Performance is a qualitative attribute with no unit or quantitative measurement. It would be incredibly hard to evaluate people’s performance without a measurement system like the graphic rating scale.

The graphic rating scale allows you to quantify individual performance using numerical scales. It allows respondents to rate their satisfaction with a product or service.

One of the most common uses of graphic scale rating is evaluating employees’ productivity and overall performance by HR professionals.

This article will dive into how graphic scale rating works, its applications, types, benefits, and disadvantages.

What Is the Graphic Rating Scale?

The graphic rating scale is a common method of evaluating the performance of an individual, organization, product, or service. Organizations use graphic rating scales to assess various types of performance, such as employee engagement and customer satisfaction.

It helps you identify how much of an attribute an individual, product, or service possesses. For example, you can use it to measure employees’ performances in different areas such as their time management, collaboration skills, and more.

In addition to measuring performance, the graphic rating scale can help you identify areas for improvement. For example, if the average rating for employee collaboration skills is low, you could use the insight to figure out how to improve cross-collaboration across your organizations.

What Does Graphic Rating Scale Measure?

A graphic scale rating allows you to measure an individual’s proficiencies and performance on specific tasks.  It can assess several factors, including job-specific competencies like technical skills or soft skills.

You can also use the graphic rating scale to measure behavioral characteristics and overall performance. Typically, the attribute you’re measuring determines the kind of graphic rating scale to employ.

An employee behavior question, such as punctuality, would use a word scale, e.g “outstanding to unsatisfactory.” A graphic scale assessing customer satisfaction, on the other hand, would be numerical, e.g., rate your satisfaction with this product on a scale of 1-10.

Here are some behaviors graphic scales are used to measure:

• Time management and Productivity
• Attendance and Punctuality
• Communication Skills
• Problem-Solving Skills
• Self-motivation

Formats of the Graphic Rating Scale

• Numerical Scale

This format rates performance or satisfaction using numeric values such as 1-5 or 1-7. In the case of measuring satisfaction, a value of 1 indicates extreme dissatisfaction, while a value of 5 indicates extreme satisfaction.

• Descriptive Scale

This graphic rating scale is also known as the word scale, it uses words and phrases to evaluate performance. For example, the rating scale can range from “outstanding to needs improvement.”

Most organizations prefer to use this for employee performance evaluation because it provides a more in-depth understanding of employees’ performance.

• Checklist Scale

The checklist scale is typically used to assess highly specific competencies. It displays a list of attributes and respondents check off the ones that the individual possesses.

• Comment Scale

This is an open-ended graphic rating scale format. It allows respondents to type in their submissions with specific short or long comments.

For example, Describe employee X’s performance in Q4 using any of the following words: great, average, and below average. It’s pretty similar to the descriptive scale, except that’s open-ended.

• Mix Standard Scale

This format is designed to ensure that respondents can assess performance using extremes and midpoints. For example, how would you rate your collaboration with employee A on a scale of positive, neutral, and negative?

• Weighted Scale

The weighted scale rating allows you to measure individual performance in various tasks using specific weights or measures. It’s similar to the checklist scale, but it allows you to specify the extent of your performance.

For example, “Rate employee B’s performance in the following competencies: punctuality, interpersonal skills, and self-motivation.”

Answer:

Punctuality (75%)

Interpersonal Skills (60%)

Self-Motivation (70%)

What Are the Pros of the Graphic Rating Scale?

• Simplicity

The graphic rating scale is one of the simplest ways to assess performance and satisfaction. Most businesses use it because of its simplicity; it does not require any special skills from managers and HR professionals to create.

• Cost-Effective

You don’t need a lot of resources for a graphic rating scale. All you have to do is create a questionnaire that allows the respondents to measure performance and satisfaction.

You can also use one questionnaire for multiple roles, which saves time by eliminating the need to create a new questionnaire every time you want to evaluate an employee’s performance.

• Easy to Customize

Another advantage of using a graphic rating scale is that it is simple to customize. Once you’ve created the first questionnaire, you just have to make minor tweaks to make it fit the specific employee’s performance that you’re evaluating.

• Great Feedback System

A significant advantage of using a graphic rating scale is that it allows employees to see their performance through the eyes of others. Managers can also give employees pointers on what to improve.

• Trend Analysis

Regular employee performance evaluations using a graphic rating scale can help companies identify how employee performance has improved or declined over time. This enables the organization to figure out ways to increase employee motivation or make informed staffing decisions.

What Are the Cons of the Graphic Rating Scale?

