...THE POLITICS OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL Every Friday, Max Steadman, Jim Coburn, Lynne Sims, and Tom Hamilton meet at Charley's after work for drinks. The four friends work as managers at Eckel Industries, a manufacturer of arc-welding equipment in Minneapolis. The one-plant company employs about 2,000 people. The four managers work in the manufacturing division. Max, 35, manages the company's 25 quality-control inspectors. Lynne, 33, works as a supervisor in inventory management. Jim, 34, is a first-line supervisor in the metal coating department. Tom, 28, supervises a team of assemblers. The four managers' tenure at Eckel Industries ranges from 1 year (Tom) to 12 years (Max). The group is close-knit; Lynne, Jim, and Max's friendship stems from their years as undergraduate business students at the University of Minnesota. Tom, the newcomer, joined the group after meeting the three at an Eckel management seminar last year. Weekly get-togethers at Charley's have become a comfortable habit for the group and provide an opportunity to relax, exchange the latest gossip heard around the plant, and give and receive advice about problems encountered on the job. This week's topic of discussion: performance appraisal, specifically the company's annual review process, which the plant's management conducted in the last week. Each of the four managers completed evaluation forms (graphic rating scales) on all of his or her subordinates and met with each subordinate to discuss the appraisal. ...
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...its quantitative excellence to the problem of making better selection decisions. First, it set out to measure which selection criteria were important. It did this by conducting a survey of employees who had been with Google for at least five months. These questions addressed a wide variety of characteristics, such as areas of technical expertise, workplace behavior, personality, and even some nonworking habits that might uncover something important about candidates. For example, perhaps subscribing to a certain magazine or owning a dog could be related to success are Google by indirectly measuring some important trait no one had thought to ask about. The results of the survey were compared with measures of successful performance, including performance appraisals, compensation, and organizational citizenship (behaving in ways that contribute...
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...– 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...
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...The problems with performance appraisal Introduction Formal performance appraisals form an integral part of overall performance management programs in many organisations. Indeed, for many decades performance appraisals have been a key method for monitoring employee performance and they often play a major role in promotion or salary increments. However, though appraisals continue to be widely used, there is significant and ongoing debate about the validity of results obtained, as well as their effectiveness in positively influencing employee productivity and performance. This paper examines performance appraisals in the modern organisation. It discusses the development of performance appraisal theory, the perceived problems with performance appraisal systems as well as the potential performance and productivity improvements that may be achieved with their use. OK! Performance Appraisals It is widely contended that many (if not most) organisations conduct regular employee performance appraisals (Gliddon 2004; Varma & Pichler 2007). Thus, it is understandable that there is a very large body of literature around the subject (Schraeder & Simpson 2006). Indeed DeNisi and Pritchard (2006, p. 253) state that ‘performance appraisal has been the focus of considerable research for almost a century’. Yet there is surprisingly little consensus on any aspect of performance appraisals, not merely in terms of how they should be constructed or conducted, but even whether...
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...Performance Management Performance Management – The means through which managers ensure that employees’ activities and outputs are congruent with the organization’s goals. Three Parts of Performance Management: a) Job Analysis - refers to the process of getting detailed information about jobs. b) Performance Appraisal – the process through which an organization gets information on how well an employee is doing his or her job. c) Performance Feedback – the process of providing employees information regarding their performance effectiveness. Model of Performance Management in Organizations Performance Planning and Evaluation (PPE) System – any system that seeks to tie the formal performance appraisal process to the company’s strategies by specifying at the beginning of the evaluation period the types and level of performance that must be accomplished. Purposes of Performance Management: Strategic Purpose – a performance management system should link employee activities with the organizations goals. a) Administrative Purpose – organizations use performance management information (performance appraisals, in particular) in many administrative decisions: salary administration (pay raises), promotions, retention-termination, lay-offs, and recognition of individual performance. b) Developmental Purpose – to develop employees who are effective at their jobs. ...
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...POWER AND POLITICS Politics in work places simply put is about getting noticed and liked by the right people in other to advance up the career ladder in an organization and also to achieve position of power that confers a status of relevance in the scheme of affairs in an organization. This definition is supported by an old saying that ‘’it’s not what you know ,but who you know’’. It is upon this premise that human beings are classified as political animals and as such it is difficult to eliminate politics from workplaces.’’ While teamwork may be extolled as an organizational virtue ,in the real practice, workplaces are likely to be characterized by competition and conflicts as it is by cooperation (Fineman and Gabriel,1996). Politics is a means through which individual self-interests are pursued without regard to the their effect in the realization of the organizations objectives .Organizational politics is arguably one of the most researched concepts in the field of management’’ ( Boateng et al ,2013)the researches here are to understand the impact of organizational politics on business entities. One of these studies propagates that organizational politics may affect decision making and allocation of resources in an organization amongst other factors. Power on the other hand is the ability of a person or a group to influence others. If a person have influence, he or she is perceived as powerful. A person may hold power by having the ability to make decision, apportion...
