Assessors are often used in recruitment, appraisal, promotion and other processes. And yet studies suggest the majority of companies believe that lenient appraisals jeopardise the validity of their appraisal systems. The impact that a particular Assessor may have on the outcome for the Assessee (the Subject of the assessment) thus warrants attention.
In this innovative Masters research project, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to isolate the differences between more and less lenient Assessors. Whilst the Assessor group was small so the findings need to be considered in that context, all organisations using Assessors could usefully reflect on the research findings.