Many firms use forced rating systems in which supervisors must evaluate employees according to a predefined distribution. We develop new theory suggesting that forced ratings are less likely to enhance performance when supervisors assess subjective dimensions of employee performance (e.g., creativity), but can have some harmful side effects. In a laboratory experiment, employees work on a creative task, and supervisors rate their performance. We do not find any difference in the employees’ performance or effort in a creative task setting between forced and free ratings. We do, however, find that forced ratings create higher stress for employees (ex post stress scales and biomarkers). Higher stress in turn mitigates the positive effect of effort on creativity. Furthermore, we find that actual creativity explains less of supervisors’ ratings of employees’ performance under forced ratings. Instead, factors that are unrelated to actual creativity, such as eloquent writing and strategic gaming behavior, matter more. Results of an additional online experiment confirm that forced ratings work differently in tasks where performance needs to be evaluated subjectively compared to tasks where objective measures are available.

中文翻译：

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从员工和主管的角度强制评级系统

许多公司使用强制评级系统，其中主管必须根据预定义的分布评估员工。我们开发的新理论表明，当主管评估员工绩效的主观维度（例如，创造力）时，强制评级不太可能提高绩效，但可能会产生一些有害的副作用。在实验室实验中，员工从事一项创造性任务，主管对他们的表现进行评分。我们没有发现强制评分和免费评分之间的员工在创造性任务设置中的表现或努力有任何差异。然而，我们确实发现强制评级会给员工带来更高的压力（事后压力量表和生物标志物）。更高的压力反过来会减轻努力对创造力的积极影响。此外，我们发现，在强制评分下，实际创造力对主管对员工绩效的评分解释较少。相反，与实际创造力无关的因素，例如雄辩的写作和战略游戏行为，更重要。另一个在线实验的结果证实，与有客观衡量标准的任务相比，强制评分在需要主观评估绩效的任务中的作用不同。