Incident These Things Are a Pain “There, at last it’s finished, “thought Rajiv C
ID: 447394 • Letter: I
Question
Incident These Things Are a Pain
“There, at last it’s finished, “thought Rajiv Chaudhry, as he laid aside the last of 12 PA forms. It had been a busy week for Rajiv, who supervise a road maintenance crew for the Georgia Department of Highways.
In passing through Rajiv’s district a few days previously, the governor had complained to the area superintendent that repairs were needed on several of the highways. Because of this, the superintendent assigned Rajiv’s crew an unusually heavy workload. In addition, Rajiv received a call from HR office that week reminding him that the Pas were late. Rajiv explained his predicament but the HR specialist insisted that the forms be completed right away.
Looking over the appraisals again, Rajiv thought about several of the workers. The PA form had place for making quantity of work, quality of work, and cooperativeness. For each characteristic, the worker could be graded outstanding, good, average, below average, or unsatisfactory. As Rajiv’s crew had completed all of the extra work assigned for that week, he marked every worker outstanding in quantity of work. He marked Joe Blum average in cooperativeness because Joe had questioned one of his decisions that week. Rajiv had decided to patch a pothole in one of the roads, and Joe thought the small section of the road surface ought to be broken out and replaced. Rajiv didn’t include this in the remarks section of the form, though. As a matter of fact, he wrote no remarks on any of the forms.
Rajiv felt a twinge of guilt as he thought about Roger Short. He knew that Roger had been goofing off, and the other workers had been carrying him for quite some time. He also knew that Roger would be upset if he found that he had been marked lower than the other workers. Consequently, he marked Roger the same to avoid a confrontation. “Anyway,” Rajiv thought, “these things are a pain, and I really shouldn’t have to bother with them.”
As Rajiv folded up the PAs and put them in the envelope for mailing, he smiled. He was glad he would not have to think about PAs for another six months.
Questions
1. What weakness do you see in Rajiv’s performance appraisals?
2. Should HR have the ability to “insist that the forms be completed right away’? Discuss
3. Many managers would agree with Rajiv in saying that “there things are a pain, and I really shouldn’t have to bother with them.” What are the disadvantages in doing away with performance appraisal?
Explanation / Answer
What weaknesses do you see in Rajiv’s performance appraisals?
Rajiv did not start the performance appraisals with a process; he just did it because he had to do it. He needed to start by identifying performance goals. He should have selected the specific goals it believes to be most important and realistically achievable. If possible he could have use the 360 degree feedback to have an accurate performance appraisal and from coworkers he could have better knowledge of how each one is doing. Rajiv did not do a good job in performance appraisals. He did not write any remarks on any performance appraisals, and that is needed for the employees to know, why they were rated low or high. Rajiv rated Roger with a good knowingly that he had been lacking off from work because he tough that Roger would be sad or mad if rated less than everyone. He needs to rate everyone for his job performance and no because how they would fell.
Should HR have the ability to “insist that the forms be completed right away”? Discuss.
Most appraisals have date lines, and I think that if HR gave Rajiv enough time to complete, he should have done it before it gets to the dateline, and conducting performance appraisals is often a frustrating task for managers. If a performance appraisal system has a faulty design, or improper administration, employees will dread receiving appraisals and the managers will despise giving them. For that reason maybe the HR could have helped Rajiv to do the result based system performance appraisal method in which the manager and subordinate jointly agree on objectives for the next appraisal period; in the past a form of management by objectives, so they would have an specific date where they can work on the performance appraisal.
Many managers would agree with Rajiv in saying that “these things are a pain, and I really shouldn’t have to bother with them.” What are the disadvantages in doing away with performance appraisal?
I think that the disadvantages of doing a performance appraisal report is that if not done correctly, that can create negative experiences in the company. The performance appraisal can be based on bias as we could see in the incident 1. Another disadvantage can be that doing a performance appraisal can create a very stressful environment for everyone involved.