2. Rater errors refer to the errors that occur in a systematic manner when judging or appraising a person (Deb, 2006). Some of these errors are discussed as below.
Halo effect: This refers to the tendency to allow one or more job characteristics of an employee to over shadow other aspects. This happens when the strongest positive or negative characteristic of the employee is used to generalize the overall performance of the individual.
Central tendency: This error happens when the managers consider all employees to be average in their performance and over look the individual characteristics and overlook the actual differences in performance based on different parameters.
Strictness: This error happens when the managers tend to be overtly critical and considers performance of all employees as negative.
Contrast effect: This error tend to happen when the evaluator rates an employee based on the relative performance as compared to other employees, rather than considering the job requirements as the basis for performance appraisal.
First impression error: This error happens when the managers give higher importance to their initial perception about an employee rather than considering the recent performances of the employee (Deb, 2006).
Rater errors and personal biases influence the performance appraisal process. It is crucial to minimize these errors as they can prove to damage the original objective of the performance appraisal process. These errors are difficult to rectify as the appraiser does these mistakes sub consciously. These errors can be minimized through trainings and through use of statistical tools (Deb, 2006). The trainings can help in familiarizing the managers the parameters that they need to work with and to ensure that they understand the jobs that need to be performed. This will also help them understand the normative data and how to process the data. The statistical tools help in identifying the rater effect by measuring the difference between rater’s average and the average of all ratings. Rater’s effect being zero means that no personal bias or errors have influenced the performance appraisal ratings. But it is almost impossible to get the rater effect as zero. So efforts are to be made to keep the score as close to zero as possible.
4. Office romances need to be handled effectively by the Marketing Director to ensure that it does not impact the business productivity. Ignoring the issue or pretending to not have noticed the issue will only increase the impact of the issue. If behaviour and attitude of the couple dating in office is unchecked, it may lead to preferential treatment to be meted out to an individual. This will lead to discrimination among the employees. In turn, it can affect the healthy work environment. Also, there can be potential sexual harassment issues and related lawsuits that can prove to be costly to the organisation (Fisher, 2013). If the organisation ignores office romance and eventually an office romance leads to a sexual harassment lawsuit, the company would be responsible for willful ignorance of the issue and can be accused in the lawsuit. Often the media and press get involved and publicise such lawsuits. This will indirectly affect the image and reputation of the organisation (Fisher, 2013). In the given situation, the office dating existed between two people from highly interrelated departments where team members needed to work effectively through high level of co-ordination. This kind of dating relation can cause bias, increase complexity of the relationship dynamics and increase internal conflicts. In the given scenario, co-workers had faced these issues which led them to place the complaint with the Marketing Director. In this scenario, office gossips will increase and co-worker’s morale may be affected.
In this situation, it is important for the Marketing Director to talk to the couple in question. The Marketing Director needs to talk to them in private and ensure that the conversation is productive and does not seem to be intrusive. The conversation should be conducted by making the employees feel that it for their best interest and he is not trying to blame them. The language and tone used in the conversation is important. In the conversation the Marketing Director would be required to explain the related issue (discussed above) in tentative terms. The most important issue should be focused on the conversation. In this case, the issue of increasing complexity of group dynamics should be the key focus of the conversation. The employees should be informed about the potential issues and identify ways how these issues can be addressed. The conversation would end in a tone of concern that the management has for the employees (Ryan, 2011).
Some key points that need consideration to conduct the communication are as below. Use of good judgment and importance of self discipline needs to be emphasized (Ryan, 2011). The human resources policies of the organisation should be evaluated in details by the Marketing Director so that he can provide the employees with relevant and correct information about how the organisation will handle the issue in case of potential problems (Fisher, 2013). The timing of the conversation is crucial in order to ensure that it does not affect business productivity.
5. In providing guidance to the new manager regarding the performance management in the organisation, it is important that the manager understands the importance of the performance management process for ensuring high productivity and success of the organisation, and also emphasise the impact of the performance management in the career growth path of the employees and managers.
The performance management expectations that the Director will have from the manager can be identified as below. Planning is the first and the foremost step that needs to be organized. Planning would include establishing the purpose of the review, collecting performance data about the employees, reviewing the results of the accomplishments of the employees, identifying the milestones and benchmarks that the employees are expected to meet, evaluating if the employees meet these parameters (Deb, 2006). On the pre-decided date for the review meeting, the manager would review the performance of the employees individually in a private setting. The meeting should encourage open communication, so that it offers opportunity for the employees to present their feedback and defend themselves. The meeting should not be a fault finding session; but it should provide a platform for constructive feedback. A plan of action should be decided for each employee. The minutes of the review meeting should be documented for future use. Interim and regular follow-ups should be done to ensure that the employees are following the plan of actions to improve performance (Deb, 2006). The manager needs to ensure that all the activities of the employees meet the legal requirements. Being fiancé department, it is important that the employees maintain high level of integrity and ethical behaviour.
6. For a job well done by the employees and discussion regarding bonuses and pay rise, the feedback should be communicated in performance appraisal meetings. The interview is organized to encourage open communication between the managers and the employees. It would provide the managers and employees with the opportunity to state their point and make their position clear (Knight, 2011). The goal of the managers in such meetings is to ensure providing constructive feedback and keep the employee motivated and help him consider performing with same productivity for the next year also.
In the given situation, all employees have performed well but resources for giving them rewards for good performance is limited. Breaking such bad news is the most difficult part of a manager’s job. In such situations preparation is the key. The managers need to set expectations early on and lay the ground work. It is important that the correct tone is set for the meeting. Procrastination is major challenge with the bad news (Donnelly, 2011). Using of evasiveness, euphemisms and reassuring language can sound better but does not serve the purpose. So the managers need to be direct and clear (Donnelly, 2011). The management should convey to the employees that they take ownership of the problem and genuinely appraise the employees for their performance. Presenting the company and the management as credible and trustworthy can help in retaining the employees and keep their morale high.
In case of the situation where all employees have shown outstanding performance and resources for rewarding the employees are limited, the managers need to identify the most crucial job roles that have been pivotal or nodal for the performance of the company. For instance, if the key driver for the success of the company is success of a new product or service, the employees from the opportunity identification and new product development team should be considered for rewards and incentives. Moreover, as the financial resources are limited, it is that the company does a trade-off between promotion and rewards. The employees who get promotion for their outstanding performance will not be given any financial rewards and some other employees with exceptional performance who do not get promoted or are not eligible for promotion can be chosen for financial rewards.
If handsome bonuses and raises are affordable, the best way to evaluate the performance of the employees is by benchmarking. The best performance in all departments or similar job profiles can be benchmarked and all employees can be evaluated against the benchmark to decide on who would be eligible for incentives. This will help in identifying the top performers across the organisation.
References
Donnelly, T. How to Deliver Bad News to Employees. Inc. (2011). Web. 10 December 10, 2014. http://www.inc.com/guides/201101/how-to-deliver-bad-news-to-employees.html
Deb, T. Strategic Approach to Human Resource Management. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors., 2006. Print.
Fisher, Annie. Why your office romance is your employer's business. Fortune. (2013). Web. 10 December 10, 2014.http://fortune.com/2013/06/07/why-your-office-romance-is-your- employers-business/
Knight, Rebecca. Delivering an Effective Performance Review. Harvard Business Review. (2011) Web. 10 December 10, 2014. https://hbr.org/2011/11/delivering-an-effective- perfor/
Ryan, Liz. Office Romance: A Manager's Guide. Bloomberg BusinessWeek. (2011). Web. 10 December 10, 2014. http://www.businessweek.com/management/office-romance-a- managers-guide-08092011.html
