Question

“There at last it’s finished,” thought Rajiv Chaudhry, as he laid aside the last of the 12 performance
appraisal (PA) forms. It had been a busy week for Rajiv, who supervises 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 the 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 places for
marking quantity of work, quality of work, and cooperativeness, among other traits. For each characteristic,
the worker could be graded as outstanding, good, average, below average, or unsatisfactory. As Rajiv's
crew had just completed all of the extra work assigned for that week, he marked every worker outstanding
in quantity of work. He marked Joe Blum average for cooperativeness because Joe had questioned one of
his decisions that week. Rajiv had decided to patch a pothole on one of the roads, and Joe thought the small
section of 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 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.

A. What weaknesses do you see in the performance appraisal process being used by the Georgia
Department of Highways and Rajiv’s completion of his staff’s performance appraisals?

B. Should HR have the ability to “insist that the forms be completed right away?” Discuss.

C. Many managers would agree with Rajiv in saying that “these things area a pain, and I really
shouldn’t have to bother with them.” What are the advantages and disadvantages in doing away
with the performance appraisal?

Answer 1

ANSWER: A

The flaw I see in Rajivo 's assessments of results is that two of his staff, Joe Blum and Roger Short, already had difficulties writing them. The issue with Joe Blum's PA is that, when Joe challenged Rajiv 's decisions about a project in the week, he used personal prejudice by rating him on average. He left Rajiv blank in the comments and remarks segment, instead of reflecting on why he gave Rajiv an average. Instead of being realistic and giving Roger Short truthful Palestinians about his lack of focus while completing his job, he gave him the same PA as other staff to prevent confrontations. He even used the new behavioral variations and assessment of discomfort during the execution of the Roger Short Palace.

ANSWER: B

I do not believe that the HR director would have insisted on completing the forms immediately because performance evaluations are vital ways of objectively assessing the individual workers. That being said, administrators should take the time to complete these forms without being hurried because the performance evaluations will quickly make space for future issues and, in this case, it was personal discrimination, recent behavioral discrimination and maladvantage. Rather of just saying that Rajiv has to do the PA so fast, the HR Director would have provided Rajiv with a fair time frame.

ANSWER: C

Potential issues like evaluation distress, lack of objectiveity, Halo / Horn mistakes, leniency and rigourousness, core tendency, recent behavior bias, personal bias and employee dissatisfaction are raised in the drawback of eliminating performance evaluations. Deleting performance evaluations can also pose legal issues, because in the course of the performance appraisal the legislation does not rule out supervisors' discretion. However, devices with other features are technically more defensible.

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