Behaviorally-anchored Rating Scale

Explore the benefits of using a Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS) to enhance people management practices and performance evaluations. Understand how BARS compares behaviors with specific performance levels, aiding effective employee assessments.

By Brad Nakase, Attorney

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Table of Contents

1. What is the behaviorally anchored rating scale?

2. BARS Examples

3. BARS usage across the employee lifecycle

4. Additional grading systems for employee assessments

5. Benefits and Drawbacks of Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale Use

6. Drawbacks of BARS

7. How to create a behaviorally anchored rating scale

8. In summary

What is the behaviorally anchored rating scale?

The behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS) within performance management is almost sixty years old. It has endured for so long partially because it is defensible. Companies continue to invest time and money in creating and sustaining these scales. It’s challenging to disprove conclusions drawn from in-person behavior observations. Therefore, how can you create one, and how might a behaviorally anchored rating scale enhance your people management procedures going forward?

Usually on a five-, seven-, or nine-point scale, a Behavior Analysis Rating System (BARS) evaluates workers in a predetermined group of performance categories. It compares their behaviors with patterns that form the basis of each performance level.

The critical incident technique (CIT) and other job evaluation techniques can be used to define those behaviors. Experts in their field define various results and then detail instances and the actions that lead to those results.

The behavioral observation scale (BOS) gauges the frequency of expected behaviors and is a comparable tool.

BARS Examples

A dimension centered on teamwork will have multiple uses. On a scale of 1 to 5:

The Level 1 measure can be “Makes rude or inappropriate comments.”

The Level 5 measure could be “promotes and encourages conflict moderation.”

Regarding the use of Java knowledge for a software programmer:

“Has an understanding of Java and can finish tasks with supervision” might be the Level 2 requirement.

“Completes tasks in Java and comparable skills without supervision” could be the Level 4 requirement.

BARS usage across the employee lifecycle

Because behavioral anchors function as a holistic system that synchronizes every role with business aims, most firms use them. They give each person a comprehensive profile, which serves as a guide throughout the whole worker life cycle. A behaviorally anchored rating scale can be used for the following human resources tasks:

Talent Acquisition: Recruiters can source candidates more effectively if they know the behaviors you are looking for. The BARS is then used by hiring managers to administer and assess structured interviews.

Learning and growth: When managers have behaviors to work on, coaching and growth become easier. Most management systems use them to assist in developing personalized learning pathways.

Performance Management: Managers are guided in providing performance evaluations and feedback by behavioral anchors.

Career Pathing: A career path is necessary to draw in and retain top talent. Behavioral anchors guide planning and mentoring their development.

Succession Management: Using specific performance factors to determine the best employees and choose possible successors makes it easier to identify talent gaps.

Culture: Taking care of the behaviors that shape your company’s culture can make a big difference. Leaders can also emulate the actions exhibited by anchors.

Additional grading systems for employee assessments

The 5-level visual rating system is the most widely used scale. Each level has a short label ranging from one to five. The terms “average,” “satisfactory,” “superior,” “excellent,” and “unacceptable” were once common. Although several organizations have attempted to improve labels, rater biases, and subjective judgment still exist.

Businesses frequently use visual rating scales in competency-based assessments. That said, these could offer generic descriptions, promoting subjectivity in evaluations.

Several scales have 3 performance levels or up to ten or more. Around 15 years ago, an engineering business pushed a point rating system with two decimals ranging from 0.01 to 10. Their engineers relished the appearance of precision, they said in defense.

In the 1980s, US businessman Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE, invented stacked ranking, commonly called forced ranking or “rank and yank.” Using the ranking, Welch categorized persons as A, B, and C. The C group was fired, and the A group was judged promotable. Although a stacked ranking was common, it was abandoned due to employee resistance. It was employed by certain businesses in the 2008 recession for layoffs. Because it recognized and rewarded high performance, it yielded excellent results, but it nearly invariably led to unhealthy competition among staff members.

Benefits and Drawbacks of Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale Use

Most top businesses in the sector have switched to ongoing feedback. Nevertheless, they still require yearly assessments to develop metrics for paying staff differently and promoting internal candidates. They require an organization that can facilitate strength-based mentoring all year and act as a wrap-up report after the term. BARS does both tasks admirably and can be used with other criticism techniques.

Benefits of BARS

Validity

Experienced employees and their bosses create the descriptions of behavior. Their knowledge produces construct validity, ensuring that BARS measures what it ought to. For instance, you can state that smiling when greeting guests is the required behavior when assessing whether a professional handles them properly. Because of their content validity, they realistically depict excellent customer service habits.

Simple to apply

Because the behaviors are clearly defined, they don’t require much explanation or training for employees and their managers to grasp. Managers no longer need to spend forever crafting detailed narratives to support ratings. Either behaviors exist or they don’t.

Unambiguous standards

BARS facilitates communication between management and staff on what is being reviewed and where improvements can be made. This comprehension makes a developing conversation easier.

Consistent

Behavioral reports are easy to understand and interpret. Thus, there is minimal variation between assessors and assessed individuals.

Personalized

While roles within the organization share certain similarities, every position will have its own distinct set of behaviors relating to its role.

Unbiased

Since the evaluation is based on behavior rather than the worth of the subject, candid conversations are encouraged.

