Thesis (MTech(Human Resources Management))--Cape Technikon, Cape Town, 1996 / Even though performance appraisal is used in most South African organisations, the information acquired is often not used for the purpose to which it pertains, i.e. improving work performance and identifying career, promotion and development opportunities. The former, together with the lack of formal post structures and goal orientated career plans when appointments are made, often results in secretarial personnel (especially executive secretaries and personal assistants) never receiving the necessary acknowledgement in spite of their training, competence and experience. This group of employees plays a very important support- , ing role at all levels of management; yet they are often overlooked for promotion to lower and middle management levels, despite the crucial shortage of people with high level skills. Since the largest percentage of these employees are women, they experience even more discrimination because of their gender. In the first place this investigation attempted to establish to what degree secretarial personnel's performance is appraised and to what end the results are employed. Secondly, an attempt was made to determine the degree to which the enterprises involved in the investigation have established career programmes and whether the results obtained from performance appraisals are used as criterion for promotion and career planning. Furthermore, the obstacles in the way of the development and promotion of secretarial personnel were investigated. At the same time the degree of discrimination against women in management positions was surveyed. As background to the investigation, a comprehensive literature review was conducted.

Empirical findings on Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS) have been mixed, despite early researchers' claims that BARS were superior to trait ratings and in reliability and resistance to leniency, central tendency, and halo. The study presented compared a BARS format to an independently derived trait scale as measures of secretarial and clerical performance. Though the BARS showed slightly inflated mean ratings, the instruments showed nearly identical variability. Neither demonstrated sufficient resistance to halo. Thus, despite their intuitive appeal and the rigors involved in format development, it did not appear in this instance that BARS were an efficient and psychometrically superior alternative to the traditional trait rating format.