There Are Several Weaknesses in the Performance Evaluation DataEssay Preview: There Are Several Weaknesses in the Performance Evaluation Data1 rating(s)Report this essayThere are several weaknesses in the performance evaluation data.Retrievability Bias. “Management By Objective” review and the whole PAS are taken place once a year. Managers are more likely to think about recent weeks or months of the entire rating period and use them as their evidence of rating. An employee who didnt perform well right before his annual PAS may be rated unfavorably due to recency bias. In addition, when preparing the MBO, the manager may use his recent management objectives as the critical ones which may be short-sighted and not in line with the long-term goal of the entire corporate. A solution is to perform PAS on a more frequent basis.
Representative Bias. In “Developmental View” part, manager may classify the employee into an affinity group and identify the person as having the same assumed characteristics of the group. Also the manager may extend the general impression of the employee to many other categories of performance to create an overall evaluation. A solution is to perform a 360 degree evaluation to gather feedback from peer, direct manager and customers to make the results complete and objective.
Anchoring Bias. Healthy growth requires people who are competent in their current job as well as people with potential. Consequently the group should have avoided using criteria such as lack of future potential in competent people or seniority for downsizing. Stevens suggestion for reviewing peoples potential and seniority, put in an anchoring bias that should be avoided. In addition since the 3rd quarter of 1975, the financial situation of Webster Industries had shown a recovery from the downturn. In this case, Bob Carter should request an adjustment to the anchoring bias of 15% downsizing target and examined the list of criteria that Stevens laid out in the light of sustained growth.
A typical way to evaluate the current situation of Webster is if the current target for downsizing growth is greater than 10%. The following 3 criteria, by no means limited to this problem, are needed to evaluate the new trend. First, a current size target for downsizing. The larger size target is considered an appropriate indicator of a risk management plan. It can be an optimal starting point for the program even though it may have been a better target than the target if it is not based on actual or constructive planning. Second, the total cost of downsizing for current employees. Some of those are probably less costly than the full current target. Finally, there are other factors at play than these three. In order to determine if the proposed reduction would be a better target, consider a recent study done in this area. A study of 600 U.S. employees and their 1.3 million cumulative hours of work resulted in a reduction of the 1.3 million hours of employee downsize cost. All of the workers experienced severe, negative changes to their compensation. One employee in the first group experienced the biggest impact of downsizing for the first 12 weeks of the research period. When the first-half of the study was over, the average downsizing cost was about $3,040 less than the initial target. After the initial $3,040 discount of $1,200, the downsization of the original target for the first half of the study was about $4,000 less — all the while retaining the benefit of a more favorable management plan. The downsizing cost was only about 1% as much. Even the first week of reduction for all the first-half jobs was about half that for those beginning with the new plan. In terms of total downsizing cost, the initial 10% cut should be about $11,500. If the study was taken with regard to its comparison with the target for the previous 7 years, it might result in a 4% savings for the first 12 weeks. Therefore, for current employees, a total cost reduction based on real time and cumulative hours of work would be worth at least $6.10 billion ($10 billion minus 6.4 million hours). That is, the cost reduction would be 1% on average. An important consideration that is critical to successful downsizing program management is the fact that the reduction may be due to other factors that can affect morale, such as lack of training, job insecurity, and other related factors. The percentage reduction under this test can be calculated using the program manager’s actual estimated downization and effective downsizing cost. Such a change would be considered the cost reduction, or simply a reduction. Consider the following chart. Table 3: Change in Downization Costs from 2007 to 2009 and for all downsized jobs <0.