Management 351

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Management 351 Class 4

• Chapters 7 and 8
• Shifting chapter 9 out one week (cascade)
• Announcements/Other Items
• Test recap
• Instructor mid-term evaluation
• Term papers/Matewan due
• Term papers may be late without explanation
• Late papers drop one (1) point per day

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Chapter 7 Appraising and Managing Performance

• Performance appraisal involves the
  identification, measurement, and management of
  human performance in organizations.
• Identification knowing what behaviors lead to
  performance (job and company related).
• Measurement anchored tools to provide consistent
  assessment of performance.
• Management feedback and goal setting.

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• Uses of performance appraisal
• Look backward (recap the year)
• Is this of any value?
• Address performance concerns?
• Measurement of goal attainment
• Set new goals
• Discuss professional development objectives

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Identifying Performance Dimensions

• Speaks to what is measured that is, what do we
  do that determines performance?
• Typically shown through ratings
• 1, 2, 3, 4
• Poor, Good, Excellent, Exceptional

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Relative and Absolute Judgments

• Relative compares one employees performance to
  that of other employees
• How is Jack doing relative to Jill?
• Advantage forces comparisons and avoids
  clustering of ratings
• Disadvantages
• Mask the degree of the difference between
  comparitors
• Relative information is missing making judgments
  of how good is good or how bad is bad
  difficult
• Forces distinctions where none may actually exist

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Absolute Judgments

• Absolute compares each employees performance to
  an anchored scale
• Advantages
• Drives consistency across managers and groups
• Avoid conflict among workers (is this an
  advantage?)
• Easier to defend than relative systems
• Disadvantages
• Everyone can receive the same rating thereby
  saving a manager from confronting differences
• Non-anchored ratings can vary manager-to-manager

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Trait Appraisal Instruments

• Some traits are consistent and enduring
• Decisivness
• Reliability
• Energy
• Loyalty
• Focuses on the person, not the performance (leads
  to defensiveness)
• Look for how these traits impact observable
  behavior

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Behavioral Appraisal Instruments

• Indicates the relative frequency of a particular
  type of behavior that is, what type of behavior
  is most frequently exhibited
• BARS Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (figure
  7.7)
• These tend to be very concrete/observable
• Higher face validity (better acceptance and
  application)

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Behavioral Appraisal Instruments

• Disadvantages
• Can be time consuming to develop
• They are, by definition, incomplete (we can not
  define all behaviors at every level)
• Organizational/job changes can make them obsolete
  very quickly
• Viewed as unnatural in many studies (people
  prefer dealing with traits)

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Outcome Appraisal Instruments

• Focus on deliverables or outcomes
• Commonly referred to as Management by
  objectives or MBO.
• Eliminates bias and error (particularly when
  outcomes are objectively measurable).
• Problems
• Poorly defined outcomes can drive wrong behaviors
• Dead-body syndrome the ends justifies the means

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Summary of Appraisals

• See figure 7.8 on page 231!
• Whats missing???
• Organizational uses!
• This represents the worst of HR
• Includes developmental but places admin first and
  risk management last

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Challenges to Performance Management

• Rater errors and bias
• Halo rating similarly across dimensions
• Restriction of range tends to rate everyone
  similarly
• Leniency, central tendency and severity errors
• Comparability similarity of ratings by different
  managers (how is this avoidable?)
• Frame of Reference (FOR) training essentially
  training that anchors perceptions

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Challenges to Performance Management

• Liking
• Emotional and unconscious (in many cases)
• Is established very quickly
• Liking and positive reviews have a strong
  positive correlation
• Precautions awareness is your best ally
• Politics

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Balance of Chapter

• Good content read it
• Addressing performance concerns
• Timely
• Behaviorally specific
• Coaching until it is not effective
• Warnings
• Specific objectives
• Specific timeframes
• Specific outcomes if objectives not attained

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Chapter 8 Training the Workforce

• Training providing employees with specific
  skills or helping them correct deficiencies in
  their performance in the moment or for present
  needs.
• Development future-focused development of
  abilities.

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Challenges in Training

• Why train? Whats the goal?
• Start by asking if, given the goal, is training
  the solution?
• Are the goals clear and realistic?
• Is training a good investment?
• Will training work?
• Is training a benefit? Is it an investment?
• Why would we treat these differently?

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The three phases of managing the training process

• Phase 1 Assessment
• Organizational analysis culture, mission,
  business climate and objectives and structure
• Task analysis looks at the delta between
  current and desired tasks or work
• Person analysis which employees need training

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• Clarify the objectives
• Actionable? Measurable? Desirable? Realistic?
• Figure 8.3 (page 267)
• Great example of breaking down a fuzzy objective
  into actionable skills

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The three phases of managing the training process

• Phase 2 The Training and Conduct Phase (just
  do it!)
• Location (on or off the job)
• OJT job rotation and apprenticeships
• Presentation
• Slides, videotapes, teletraining, CBT, e-learning
  (in some cases combining classroom with web based
  tutorials), simulations, VR, classroom and
  instructor based.

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• Types
• Skills training focuses on learning new skills
  either as part of new hire or with new products
• Retraining focuses on keeping skills sharp or
  reinforcing them for better/more efficient
  application
• Cross-functional training training in areas
  other than an employees base area (job rotation)
  to make folks more adaptable and increase
  cross-organizational knowledge/awareness
• Team training how to work and play well together
• Creativity training brainstorming and ?

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• Types
• Literacy training particularly with ESL and when
  hiring large work forces
• In house programs
• Company/local school
• Company/local state government
• Diversity training focus on awareness of,
  support for and ability to work in a diverse
  environment
• Crisis training focused on industries likely to
  need it
• Customer service training can you guess?

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The three phases of managing the training process

• Phase 3 Evaluation
• Look at Return on Investment (emerging trends?)
  page 283
• Begin with the end in mind, right?
• Consider using scientific methodology
• Control group and training group
• Pre-establish and do not communicate objectives
  to group being trained
• Go beyond the, Did you like this assessment