The graphic rating scale has so many upsides, but it also has some disadvantages. Let’s take a look at some of them:

• Limited Feedback

One significant disadvantage of using a graphic rating scale to assess employee performance is that it only provides a broad overview of employee performance. So while their performance is being evaluated, they don’t have quality feedback to help improve their performance.

However, you can avoid this by including open-ended suggestions for respondents. This will help the employees see the specific areas they need to improve.

• Evaluator Subjectivity

Another issue with using the graphic rating scale is that it’s subjective. Evaluators’ performance grading is subjective to how they perceive the employees.

People view excellent performance differently. As a result, there are no standardized performance measures, and they are all based on perception.

One way to combat this bias is to always use KPIs to measure employee performance. This will provide evaluators with a solid foundation for determining whether the employee’s performance was satisfactory or below expectations.

• Potential Bias

Aside from the subjectivity of the evaluator, another disadvantage of using a graphic rating scale is the likelihood of bias. Respondents’ performance evaluations may be based on their personal opinions rather than the employee’s actual performance.

• Lack of Differentiation

Employees are given a performance average after all evaluators have submitted their responses. This does not provide a complete picture of what the employee did exceptionally well and where performance was below average.

• Reduces Employee Motivation

When using a graphic rating scale, employee performance is usually calculated as a percentage. Employees with poor performance may become frustrated and lose motivation because they don’t have sufficient information to help them improve their performance.

Even if an employee’s performance is excellent, their motivation may suffer because they are unaware of their strengths and weaknesses. They may not seek ways to capitalize on their strengths and improve their weaknesses if there is no information highlighting why their performance was excellent.

Read More – Motivation Assessment: Definitions, Types, Tools + [Questionnaire Examples]

• Doesn’t Consider Situation Factors

The Graphic Rating Scale may not account for situational factors such as changes in job responsibilities or external factors such as a health crisis, which can have an impact on an individual’s performance.

Examples of Graphic Rating Scale

Here are some examples of graphic rating scale questions.

• Example 1

Question: How would you rate Employee A’s ability to take ownership?

5. Excellent (Employee takes ownership of tasks assigned to them and works proactively to complete them.)
6. Good ( Employee takes ownership of tasks assigned to them)
7. Average (Neither great nor terrible with taking responsibility for assigned tasks)
8. Below Average (the employee rarely takes ownership of their tasks)
9. Very Poor (employee has consistently not shown ownership for their tasks and hardly sees tasks through)

• Example 2

Question 2: On a scale of 1-5, how would you describe this employee’s proficiency in this field?

1 = Very Poor (Employee has little to no skills related to this field)

2 = Below Average (Employee has some skills in this field but is not competent enough to carry out tasks independently)

3 = Average (Employee has sufficient skills in this field, but needs guidance to carry out tasks)

4 = Good (The employee is competent and has the required skills to perform effectively in this field)

5. Exceptional (Employee has a proven track record of excellence in this field and is exceptionally equipped to carry out tasks related to this field)

• Example 3

Question 3: Rate your satisfaction with this employee’s collaboration skills.

Choose a number between 1 to 10, where 1 means extremely dissatisfied, and 10 means extremely satisfied.

• Example 4

Question 4: This employee had an outstanding performance in Q4.

1. Strongly Disagree (Employee performance was unsatisfactory and below expectations)
2. Disagree ( Employee’s performance was below expectations)
3. Neither Agree nor Disagree ( Employee performance was average)
4. Agree (The employee performed well and increased the company’s productivity)
5. Strongly Agree ( Employee performed exceptionally well and made a direct contribution to the organization’s bottom line)

How to Use Formplus to Create Graphical Rating Scale Surveys

Formplus has a template library of well-researched graphic rating scale questionnaires and surveys to help you measure performance and satisfaction. The templates are also customizable, allowing you to tailor them to fit your specifications.

Here’s how to create a graphic rating scale survey with formplus in 5 easy steps:

1. First, log in or create a Formplus account.

2. Next, select “Create new form.”

3. After that, click on “Secondary Field.”

4. Next, choose “scale” on the secondary field drop-down.

5. After that, customize the scale-rating field.

6. Finally, fill in the question, label the options, select your scale range, and save.

Conclusion

The graphic rating scale is one of the most effective methods for measuring employee performance in many organizations because of its simplicity and low cost. Sure, it has some drawbacks, but it has significant advantages over other methods.

You can also combine the graphic rating scale with other methods, such as employee KPIs, to get a clear image of employee performance.