HR Oops!
“Where Have I Heard That Before?”
A survey by VitalSmarts, an HR consulting firm, found that four out of 10 employees hear the
same areas for improvement year after year. For most employees the previous performance
appraisal did not help with improvement of performance. 87% of employees said that the
performance management process did not include any plans for improving their performance. In
most cases it is up to the employee to want to improve and those who do generally take on the
responsibility of working toward improvement. One manager, Dharam Singh, works work with
employees to set goals for problem areas and to make a plan to achieve the goals.
Discussion Questions with Possible Responses
1. If employees’ poor performance is unchanged year after year, what does this say about how
effectively performance management is serving its strategic and developmental purposes? How
would the administrative purpose of performance management apply in this situation?
2. Which purpose(s) of performance management is Singh fulfilling, according to the description
given? Explain your choice.
HR How To
Discussion Employee Performance
Employees and managers often dread feedback sessions, because they expect some level of
criticism, and criticism feels uncomfortable. However, there are ways to structure
communication about employee performance so that it feels more constructive. This vignette
offers some ideas for talking about employee performance in a way that comes across as clear,
honest, and fair. They include: using specific and concrete examples; listening as well as
talking; being honest; treating employees with respect, be positive, and prepare for success.
Discussion Questions with Possible Response
1. Why would a feedback session be more effective if a manager followed these
guidelines?
2. If you were conducting a feedback session with any employee who reports to you,
which of these guidelines would require you to prepare ahead of time? Which skills do
you already have?
Answers will vary.
Taking Responsibility
REI’s Purpose Drives Its Performance Management
REI, Recreational Equipment, Inc. designs and sells equipment for outdoor recreation, is a
consumer cooperative rather tan a publicly traded corporation. The culture is casual, fun and
nontraditional, but also concerned with high performance. Michelle Clements, REI’s SR VP for
HR recommend to abolish the current performance appraisal system and the employees
agreed.. She develop a new program called “Real Talk, Real Results.” Instead of focusing on
annual reviews, the new stysem focused on training managers to give meaningful feedback. A
unique part of the system was build around “anchor points”, using the analogy of rock climbing,
and managers earned anchor points through training on various performance topics. The
program has been a great success.
Discussion Questions with Possible Responses
1. How did REO address the strategic, administrative, and developmental purpose of
performance management?
2. Strategic was addressed by tying the performance system to the mission and culture of
the organization. Administratively they still did some type of documentation of the
performance discussion and developmental was covered by offering ongoing training to
managers on how to give effective performance feedback.
3. If REI asked you to evaluate the effectiveness of its performance management, what
criteria would you apply?
Answers will vary.
Managing Talent:
Adobe Systems Asks Manager to Check – In
Adobe has been transiting from packaged software to online software programs. Donna Morris,
SVP of HR, decided to take a look at the performance management system to see it needed a
new strategy to match the company’s new strategy. Adobe has 11,500 employee and had been
using a ranking system. Managers had been spending more than 80,000 hours per year on the
process. When Morris blogged about getting rid of the old system, employees commented on
how disappointed they were at managers lack of recognition or their worked. Morris developed
a new program called “Check-In” which provided employees with ongoing feedback and
coaching. Pay was now tied to employee achievements instead of rankings. The system was
less formal and allowed for flexibility in scheduling. Reactions were overwhelmingly positive.
Voluntary departures dropped by 30%.
Discussion Questions with Possible Responses
1. How can managers at Adobe ensure that the feedback they provide during check-ins is
effective?
2. In terms of the criteria for effective performance management, what advantages does
HR in Small Business
Appraisals Matter at Meadow Hills Veterinary Center
This case highlights the performance appraisal practices at Meadow Hills Veterinary Center,
which has two facilities in Washington State. Brian Conrad, the practice manager, conducts
appraisals from compensation discussions. That way, he keeps the appraisals focused on what
is getting in the way of top performance and how the employee can improve. Conrad also
engages consistently with employees, and he doesn’t limit his communication and feedback to
problems and he doesn’t limit his communication for formal appraisal meetings. These types of
practices have resulted in a 10 percent turnover rate at Meadow Hills, in an industry that has a
30 percent turnover rate.
Discussion Questions with Possible Responses
1. Based on the information given, discuss how well the performance management at
Meadow Hills Veterinary Center meets its strategic, administrative, and developmental
purposes.
2. What methods for measuring employee performance do you think would be most
beneficial at Meadow Hills? Why?
3. Evaluate Brian Conrad’s approach to appraisal interviews. Write a paragraph or two
summarizing what Conrad is doing well and how he might further improve the effort.
