Organizational_Goals

Question 1 Organization’s goals: the goals are to facilitate information exchange and to influence performance. The performance appraisal should be designed to provide data about what’s going on, and a medium through which the organization tries to influence the behavior of the individual. Some examples of what data is used for are: to provide feedback on employee’s performance, to determine training and development needs, to identify promotion potential and to identify employees with specific skills and abilities. Ways that organization tries to influence the behavior of the individual are: determining merit increases and planning goals for job performance. Individual goals: the goal of the individual is to obtain information that will help them evaluate their performance, how they are progressing, and to maximize rewards. If the individual’s performance is favorable in comparison with others, then, this tends to fulfill their need for competence and psychological success. If otherwise, they tend to experience failure and feedback becomes difficult to accept. Individual-Organizational conflicts: the main conflict is connecting the individual’s goal of obtaining rewards with the two goals of the organization. In other words, the conflict is over the exchange of valid information. As long as the individual sees appraisal as having an important influence on rewards, the potential for this conflict continues. In the case of the good performer, the conflict is negligible because the individual want to provide valid data. In the case of the poor performer, however, the conflict is bound to be substantial. Question 3 Step One: Select the right people. At least three sets of critical players should be included in the design process: top managers, human resources professionals, and system users. Top managers must specify what levels of performance are necessary to meet the goals of the business plan, as well as the strategic values to which the plan must adhere to. Human resources professionals ultimately have to administer the system; therefore, it is very important to include them. Finally, managers and employees have the firsthand experience with the system, so they have special expertise in the appraisal. These are also the people to whom the system must appeal, if does not help them get their work done, they will not use it. Step Two: Decide on a process to guide your design. There are three options to design an appraisal system: use an outside consultant, centralized development (in HR) or a task force. It is recommended that a combination of the three be used. The design process may begin with an outside consultation, and it should involve the senior managers. Senior management should then commission a task force that will either work with a consultant or design the system independently. Step Three: Asses the current organizational situation. In this step, the objective is to figure out which appraisal practices exists, which ones are going well, and what is causing problems. Also, it is important to understand something about the other HR systems, the culture, and the legal requirements. Step Four: Establish the system’s purposes and objectives. Appraisal systems have multiple purposes, and appraisers and appraises have different objectives of the system. Therefore, management must sit down and work out the disagreement on the different purposes and objectives. Ultimately, the purpose of the system is to positively influence the performance of the organization. Step Five: Design the performance appraisal system. During this step is necessary to develop knowledge about available options. These options can be narrowed down by asking the following questions: who appraises performance' What is meant by performance' How is performance appraised' When is performance appraised' Once the options have been chosen, care needs to taken to make sure that these options fit in with the organization’s needs and culture, and with the purpose of the system. Step Six: Experiment with implementation. Once the system has been designed, a small and careful dry run or pilot test is recommended. This will allow to spot, gauge, and correct any flaws in the system before its organization-wide implementation. Step Seven: Evaluate and monitor the system. System design requires feedback on results. It is important to test whether the system has achieved its objectives. It is recommended to be done yearly and biannually. Monitoring should examine employee’s satisfaction and effectiveness. Question 4 a) A multi-rater appraisal is when an employee is being evaluated (rated) by supervisor, customer, peer, subordinates including self. It is mostly done for development reasons and not for pay adjustments. b) Rating errors. Central tendency effect: rating on all performance standards cluster around the middle point of the rating scale. Leniency/Strict effect: rater evaluates everyone on the positive end of the rating scale regardless of their actual levels of performance or everyone receives lower evaluations than actual levels of performance. Recency effect: rater is influenced by employee’s most recent positive or negative behavior. Similar/dissimilar to me effect: rater positively evaluates employees who are similar to him/her and negatively evaluates those who are different. Initial first impression effect: rater forms initially positive or negative impression of employee and ignores any subsequent information that may distort the first impression. c) Ways to minimize rating errors. Focus on performance: separate the person from his/her behavior. Review these errors before you evaluate performance: awareness can reduce the chance of making these errors. Provide specific behavioral examples for each performance objective: This reduces the possibility that the rating will reflect something other than actual performance. Question 5 Driver’s of retention. Job design and work: job/person match, work/life balance, challenge. Career opportunities: training and development and career planning/advancement. Characteristics of employer: culture and values, management and job security. Employee relations: fair, non-discriminatory treatment, supervisor/management support and coworkers relations. Rewards: competitive pay and benefits, performance and compensation and recognition/praise. Question 6 a) b) 5 guiding principles to breaking down barriers to communication. Participation principle: the greater a person’s participation or involvement in the development of an idea, the more receptive and committed that person will be to the idea. Reward Principle: messages get past barriers when recipients have an interest in accepting them, such as greater job security, increase income or promotion. First-is-best principle: it is easier to create an attitude or opinion where none exists than to change one already formed. Print-credibility principle: written communications have greater credibility than oral communications. Credible-source principle: we relate best to those we trust. For a message to be accepted as the truth, receivers must believe and trust its source.