Question

As production supervisor of Sweeny Electronics, Jana was generally well regarded by her subordinates. She was certainly an easy-going person who tried to help her employees in any way she could. For instance, if a worker needed a small loan until payday, she would dig into her own pocket, no questions asked. Should an employee need some time off to attend a personal problem, Jana would not decrease the employee's pay; rather, she would take up the slack herself until the worker returned.

Everything was going smoothly, at least until the last performance appraisal period. Recently, however, one of Jana's workers, Bill, started experiencing a large number of personal issues. His wife was sick and her medical expenses were running high. His son developed a speech impediment and the doctors recommended a special clinic to address it. Bill, having already borrowed the maximum his bank allowed, was now upset and despairing. His solution so far was to accept a side job as part-time courier delivery driver to supplement his income. However, as he explained to Jana, this job meant he would now be often late for his morning shift at Sweeny Electronics.

Jana decided to do as much as possible to help Bill. Although his performance was no more than average, Jana rated him outstanding in every category. Such rating meant that, since the company's compensation system was heavily tied to performance assessments, Bill would now be eligible for a merit increase of 10 percent in addition to the default cost-of-living increase.

During the performance appraisal interview, Jana explained Bill why she was giving him such high rating. Bill acknowledged that his performance was really no better than average. He was very grateful and expressed that his gratitude to Jana. As he left Jana's office, he was excitedly looking forward to telling his work buddies what a wonderful person his boss was. Seeing Bill smile as he left gave Jana a warm feeling.

Q1: From Sweeny Electronics perspective, what difficulties have Jana's appraisal of Bill's performance created ?

Q2: Remember the 'let them know where they stand' framework; how could this framework have guided Bill's performance interview ?

Q3: What performance appraisal methods exist to prevent the problems identified in Q1 from arising ?

Answer 1

1, The main issue in Jana's appraisal of Bill's is that she has been involved emotionally in making decisions about Bill's performance. Even though she knows fully well that Bill is a average worker, she is giving him high ratings so that he can be eligible for performance pay which would help him deal with his financial personal crises. Also, he would not have to take up another job.

But, this is against the company's betterment. The performance management system seeks to award the high performers and not be used as a medium to resolve issues of workers facing personal problems.

2. Bill fully knows that Jana is overrating him and that actually he is a average performer who does not deserve such a high rating.

3. The managers and supervisors taking performance appraisals must be trained to avoid interference of emotions and bias while doing performance reviews. They must be just and provide ratings to employees on basis of their work alone.

There must be a monitoring system or a verification mechanism to confirm the rating provided by the assesor. There has to be data - authentic and re-verifiable data to support the ratings. This will ensure the performance management process is conducted properly.