HRM DVD Vol 3 Suggested Video with Discussion Questions and Possible Responses
Learning English (2:35)
Video Summary
The video begins with a Wendy’s employee in Dallas who was offered the opportunity to learn
English. She went from an $8/hr job to a $15/hr job as a manager. More and more fast food
franchises are getting into the business of education, spending millions to teach their employees
to communicate. Less than half of the 2.4 million Hispanics who work in Americas restaurants
and hotels speak English. Employers who are battling in an industry that is notorious for high
turnover are finding that training employees to speak the language are keeping them longer.
The U.S. Department of Labor recently awarded 4.9 million dollars to improve worker language
skills in five states.
Discussion Questions with Possible Responses
1. Why is culturally responsive teaching important?
2. What some of the benefits that exist for employees who learn English
ROADMAP: Review and Discussion Questions
Review and Discussion Questions
1. How does a complete performance management system differ from the use of annual
performance appraisals?
2. Give two examples of an administrative decision that would be based on performance
management information. Give two examples of developmental decisions based on this
type of information.
3. How can involving employees in the creation of performance standards improve the
effectiveness of a performance management system? (Consider the criteria for
effectiveness shown in Figure 8.2.)
4. Consider how you might rate the performance of three instructors from whom you are
currently taking a course. (If you are currently taking only one or two courses, consider
this course and two you have recently completed.)
a. Would it be harder to rate the instructor’s performance or to rank their performance?
Why?
b. Write three items to use in rating the instructors – one each to rate them in terms of
an attribute, a behavior, and an outcome.
c. Which measure in Part b do you think is most valid? Most reliable? Why?
d. Many colleges use questionnaires to gather data from students about their
instructors’ performance. Would it be appropriate to use the data for administrative
decisions? Developmental decisions? Other decisions? Why or why not?
5. Imagine that a pet supply store is establishing a new performance management system
to help employees provide better customer service. Management needs to decide who
should participate in measuring the performance of each of the store’s salespeople.
From what sources should the store gather information? Why?
6. Would the same sources be appropriate if the store in Question 5 will use the
performance appraisals to support decisions about which employees to promote?
Explain.
7. Suppose you were recently promoted to a supervisory job in a company where you
worked for two years. You genuinely like almost all your coworkers, who now report to
you. The only exception is one employee, who dresses more formally than the others
and frequently tells jokes that embarrass you and the other workers. Given your
preexisting feelings for the employees, how can you measure their performance fairly
and effectively?
8. Continuing the example in Question 7, imagine hat you are preparing for your first
performance feedback session. You want feedback to be effective – that is, you want
the feedback to result in improved performance. List five or six steps you can take to
achieve your goal.
9. Besides giving employees feedback, what steps can a manager take to improve
employees’ performance?
10. Suppose you are a human resource professional helping to improve the performance
management system of a company that sells and services office equipment. The
company operates a call center that takes calls from customers who are having
problems with their equipment. Call center employees are supposed to verify the
problem is not one the customer can easily handle (for example, equipment that will not
operate because it has come unplugged). Then, if the problem is not resolved over the
phone, the employees arrange for service technicians to visit the customer. The
company can charge the customer only if a service technician visits, so performance
management of the call center employees focuses on productivity – how quickly they
can complete a call and move on to the next caller. To measure this performance
efficiently and accurately, the company uses electronic monitoring.
a. How would you expect the employees to react to the electronic monitoring? How
might the organization address the employees’ concerns?
b. Besides productivity in terms of number of calls, what other performance measures
should the performance management system include?
c. How should the organization gather information about the other performance
measures?
While electronic monitoring provides detailed, accurate information, employees may find
it demoralizing, degrading, and stressful. Employees are more likely to accept electronic
monitoring if the organization explains its purpose and links it to help in improving
performance.
Other performance measures that the performance management system should include
may be rating the individual attributes of the employees as well as the behaviors those
employees exhibit. The organization may gather information about the other
performance measures through research and practical application and experience with
those measures.
ROADMAP: CASE STUDY
Thinking Ethically
How Fair are Forced Rankings?
There are strong opinions on both sides of the forced ranking question. Jack Welch, former
CEO of General Electric introduced the concept at GE and the system was nicknamed “rank
and yank” because if an employee stayed in the bottom rankings they were asked to leave
the company. Critics say: organizations aren’t really managing performance when they the
fairness of forcing a certain number of people to be put in the lowest ranking. Welch
disagrees because: the system is fair because it is transparent, employees know where
they stand, and the greatest rewards to those at the top who deserve them.
Discussion Questions with Possible Responses:
1. Suppose you are an employee who exceeds every goal set for you, and you work on a team
where most people seem not to try very hard and often fall short. Would a forced-ranking
system seem to you like a fair way to measure and reward performance? Why or why not?
2. How fair are forced rankings relative to the other methods of measuring performance
described in this chapter?
a forced-ranking system seem to you like a fair way to measure and reward performance? Why
or why not.
Answers will vary. Most students will say this situation is not fair while the previous situation
was fair. The discussion should focus on the advantages and disadvantages of forced ranking
regardless of the situations.