3. What performance appraisal system would you develop for the secretaries if you were Rob Winchester? Defend your answer. Just the third question.

Application Case Appraising the Secretaries at Sweetwater U cost-of-living increase. Since universities in general and Sweetwater, in particularhave paid secretaries somewhat lower salaries than Rob Winchester, newly appointed vice president for administrative those prevailing in private industry, some secretaries left in a huff affairs at Sweetwater State University, faced a tough problem shortly that first year. From that time on, most administrators simply rated all after his university career began. Three weeks after he came on board secretaries excellent in order to reduce staff turnover, thus ensuring in September, Sweetwater's president, Rob's boss, told Rob that one of each a maximum increase. In the process, they also avoided the hard his first tasks was to improve the appraisal system used to evaluate sec- feelings aroused by the significant performance differences otherwise retarial and clerical performance at Sweetwater U. The main difficulty highlighted by administrators. was that the performance appraisal was traditionally tied directly to sal- Two Sweetwater experts agreed to consider the problem, and ary increases given at the end of the year. Therefore, most administra- in 2 weeks they came back to the vice president with the follow- tors were less than accurate when they used the graphic rating forms ing recommendations. First, the form used to rate the secretaries that were the basis of the clerical staff evaluation. In fact, what usually was grossly insufficient. It was unclear what "excellent" or "quality happened was that each administrator simply rated his or her clerk or of work meant, for example. They recommended instead a form secretary as "excellent." This cleared the way for them to receive a like that in Figure 9-2. In addition, they recommended that the vice maximum pay raise every year. president rescind his earlier memo and no longer attempt to force But the current university budget simply did not include enough university administrators to arbitrarily rate least half their secretar- money to fund another "maximum" annual raise for every staffer. ies as something less than excellent. The two consultants pointed out Furthermore, Sweetwater's president felt that the custom of provid- that this was unfair, since it was quite possible that any particular ing invalid feedback to each secretary on his or her year's perfor- administrator might have staffers who were all or virtually all excel- mance was not productive, so he had asked the new vice president to lentor conceivably, although less likely, all below standard. The revise the system. In October, Rob sent a memo to all administrators, experts said that the way to get all the administrators to take the ap- telling them that in the future no more than half the secretaries re praisal process more seriously was to stop tying it to salary increases. porting to any particular administrator could be appraised as "excel- In other words, they recommended that every administrator fill out a lent." This move, in effect, forced each supervisor to begin ranking form as in Figure 9-2 for each secretary at least once a year and then his or her secretaries for quality of performance. The vice president's use this form as the basis of a counseling session. Salary increases memo met widespread resistance immediatelyfrom administrators, would have to be made on some basis other than the performance who were afraid that many of their secretaries would begin leaving appraisal, so that administrators would no longer hesitate to fill out for more lucrative jobs, and from secretaries, who felt that the new the rating forms honestly. system was unfair and reduced each secretary's chance of receiv- Rob thanked the two experts and went back to his office to ponder ing a maximum salary increase. A handful of secretaries had begun their recommendations. Some of the recommendations (such as sub- picketing outside the president's home on the university campus. The stituting the new rating form for the old) seemed to make sense. Nev- picketing, caustic remarks by disgruntled administrators, and rumors ertheless, he still had serious doubts as to the efficacy of any graphic of an impending slowdown by the secretaries (there were about 250 rating form, particularly compared with his original, preferred forced on campus) made Rob Winchester wonder whether he had made ranking approach. The experts' second recommendationto stop ty- the right decision by setting up forced ranking. He knew, however, ing the appraisals to automatic salary increasesmade sense but raised that there were a few performance appraisal experts in the School at least one very practical problem: If salary increases were not to be of Business, so he decided to set up an appointment with them to based on performance appraisals, on what were they to be based? discuss the matter He began wondering whether the experts' recommendations weren't He met with them the next morning. He explained the situation simply based on ivory tower theorizing. as he had found it: The current appraisal system had been set up when the university first opened 10 years earlier. A committee of Questions secretaries had developed it. Under that system, Sweetwater's admin- 9-17. Do you think that the experts' recommendations will be suf- istrators filled out forms similar to the one shown in Table 9-2. This ficient to get most of the administrators to fill out the rating once-a-year appraisal (in March) had run into problems almost imme- forms properly? Why or why not? What additional actions (if diately, since it was apparent from the start that administrators varied any) do you think will be necessary? widely in their interpretations of job standards, as well as in how con- 9-18. Do you think that Vice President Winchester would be better scientiously they filled out the forms and supervised their secretaries. off dropping graphic rating forms, substituting instead one of Moreover, at the end of the first year it became obvious to everyone the other techniques we discussed in this chapter, such as a that each secretary's salary increase was tied directly to the March ranking method? Why or why not? appraisal. For example, those rated "excellent" received the maxi- 9-19. What performance appraisal system would you develop for mum increases, those rated "good" received smaller increases, and the secretaries if you were Rob Winchester? Defend your those given neither rating received only the standard across-the-board answer. CHAPTER 9