A behaviourally anchored rating scale (BARS) is an appraisal scale in which every point is defined by a concrete example of on-the-job behaviour, instead of a label like “good” or “excellent”. It is the most rigorous way to build the anchored rating scale that appraisals and interview scorecards depend on.

Where it came from and how the anchors are built

Patricia Cain Smith and Lorne Kendall described the method in 1963 in the Journal of Applied Psychology, in a paper on “retranslation of expectations” to produce unambiguous rating anchors. The development process is what sets BARS apart:

1. Collect critical incidents. People who know the job (high performers, supervisors) write down specific examples of very effective and very ineffective behaviour.
2. Group them into dimensions. The incidents are clustered into a handful of performance dimensions, usually linked to the role’s competencies.
3. Retranslate. A second, independent group sorts the incidents back into dimensions without seeing the first grouping. Incidents that are not reliably placed in the same dimension are dropped.
4. Scale the incidents. Judges rate how effective each surviving incident is on, say, a 1 to 7 scale. Incidents the judges disagree on are dropped; the rest become anchors at their average value.
5. Publish and pilot. The final scale is tested with real raters.

An example anchor set

Dimension: “Payroll accuracy” for a payroll executive at a 600-person company.

Two managers rating the same executive are far more likely to agree here than on a bare “meets expectations”. That is also why BARS helps against the halo effect: each dimension has to be matched to its own evidence.

Frequently asked questions

Is BARS worth the effort for every role?

Usually not. Building and validating anchors takes many hours of expert time per role family, so Indian companies tend to use it for large, stable roles (call-centre agents, field sales, plant operators, nurses) where many people share one scale, and simpler scales elsewhere.

Does research show BARS beats other scales?

The evidence is mixed. A review by Jacobs, Kafry and Zedeck (1980) concluded BARS was no better or worse than other formats on purely statistical criteria, while its real advantage is that raters and employees understand the behaviours being judged. The quality of the anchors matters more than the format name.

Can BARS be used in interviews?

Yes. Behavioural anchors for each answer are what turn a structured interview into a consistently scored one.

Most performance management software lets you attach anchor text to each rating point, which is the easiest way to put a BARS in front of every manager at review time.