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Case Study 4 – the Politics of Performance Appraisal

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Bus5450 - Spring 2014 – Organizational Behavior
Dean Cantave
2/6/2014

Case Study 4 – The Politics of Performance Appraisal

This case study discusses the opinions and views of four managers at an arc-welding manufacturer in Minneapolis, MN. Max Steadman, Jim Coburn, Lynne Sims, and Tom Hamilton are managers at Eckel Industries and they all have differing opinions when it comes to performance evaluations and appraisals. They work in the manufacturing division each supervising a different department within the division. Every Friday the managers meet after work for drinks to relax, gossip, and give and receive advice about problems on the job. On this particular week they discuss performance appraisals, which they recently conducted for all of their direct reports. Each of the managers completed evaluation forms using graphic rating scales on each employee then discussed the appraisal with that employee.
Throughout the discussion they give their opinions on how performance appraisals should be conducted and the flaws that exist within the current ranking system.
Tom talks about how emotions play into the process and create biases when conducting evaluations, however, he believes that providing true and accurate feedback is a top priority to ensuring that the evaluations are an accurate reflection of an employee’s performance. Jim believes what he learned from a professor in college that when you sit down to evaluate an employee’s performance from a previous 12 month period you will only be able to recall and use about 15 percent of the performance you actually observed. He also thinks fine-tuning is warranted in certain situations. For example, if an employee whose performance has been poor a majority of the year but significantly improves at the end of the year Jim will give the employee a higher rating over the whole year than the work deserves. He

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