Human Resource Management - Training and Development

LearnInMotion.com: The Performance Appraisal

Jennifer and Mel disagree over the importance of having performance appraisals. Mel says it's quite clear whether any particular LearnInMotion employee is doing his or her job. It's obvious, for instance, if the salespeople are selling, if the Web designer is designing, if the Web surfer is surfing, and if the content management people are managing to get the customers' content up on the Web site in a timely fashion. Mel's position, like that of many small-business managers, is that "we have 1,000 higher-priority things to attend to" such as boosting sales and creating the calendar. And in any case, he says, the employees already get plenty of day-to-day feedback from him or Jennifer regarding what they're doing right and what they're doing wrong.  

This informal feedback notwithstanding, Jennifer believes that a more formal appraisal approach is required. For on thing, they're approaching the end of the 90-day "introductory" period for many of these employees, and the owners need to make decisions about whether they should go or stay. And from a practical point of view, Jennifer just believes that sitting down and providing formal, written feedback is more likely to reinforce what employees are (critical incident) doing right, and to get them to modify what they might be doing wrong. "Maybe this is one reason we're not getting enough sales," she says.

Please answer the question and complete according to this scenario above:

Now that you have your supervisor's opinion, prepare a response for Jennifer and Mel highlighting your thoughts. Here are the questions they need answered.

1.  Is Jennifer right about the need to evaluate the workers formally? Why or why not? If you think she is right, how do you explain away Mel's arguments?

2.  Select a performance appraisal method for the salespeople, Web designer, or Web surfer, and provide reasoning as to why this is the most appropriate method for this position. Along with selecting the method, develop the appraisal form you would use, customized for the position you selected.

Note:  You may choose to create the appraisal form in Excel.