The graphic rating forms which were used to evaluate the clerical staff were not efficient. He decided to change the faulty performance appraisal system which met resistance from administrators and secretaries. So he met two Sweetwater experts who gave him their recommendations to solve the problem. The first recommendation was not to use the graphic rating forms because it didn’t show the good or bad performance clearly. The second recommendation was not to force administrators to rate at least their secretaries as less than excellent.
The recommendations were good and made sense but they created problems that made him began wondering what should be the basis of performance appraisal. 1. Do you think that the experts’ recommendations will be sufficient to get most of the administrators to fill out the rating forms properly? Why? Why not? What additional actions (if any) do you think will be necessary? No, I think the experts’ recommendations will not sufficient to get most of the administrators to fill out the rating forms properly because: -The administrators might be biased and convince to rate “excellent”.
They are difficult to change their performance appraisal. They were afraid that many of their secretaries would leave for attractive jobs in the private sector better salaries than Sweetwater U. Besides, some secretaries also felt the new system was unfair. -If secretaries don’t have good evaluation, they will leave the university. Having new staff every year was not also a good choice for the university. So the administrators gave most of secretaries “excellent” to keep them on the job. -The administrators were not much interested in what their secretaries are getting.
They started giving excellent to keep them away from leaving the job. * With this performance appraisal system, this will not improve the ability and skills of secretaries and clerks because they were not evaluated performance clearly. And it was letting the incompetent secretaries to enjoy the benefits such as increase salaries or get more rewarding. I think additional actions will be necessary: * The administrators can manage their subordinates such team work, communications, and motivating the performance. * They should appraise performance based on actual duties.
They also provide performance appraisal software so that the administrators can put the data and information and find the total score to evaluate easily. 2. Do you think that Vice President Winchester would be better off dropping graphic rating forms, substituting instead one of the other techniques we discussed in this chapter, such as a ranking method? Why? Yes. Using the graphic rating forms to evaluate the performance isn’t efficient because there are several problems such as unclear standards, halo effect, central tendency, leniency, and bias can also be problems.
The form only consists four levels are “Excellent”, “Good”, “Fair” and “Poor”. The given standards may be rated differently by different person. For example, “Good” can be perceived by someone as “just next to excellent”, but any person might think “just better than fair”. Therefore the administrator who might not be happy with the work done by the secretary but the secretary might think that it was the best work done by him. Rob Winchester can use the other techniques such as a ranking method.
May be it’s better than graphic rating form. Ranking secretaries from best to worst on a trait is usually easier to distinguish between the worst and best employees than rank them. Alternation ranking method can avoid central tendency. But forced ranking system is very strict and it is unfair to people who have good staff. New system can create the competition among staff. The budget should be fair to keep the staff satisfied. By competition among staff, they will be jealousy and reduce the efficiency of staff.
The secretaries who have the worst ranking might get low salaries. Then their interest in work might get affected. 3. What performance appraisal system would you develop for the secretaries if you were Rob Winchester? Defend your answer. If I were Rob Winchester, I will create some new performance appraisal system to develop for the secretaries. Behaviorally anchored rating scales is more appropriate in this case because it is the appraisal method combines the benefits of both narrative critical incidents and quantitative ratings.