While employee self-assessments can be useful in some circumstances, agencies too often rely on them to make workforce decisions, the Merit Systems Protection Board has said.
It said research indicates people tend to overestimate their own competencies. For example, a recent survey showed that 92 percent of managers felt they were excellent or good bosses, something just 67 percent of their subordinates agreed with.
"Employees’ lack of knowledge prevents them from understanding what they do not know," MSPB said, adding that self-assessments should not be used to "evaluate employee competencies in high stakes situations such as hiring or promoting employees, organizational training needs analysis, workforce planning, and succession planning."
Even the practice of averaging employee and supervisor ratings waters down the result, though there are some situations where self-assessments are appropriate, such as a preliminary step in development planning, MSPB said.
It said an employee and supervisor could discuss a self-rating to focus on areas for improvement, or use them as a means of introducing employees to competencies and competency profiles.
But to build on that agencies should further instruct employees that self-assessments should be done as objectively as possible by including multiple sources of information and ways of collecting it, MSPB said.
It said sources include ratings from peers, team members, customers, and for supervisors, their employees.
