(TCO 5) Consider this scenario: John Hopken is the newsupervisor of a team of 12 computer programmers. He has been in hisposition for 10 months, after being promoted to his position fromprogrammer (where he had been in place for 8 years). The promotionwas hard-won; four others on his team also applied for thepromotion, and when he got his promotion, the other four employeeswho didn’t get the position were rather disgruntled. One of themlashed out in a meeting early on and called him a yes-man, butotherwise most of the issues have been undercurrents and rumorbased. These four employees are referred to as Competitors 1, 2,and 3 and Competitor Yes-Man for the purposes of this question.
During the year, five older members of his team resigned, fourthrough regular retirements and one after being accused offalsifying expense reports. None of the five were in the group offour who had competed against him for his position. John filled allfive position openings with outside hires. Three of them hadsimilar backgrounds to John’s—they all went to his alma mater fortheir computer degrees and like basketball. In fact, last week Johnand the three of them attended a Bulls game together. Theseemployees will be referred to as Bulls 1, 2, and 3. The other twoemployees were both females he hired because HR told him he had to.(Up till now, there were no females on the team.) We’ll call themLady 1 and 2. They don’t like basketball. Lady 1 was hired 6 monthsago, and Lady 2 was hired last month.
Now, it is performance appraisal time. Assume each of theseemployees does a similar amount of work, produces relativelysimilar amounts of code, and does a good job. None of them createwaves, and the new people have gotten their work under way and areworking hard. Other than the yes-man meeting and one comment on themen’s room wall saying that “Hopken is a jerk,” things have mostlygone smoothly. John figures that one of the Competitors wrotethat.
John is told by HR he has to do performance appraisals thismonth. He is told to rate his people on a scale of 1–4, where 1 is“not meeting expectations,” 2 is “too new to rate,” 3 is “meetingexpectations,” and 4 is “exceeding expectations.” HR said that hemust have no more than two 4s, no more than eight 3s, and at leasttwo 1s or 2s. He asks an HR representative what “too new” means,and she says it applies to anyone who has not been in the positionfor 3 months or more.
He looks at the paperwork and his list, and 20 minutes later hashis ratings done with a paragraph scribbled out to provide to hisworkers.
Here are his ratings and his support paragraph.
Bulls 1: 4: What a great guy—always comes through, works hard,fun loving, makes the day brighter for everyone
Bulls 2: 4: Team player—what a help—great worker and asset tothe company
Bulls 3: 3: Always there for the work group—works steady andhelpful to others, accurate coder
Lady 1: 3: Always there for the work group—works steady andhelpful to others, accurate coder
Other 1: 3: Always there for the work group—works steady andhelpful to others, accurate coder
Other 2: 3: Always there for the work group—works steady andhelpful to others, accurate coder
Other 3: 3: Always there for the work group—works steady andhelpful to others, accurate coder
Competitor 1: 3: Accurate coding and steady performer
Competitor 2: 3: Accurate coding and steady performer
Competitor 3: 3: Accurate coding and steady performer
Lady 2: 2: Too new to rate but next year should be great
Competitor YM: 1: Not a team player and can work harder toprevent discord
Please answer the following questions.
(1) What are the three major methods of conducting appraisals?Briefly explain each one. (12 points)
(2) What method is described here? Justify your answer. (12points)
(3) Write a memo to HR explaining why you feel this method ofperformance evaluation needs improvement, and give three specificexamples of the improvement you recommend based on the scenarioabove. (16 points)
