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PART IV Employee Development

CHAPTER 7 Appraising and Managing Performance

CHALLENGES

After reading this chapter, you should be able to deal more effectively with the following challenges:

1 How to effectively carry out each of the steps in performance appraisal.
2 Have familiarity with challenges to effective performance measurement.
3 Develop competence in managing performance.

Source:Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock.

George was prepared for the upcoming performance reviews. He had carefully gone through the performance data. The new performance-review software had made the task much easier, with written feedback automatically inserted depending on the performance ratings George entered for each worker. As a manager of a small group of customer service employees, George was grateful for how much easier and quicker the software had made his task of evaluating the performance of his workers.

Estelle was the first worker scheduled for the annual face-to-face performance reviews. Overall, Estelle was the best worker in terms of customer service, but she didn’t do well at some of the record-keeping aspects of the job. George had given Estelle high ratings on customer service, but rated her as “needing improvement” on technical aspects. As Estelle sat down across from George, he handed her the performance evaluation and started to talk through the points with her.

George started with the summary of the performance of the unit, a nice broad picture of the group provided by the software. Estelle quickly flipped to the sections addressing the aspects of her performance. At a glance, she saw the poor ratings George had given her on technical aspects, such as filing paperwork, placing orders, and keeping account information up-to-date. Estelle was deflated and angry at the same time. George could tell that Estelle was already upset and wondered whether he had been too harsh in his ratings of her. He quickly moved to the section of the performance review that Estelle was focused on. The following exchange rapidly played out:

George:

Look, Estelle, I know you are the best at customer service. All of our customers think you are wonderful. But, you have to admit that paperwork isn’t your strong suit.

Estelle:

Yes, I know what I’m doing with customer service. I know my job and my customers. I have been doing his awhile, and I can’t believe you’re nailing me on this Mickey Mouse paperwork stuff. We operate as a team, and I let other people take care of some of the technical details, since they can do that. Frankly, for some of them, it’s better they not do much interacting with customers, since they just don’t do that very well.

George:

Everyone is supposed to be responsible for customer service and for technical areas. That’s the job and everyone has the same job.

Estelle:

Well, that might be what’s on paper in the official job description, but the reality is that people do what they do best and that means everything works better and customers get better service and are happier.

George:

That may be, but I can’t very well give you high performance ratings on an area that even you admit isn’t your strength.

Estelle:

I’m sure you didn’t rate other people this low on customer service, even though they are terrible at it. Besides, the “Needs Improvement” rating is embarrassing, and I think it might mean that I am not eligible for merit pay. I don’t think it’s fair.

George:

I forgot about that merit pay rule and didn’t mean for you to not get a bonus. Again, you are outstanding at customer service, and you are a stand-out worker in that respect and deserve to be in the running for merit pay. However, you have to admit that your poor follow-through on record keeping has caused some problems. There was that one incident last month where we had to scramble to get supplies because the order wasn’t done correctly and was late.

Estelle:

Yeah, right. While you’re at it, why don’t you beat me up for that snafu? My name may have been on the paperwork, but the problems with the order weren’t my fault.

George:

What do you mean?

Estelle:

What I mean is that Don was doing that order for me. He didn’t want to make the visit to a new customer, and I took that on for him, and he did the order. I don’t know what he was doing, why it took him so long, or how he got it messed up. Of course, you could have asked me about this before you jumped to conclusions and your performance evaluations, but it’s a little late for that, isn’t it?

George:

Well, Estelle, I had no idea that is what was going on. Based on the paperwork, it looked pretty clear.

Estelle:

You could have checked. Also, are you really questioning whether I have a complete understanding of the operational details of the job and that I should consider revisiting the technical training modules offered by the company?

George:

Does the review say that?

Estelle:

Yes, of course—right here! You didn’t even write this, did you? What’s the point of having these performance reviews, anyway? I’m evaluated unfairly and things I didn’t do are held against me. And, the feedback is machine generated! Well, if the point of this process is to push me out of here, mission accomplished. If my contribution isn’t valued, I will be on my way out as soon as I line up an alternative. In the meantime, I’ll be sure to allocate more of my time and effort to record keeping, and others will have to step up on service. I’m sure that will work out well.

George:

Really, Estelle, don’t take this so negatively. I tried to provide the best ratings I could with the information I had.

George had the feeling that he had been the one who was just evaluated, and it hadn’t gone too well. It sounded like there were things he missed and didn’t take into account. The reality was that Estelle was a star player on the team, someone who knew what she was doing and was a kind of glue holding things together. She certainly didn’t need retraining so that she knew how to do the job. He was now kicking himself for not catching that recommendation that the performance review software had automatically entered. The software made the job of evaluation easier, but now he was paying a price for it. If Estelle left her job over this, her experience and customer service skills would be difficult to replace.

George realized he had a number of performance review meetings scheduled for the afternoon. Many of those meetings were with workers with poorer performance than Estelle, and he wasn’t looking forward to how these might go. He couldn’t help but wonder if holding those performance reviews was worth it.

The Managerial Perspective

The situation involving George and Estelle (a fictitious scenario, but based on real-life incidents) illustrates common problems with performance appraisal—the process of assessing employee performance and diagnosing and improving performance problems. Maintaining and improving your performance and the performance of other people in the organization will be an important part of your role as a manager. To conduct this process, you may rely on appraisal forms and systems that are often designed by HR personnel or provided by third-party vendors. Although these forms and systems are key elements of the appraisal process, they are only a starting point.

Effective performance appraisal requires managers to measure and improve performance. If performance is to be improved, the manager needs to have a good understanding of the cause for a performance problem. Not getting your facts straight and, for example, blaming the wrong person for a problem, can mean that the problem isn’t solved and can result in negative outcomes. As George learned, if the cause of a performance problem is not correctly diagnosed, the mistake can lead to a worker with reduced motivation and commitment.

The performance appraisal process includes providing feedback to workers so that they can improve their performance. We all need, want, and deserve feedback regarding how we are doing in the workplace. Feedback from a direct supervisor, rather than from an automated system, will typically be the most meaningful and useful. As the situation with George and Estelle illustrates, feedback is important, but it needs to be relevant and accepted by the worker. Like most of us, Estelle assumed that feedback would be feedback that comes directly from the supervisor, who can take into account various work situations and has knowledge of the worker. Like Estelle, in the end, most of us want to know more what our boss thinks of our work performance than what an automated system or software has to say. Our first goal in this chapter is to acquaint you with the foundation, design, and implementation of performance measurement systems. Our second is to describe the principles of effective performance management.

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Table of Contents for PART IV Employee Development

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Table of Contents for
PART IV Employee Development