Drawbacks of BARS

Complicated execution

Every function will have unique behavioral indicators that need to be analyzed, even if many of them will have characteristics in terms of soft skills, leadership, and citizenship behaviors. For every behavior, performance levels need to be developed, reviewed, and calibrated. Businesses having numerous identical tasks, such as insurance, retail, or contact centers, find it easier to sustain a Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale.

Pricey

Creating a BARS needs advanced skills and job analysis in reviewing behavioral statements supplied by experts. You might require the assistance of a consulting firm or workplace psychologist. Managers, experienced employees, and HR personnel must take time off from work to document the behaviors.

Inefficient

Discussing the performance of more than sixty behaviors with each worker can strain managers, especially in companies with comparable tasks. First-level supervisors frequently oversee up to thirty employees in sectors such as contact centers.

Regular updates

Because skills in today’s workforce have a brief shelf life, you should regularly refresh your practices. Roles can occasionally vary with each job posting.

Leniency bias

Although BARS lessens or eliminates bias errors, leniency errors remain. Every conduct in the review needs to be the assessor’s main attention.

How to create a behaviorally anchored rating scale

The effectiveness of even the most advanced performance management system depends on how well your organization is prepared for the change. You should start your project 1.5–2 years before the first assessments are submitted. This is the reason why:

Upper management’s failure to commit causes most failed efforts. Failing to handle the change is another. It would be ideal if you prepped the executive team to take the lead. The CEO should send out the initial message and be very clear about the objectives and purpose of the program. There’s a chance that someone will say something like, “Oh, great. It’s HR again.”

Before the start of the review period, employees must be aware of their performance standards.

Depending on the availability of SMEs, developing the performance factors and behaviors may take several months.

Let’s say you go from providing sporadic reviews to ongoing, strength-based input. If so, start with behavioral anchors to help with regular talks and set the stage for the yearly summary review.

Your managers may need to receive performance-related training.

This is an example of how your company might go about creating a behaviorally anchored rating scale:

Assemble a team for governance

You lose the opportunity to integrate HR with the company and drive long-lasting change if you approach your initiative as an HR endeavor rather than an organizational transformation. Try to get people to align with the goals and financial success of the company. Being a part of a winning team is desirable.

Speak with executives in your company who know your dedication to the company’s success. Pay attention to the individuals who add value to your business.

Let your team take on the performance governance steering committee role if you don’t already have one. Seeing performance from the perspective of folks who create value helps you develop insight.

Add marketing to your team. Although marketers are the real specialists at crafting messages that captivate their audience, we would all want to think that we are great writers. These days, relationships are key to marketing. Marketers can assist you in building relationships with your staff and enhancing internal communication because they have spent years learning how to communicate with people about the things that are important to them.

Put together and get your specialist teams ready

Invite specialists in the field to volunteer for your teams. Teams of specialists from each job category led by HR categorization experts should be considered. Your SMEs may be senior personnel in those jobs or hiring managers for the positions you are creating BARS for.

The SMEs will be divided into two groups: the first will generate the behavior statements, and the second will convert them into performance groups and their definitions.

Get your I/O psychologist, HR specialist, or consulting partner to help them with the behavior statement writing process. You might also wish to mentor them in reaching a consensus while making decisions.

You can inductively group performance dimensions by using similarities between important incidents and behaviors. Alternatively, you can use a deductive method to define your SMEs and domains, and you can create behavioral statements for them.

The next steps will explain the inductive technique.

Recognize behaviors

Ask your teams to investigate job-related behaviors, both efficient and inefficient ones, using Task Inventories, the Critical Incident Technique, or a mix of these methods.

Eliminate unnecessary words and edit the arguments into a standard structure. Next, to get ready to create performance dimensions, find commonalities.

Determine the performance metrics

Using group behaviors, performance dimensions are created. For example, “Optimizing Warehouse Functions” and “Negotiations and Communications with Suppliers” might be included for supply chain management.

Reframe the behaviors

Next, each significant event or behavior will be aligned to the performance characteristics that best suit it by your second category of SMEs.

Measure behaviors and events

Based on SMEs’ assessments of your behaviors’ effectiveness, place them in your rating scale. Your team will have to fill in the empty spots since it’s likely that not every performance rating on your scale has a statement.

Keep appropriate behaviors

Select the behaviors with the lowest variance concerning each behavior’s effectiveness to determine which ones are important. Without related performance figures, you must depend on the expertise of SMEs. Examine the construct validity of each statement in relation to the performance scale.

Create the completed form

To maintain the sense of the remaining sentences, carefully edit them for syntax, grammar, and clarity.

In a performance dimension, the starting point for a nurse could have read like this:

“In all interactions with patients and their loved ones, displays higher levels of compassion.”

You should show what is meant by “higher level”:

“Mirrors patients’ tone of voice and posture to convey higher levels of empathy.”

For an agent in customer service, it might be:

“Promptly and politely takes phone calls.”

You could be more precise:

“Picks up the phone politely from the first ring.”

In summary

If you can support them, behaviorally anchored rating scales will work well for you.

It may improve results, involvement, and staff retention. It can help to build your workplace culture. However, if executed incorrectly, they could alienate talented individuals, sap the motivation of those who stay and have no beneficial effect on output.

BARS has endured for many years and is a widely accepted practice worldwide. Finding seasoned partners who will help you succeed is not the challenge that it seems.

Have a quick question? We answered nearly 2000 FAQs.

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