a aE APPLICATION CASE Appraising the Secretaries at Sweetwater U watt Rob Winchester, newly appointed vice president for administrative affairs at SMe State University, faced a tough problem shortly after his university career beara weeks after he came on board in September, Sweetwater’s president, Rob's boss: etn that one of his first tasks was to improve the appraisal system used to evaluate Sr ye and clerical performance at Sweetwater U. Apparently, the main difficulty 2% ol formance appraisal was traditionally tied di en atthe be year. So most administrators 0 sare sneer tan eae lame oe hie less than accurate when they used the £871 ened forms that were the basis of the clerical staff evaluation. In pie usually ha his was that each administrator simply rated his oF her clerk or secretary as “excee™™ cleared the way for all support staff to receive a maximum pay increase every Yo" a al Scanned with CamScannerCHAPTER 9 + PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT. AND APPRAISAL 373, ee i 3 2 3 e g é Secretaries reporting to any particular administrator could be appraised as “excellent” This move, in effect, forced each super : visor to begin ranking his or her secretaries for quality of |” Performance. The vice president's memo met widespread resistance immedinaly fon administrators, who were afraid that many oftheirsecretaries would begin leaving for more fuerative jobs in private industry; and from secretaries, who felt thatthe new systern was uns fair and reduced each secretary's chance of receiving a maximum salary increase. A handful i 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 Busi- ness, 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 i present apprai The I system had been set up when the university fist 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 Table 9-2. This once-a-year appraisal (in March) had run into problems almost immedi ately, since it was apparent from the start that administrators varied widely in their inter- Pretations 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 inerease was tied directly to the March appraisal. For example, those rated “excellent” received the maximum increases, those rated “good” re- ceived 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 dustry some secretaries left in a hulf that first year. From that time on, most administra- tors simply rated all secretaries excellent in order to reduce staff tumover, 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. "Two Sweetwater experts agreed to consider the problem, and in two weeks they eame back to the vice president with the following recommendation. First, the form used to rate the secretaries was grossly insufficient. It was unclear what “excellent” or “quality of work” meant, for example. They recommended instead a form like that in Figure 9-3. In addition, they recommended that the vice president tescind his earlier memo and no Tonge tempt to force university administrator to iter rate test half hei ee tetas as something less than exelent, Te ve constants pote tha his wasn fact, an unfair procedure since it was quite possible that any particular administrator mnight hae tffers wo were al or vrualy al excelent or conceivably although less Hikey, al below standard. The expr sid that the way to get all he administrators to take the appraisal process more seriously was t stop tying it to salary increases. In other ded that every administrator fil out a form like that in Figure 9-3 iid a aorircast once a year and then use this form as the basis of a counseling for each secretary at least ont tye 10 be made on some basis other than the perform eee, Scat increase ministrators would no longer hesitate to fill out the rating forms ance appraisal, so that administra honestly. Scanned with CamScanner—, TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT Rob thanked the two experts and went back to his office to ponder their Tecomme tions. Some of the recommendations (such as substituting the new rating form fateap seemed to make sense. Nevertheless, he still had serious doubts as to the efficacy of ud graphic rating form, particularly if he were to decide in favor of his original forced rani approach. The experts’ second recommendation —to stop tying the appraisals to automat salary increases—made sense but raised at least one very practical problem: If salary in creases were not to be based on performance appraisals, on what were they to be based? He began wondering whether the experts’ recommendations weren’t simply based 01 ivory tower theorizing. Questions 1. Do you think that the experts’ recommendations will be sufficient to get most of the ad- ministrators to fill out the rating forms properly? Why? Why not? ‘What additional actions (if any) do you think will be necessary? a 2. Do you think that Vice President Winchester would be better off dropping graphic a forms, substituting instead one of the other techniques we discussed in this chapter i” as a ranking method? Why? ec Hyon welt 3. What performance appraisal system would you develop for the secretaries if you Rob Winchester? Defend your answer. vastus sh tbr Scanned with CamScanner