Case 7.1: The Politics of Performance Appraisal

In most organizations managers are tasked annually to evaluate their employees' performance. During this time of evaluation, it is important for managers to thoroughly analyze each individual employee's quality of work as accurately as possible and without bias. The performance appraisal process can be difficult and is often dreaded by most managers. One of the major challenges that managers face when evaluating employees is accuracy. A manager may not recall (or witness) everything an employee has done, and he/she may have a certain bias towards particular employees that may positively or negatively impact an employee's evaluation. Case 7.1 presents a conversation between four managers, who work at Eckel Industries, discussing their views on the performance appraisal process and its complications. The tenure of the managers range from one to twelve years. During their discussion the topic of “fine-tuning” arises. Some of the managers shared that they have fine-tuned (giving an inaccurate rating/score; high or low) an employee's evaluation for the sake of motivating an employee to do better, achieve more, to quit, or to pass along an employee viewed as a problem to another department. The purpose of this case analysis is to evaluate the perspectives about performance appraisal presented by the managers in Case 7.1, discuss the point when “fine-tuning” evaluations becomes unacceptable distortion, and to discuss the steps I would take as vice president of human resources at Eckel Industries to reduce the practice of fine-tuning. The basic purpose of an evaluation is to provide information about work performance. If utilized appropriately, an evaluation is a great tool that gives the leadership and management of an organization insight into how well the business is doing on an organizational and employee level. The