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...September 26, 2011 Legal, Safety, and Regulatory Requirements Human resources administrators want to improve the work environment to enhance employee performance. Regulatory practices to improve the work environment are base on works of scholars who spearheaded the scientific movement. Human resources law has taken center stage in dealing with workplace violations and excessive abuses. There are many challenges to effective performance measurement in how a human resources manager can ensure accurate measurement of a worker performance. Managers are confronted with five challenges, (1) Rater errors and bias, (2) The influence of liking, (3) Organizational politics, (4) Whether to focus on the individual or the group, (5) Legal issues (Go’mez-Mejia, Balkin, and Cardy, 2010). A rater error is an error in performance appraisal that reflects consistent biases on the part of the rater. One of the most prominent rater errors is halo error, the tendency to rate similarly across dimensions (Go’mez-Mejia, Balkin, and Cardy, 2010). If an individual does well in one aspect, this can trigger favorable reports on other aspects. The Influence of liking can cause errors in performance appraisals when raters allow their like or dislike of an individual to influence their assessment of that person’s performance (Go’mez-Mejia, Balkin, and Cardy, 2010). A manager can correlate the performer’s ratings only because they like them but also can mean the raters likes...
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...Toiletries Division by applying very high standards to everyone, and often pushing his staff to the limits. A recent 360 degree review has revealed that Alex’s strong drive to succeed has come at a cost, as his staff are highly disenchanted by his iron-fisted ways. (Alex has since discounted the importance of the these findings.) Sam Glass, Alex’s direct manager, is one of the three Product Group supervisors and is coordinating the 360 degree Performance/Feedback Review discussion with Alex. As part of the 360 process comments have been recorded from selected individuals higher and lower in the organizational hierarchy that the individual receiving the feedback. Sam is scheduled to have a discussion with Alex on his 360 process comments and has indicated a contradiction with the results and Alex’s self-assessment. ANALYSIS Alex Sander is described by his staff as a successful, but overly-critical, narcissistic, demanding and inconsiderate micro-manager. These attributes fit the Harvard Business Review Guide to Office Politics’ (Dillon 2013, p. 15) description of a “Control-Freak Boss”. With reference to the Guide, it must be understood that Alex is behaving in this manner not because he is evil. Firstly, Alex has little understanding of his role as a manager. Secondly, he lacks self awareness to question himself because of his success. In the self review, Alex Sander admitted that he has a bad temper. Additionally, there was an incident whereby Alex had blown up at...
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...Influences on Political Culture Executives made it clear that if an organization was political, the appraisal process would reflect these politics: Some organizations are more aggressive and political than others, so it just makes sense that those things carry over into the rating process as well. . . . The organization's climate will determine, to a great extent, how successful any rating system will be, and it follows that if any organization is very political, the rating system will be political. . . . Several factors were identified hy the executives as having a strong influence on the political culture in which the performance appraisal process operates. Perhaps the strongest was the extent to which the formal appraisal process was "taken seriously" hy the organization. A plant manager in this study describes what it means for an organization to "take the process seriously": At some places the PA fperformance appraisal] process is a joke—just a bureaucractic things that the manager does to keep the IR [industrial relations] people off his back. At the last couple of places I've worked, the formal review process is taken really seriously; they train you how to conduct a good interview, how to handle problems, how to coach and counsel. . . . You see the things [appraisals] reviewed by your boss, and he's serious about reviewing your performance in a thorough manner. . . . I guess the biggest thing is that people are led to believe that it is...
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...gauge the efficiency and effectiveness of the workforce? The answer is, through the implementation of a competent performance appraisal system. In light of the results of the recent employee survey conducted, there are both real and perceived issues that exist between HR and the management team. The lack of cohesion within the organization has resulted in low employee morale which affects performance and ultimately, profitability. The purpose of this presentation is to explain the merits of a good performance appraisal system, for both individuals and teams of the organization and to show how it will help to resolve the problems uncovered by the survey. Moreover, my intention is to describe the process for assessing team performance and the differentiating factors for executing an appraisal for an individual versus a team in an organization. Lastly, the board of directors asked for a report with regard to succession planning in the last board meeting. I want to describe the benefits of succession planning and propose a solution for the implementation of succession planning in our organization. Performance Appraisals Performance appraisals, when properly used, are an essential and invaluable tool in the managers arsenal to plan and control productivity. Managers should use appraisals for the proliferation and oversight of their subordinates. For example, appraisals can be used to determine promotions, commendations, and terminations, as well, they are permissible evidence Maximizing...
