Read the case and answer the 2 questions listed below: Case: Appraising the Secr
ID: 434942 • Letter: R
Question
Read the case and answer the 2 questions listed below:
Case: Appraising the Secretaries at Sweetwater University
Rob Winchester, newly appointed vice president for administrative affairs at Sweetwater State University, faced a tough problem shortly after his university career began. Three weeks after he came on board in September, Sweetwater's president, Rob's boss, told Rob that one of his first tasks was to improve the appraisal system used to evaluate secretarial and clerical performance at Sweetwater U. Apparently, the main difficulty was that the performance appraisal was traditionally tied directly to salary increases given at the end of the year. So most administrators were less than accurate when they used the graphic rating forms that were the basis of the clerical staff evaluation. In fact, what usually happened was that each administrator simply rated his or her clerk or secretary as "excellent." This cleared the way for all support staff to receive a maximum pay increase every year.
But the current university budget simply did not include enough money to fund another "maximum" annual increase for every staffer. Furthermore, Sweetwater's president felt that the custom of providing invalid feedback to each secretary on his or her year's performance was not productive, so he had asked the new vice president to revise the system. In October, Rob sent a memo to all administrators telling them that in the future no more than half the secretaries reporting to any particular administrator could be appraised as "excellent." This move, in effect, forced each supervisor to begin ranking his or her secretaries for quality of performance. The vice president's memo met widespread resistance immediately—from administrators, who were afraid that many of their secretaries would begin leaving for more lucrative jobs in private industry; and from secretaries, who felt that the new system was unfair and reduced each secretary's chance of receiving a maximum salary increase. A handful of secretaries had begun quietly picketing outside the president's home on the university campus. The picketing, caustic remarks by disgruntled administrators, and rumors of an impending slowdown by the secretaries (there were about 250 on campus) made Rob Winchester wonder whether he had made the right decision by setting up forced ranking. He knew, however, that there were a few performance appraisal experts in the School of Business, so he decided to set up an appointment with them to discuss the matter.
He met with them the next morning. He explained the situation as he had found it: The present appraisal system had been set up when the university first opened 10 years earlier, and the appraisal form had been developed primarily by a committee of secretaries. Under that system, Sweetwater's administrators filled out forms similar to the one shown in Figure 1. This once-a-year appraisal (in March) had run into problems almost immediately, since it was apparent from the start that administrators varied widely in their interpretations of job standards, as well as in how conscientiously they filled out the forms and supervised their secretaries. Moreover, at the end of the first year it became obvious to everyone that each secretary's salary increase was tied directly to the March appraisal. For example, those rated "excellent" received the maximum increases, those rated "good" received smaller increases, and those given neither rating received only the standard across-the-board, cost-of-living increase. Since universities in general—and Sweetwater in particular—have paid secretaries somewhat lower salaries than those prevailing in private industry, some secretaries left in a huff that first year. From that time on, most administrators simply rated all secretaries excellent in order to reduce staff turnover, thus ensuring each a maximum increase. In the process, they also avoided the hard feelings aroused by the significant performance differences otherwise highlighted by administrators.
Five Sweetwater School of Business experts agreed to consider the problem, and in one week they came back to the vice president with the following recommendations.
Figure 1: Graphic Rating Scale
Excellent
Good
Fair
Poor
Quality of work
Quantity of work
Creativity
Integrity
Questions
1. You are one of the experts who has agreed to consider the problem. What problems did you identify with the current performance appraisal system at Sweetwater University?
2. What performance appraisal system will you develop for the secretaries? Highlight a few key points of the changes you will suggest (suggest at least 2 – 3 changes).
Organization Behavior and Theory. This is 2nd time posting it here. there wasn't answer for both question. Thanks in advance
Excellent
Good
Fair
Poor
Quality of work
Quantity of work
Creativity
Integrity
Explanation / Answer
Answer 1:-
The problem with this university was that every administrator used to rate their secretary as excellent. Moreover, the administrators are rating their employees above their real performance. Besides the difficulty in the performance appraisal was traditionally attached directly to salary increments given at the end of the year.
Having new staff every year was also not a good choice for the university. So it didn’t leave any choice for the administrators but to give most of the secretaries “excellent” to keep them on the job. The administrators were not given anything for the good work done by their staff or ranking them properly.
Moreover, the university’s budget did not include enough money to fund another “maximum” annual raise for every staffer. Sweetwater’s president felt that the custom of providing invalid feedback to each secretary on his or her year’s performance was not productive, so he had asked the new vice president to revise the system.
The issues of providing invalid feedback to each secretary have been a resisting practice for quite some time, therefore it would be ridiculous to think that a practice implanted in the organization’s culture would simply end to exist a recommendation. One more problem came up with the system was that it was letting even incompetent secretaries enjoy the benefits like increments in the salaries and the standards presently being used are very unclear and do not give a good view of how the job is being performed.
Answer 2:- The performance appraisal system I would develop for the secretaries if I were Rob Winchester would be the behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS). I believe the BARS system would be the strongest solution to all of the problems that he is currently having. Using this system it would make it much more difficult to just rate every single person the exact same. You have to give a very well throughout answer for every employee; you can’t just give every person one rating. It would also help to eliminate the different interpretations of what the rating scales mean, it is all very well laid out. The only problem is that I would find is that the developmental costs might be very high. Not everyone will know how to use this system already so many people might need to be trained on how to do it.
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