- Choose what type of scale you’ll use for it—for example, numerical, descriptive, or behavioural.
- Determine what the range of this scale will be like—for example, a 1 to 5 scale or a scale with descriptors like “poor,” “average,” and “excellent.”
- Describe each point of the scale.
- Make sure that your scale is balanced and has an equal number of positive and negative points.
- Test your scale before using it officially to know if there’s any room for improvement.
- Train new everyone about how to use this scale. Make sure everyone knows understands the criteria and knows how to use it properly.
- Gather feedback about your scale.
- Monitor and improve it based on the feedback and your understanding of it.
What is the 5-Scale Rating Scale
A 5-scale rating scale ranges from 1-5, where one being the poor performance and 5 being the best performance, and the middle number shows that the performance somewhere in between.
They’re used as a structured and systematic way to assess each employee’s job performance.
What Are the Different Types of Rating Scales, and How Do They Vary?
Here’s the list of the different types of scales whose difference we have already discussed:
- Numerical Rating Scale
- Descriptive Rating Scale
- Graphic Rating Scale
- Behaviourally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS)
- Likert Scale
- Forced Ranking
- Comparative Rating Scale
- Critical Incident Technique
- Self-Assessment
- 360-Degree Feedback
- Hybrid Rating Scales
Yes, rating scales are versatile tools, and you can use them to measure different types of performances other than individual employee’s.
What Challenges an Organization Might Face While Implementing and Managing Rating Scales
Organizations might face several challenges while implementing and managing rating scales such as bias and fairness, consistency, clarity of criteria, training, resistance to change, or numeric overemphasis.