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...Motivational and sales performance reports On Glaxo Smith line India Limited Mumbai- India Contents Introduction 3 Company background 4 Literature Review 5 Intrinsic Rewards 5 Extrinsic rewards 6 Hygiene factors 7 Current issues, solution Proposal and conclusion 10 Stability 10 Hidden policies 10 Security 11 Politics in pay increment and promotion 11 Delay in reimbursements of incentive and awards 12 Unhealthy competition 12 Expectancy and valance of awards 13 References 14 Appendices 16 Appendix -1 16 Appendix-2 18 Appendix-3 20 Introduction Modern organisation faces a lot of challenges in retaining and motivating the staff as human resources are vital part of any organisation. These challenges like recruiting developing and retaining sales staff must be taken care off to gain maximum outcome from employees. To retain the employee, company uses different motivational techniques. This report is provided to determine the importance of motivational techniques for retaining staff motivated. Based on literature and journal article, motivational factors are discussed in this report. And how these motivational factors motivate the employees in selected organisation i.e. Glaxo Smith line India Limited. Different Motivational theories are discussed here to help the organisation to develop and retain the sales force and also discussed the issues and risk of the same followed by proposed solution is also provided here (Ali & Danish...
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...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...
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...How Effective Performance Appraisals can Increase Employee’s Performances. Alisa Johnson BUS 303 Farrell Martin September 7, 2015 How Effective Performance Appraisals can Increase Employee’s Performances In the world we live in today it is always important to know and understand how we are performing on our jobs. Even if you own your own company your customers will either give you a good review or a bad one by word of mouth by telling others how good or bad your company really is. When working on a job for a company, most companies have a performance appraisal to let you know how well or not so well you are doing. In this paper I will show how a performance appraisals is used and how effective it is at increasing employee’s performances. Performance appraisals as stated by Carolyn Youssef (2012) is “The process through which employee performance is assessed, feedback is provided to the employee, and corrective action plans are designed” (section 6.2, par. 1). Most employers give performance appraisals after 6 months to a year of service and then every year on your anniversary date of employment with the company. Performance appraisals is based on your work ethics and how well you carry out your duties. Some performance appraisals is followed up with a raise or promotion but not all the time. Performance appraisals is geared to either better your performance or enhance your already great performance. However we must all look at performance appraisals as a way of knowing what...
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...LESSON #8: TRAINING THE PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND APPRAISAL SYSTEM; EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT; PAY AND PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL AND EMERGING TRENDS Week Ending: February 27th OVERVIEW: This combined lesson finishes the section on performance management. It starts with Chapter 11’s discussion of various aspects of system implementation – to include: implementation teams, pilot testing communication, monitoring and evaluation and appeals procedures. This discussion is really a continuation and conclusion of the top management support discussion that ended Lesson #7. The remainder of the lesson is a “catch-all” – covering several important performance management and appraisal aspects that are more performance management than appraisal related. We continue with Chapter 12 on creating a system for initial and sustaining performance management and appraisal system training. We then address the almost universal relationship between pay and performance appraisals (Chapter 14). The performance appraisal portion of the course ends with Chapter 16’s review of several important “Emerging Trends” in performance management and appraisal – specifically: teams and performance appraisal; total quality management (TQM) and performance appraisal; and computer-based software programs for automating performance appraisals. OBJECTIVES: After studying this lesson, the student should: 1. Be able to implement a new or replacement performance management and appraisal system in terms of: ...
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...Exam #2 Due Sunday night in week #7 Name:_____ 1. (11 points) Why is it necessary for an organization to appraise performance formally? Performance appraisals are necessary for an organization to understand each employee’s skills, abilities, and competencies. Performance appraisals are used to rate the employee’s performance. Formal performance appraisals are important to organizations because they clarify the employee’s roles and responsibilities, and helps align individual goals with organizational goals. Formal performance appraisals also allows for evaluation of the employee’s performance and contribution towards organizational goals. Formal performance appraisals can also be a learning tool for employees and management through the feedback process of the appraisal. During the feedback process, management should express what the employee has done well and they have not. Management should elaborate on ways the employee can improve performance in areas the employee does not perform well at. 2. (11 points) Identify and describe the different reasons for implementing a short-term bonus. Organizations implement short-term bonuses to improve performance, reduce costs, increase motivation and employee buy-in, and to recruit and retain employees with critical knowledge, skills, and/or abilities. Monetary bonuses for performance and completion of organizational goals can motivate employees to perform at higher rates, and help the organization retain...
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