Case: Appraising the Secretaries at Sweetwater University    

 

Rob Winchester, newly appointed vice president for administrative affairs at Sweetwater State University, faced a tough problem shortly after his university career began. Three weeks after he came on board in September, Sweetwater\\\\\\\'s president, Rob\\\\\\\'s boss, told Rob that one of his first tasks was to improve the appraisal system used to evaluate secretarial and clerical performance at Sweetwater U. Apparently, the main difficulty was that the performance appraisal was traditionally tied directly to salary increases given at the end of the year. So most administrators were less than accurate when they used the graphic rating forms that were the basis of the clerical staff evaluation. In fact, what usually happened was that each administrator simply rated his or her clerk or secretary as \\\\\\\"excellent.\\\\\\\" This cleared the way for all support staff to receive a maximum pay increase every year.

But the current university budget simply did not include enough money to fund another \\\\\\\"maximum\\\\\\\" annual increase for every staffer. Furthermore, Sweetwater\\\\\\\'s president felt that the custom of providing invalid feedback to each secretary on his or her year\\\\\\\'s performance was not productive, so he had asked the new vice president to revise the system. In October, Rob sent a memo to all administrators telling them that in the future no more than half the secretaries reporting to any particular administrator could be appraised as \\\\\\\"excellent.\\\\\\\" This move, in effect, forced each supervisor to begin ranking his or her secretaries for quality of performance. The vice president\\\\\\\'s memo met widespread resistance immediately—from administrators, who were afraid that many of their secretaries would begin leaving for more lucrative jobs in private industry; and from secretaries, who felt that the new system was unfair and reduced each secretary\\\\\\\'s chance of receiving a maximum salary increase. A handful of secretaries had begun quietly picketing outside the president\\\\\\\'s home on the university campus. The picketing, caustic remarks by disgruntled administrators, and rumors of an impending slowdown by the secretaries (there were about 250 on campus) made Rob Winchester wonder whether he had made the right decision by setting up forced ranking. He knew, however, that there were a few performance appraisal experts in the School of Business, so he decided to set up an appointment with them to discuss the matter.

He met with them the next morning. He explained the situation as he had found it: The present appraisal system had been set up when the university first opened 10 years earlier, and the appraisal form had been developed primarily by a committee of secretaries. Under that system, Sweetwater\\\\\\\'s administrators filled out forms similar to the one shown in Figure 1. This once-a-year appraisal (in March) had run into problems almost immediately, since it was apparent from the start that administrators varied widely in their interpretations of job standards, as well as in how conscientiously they filled out the forms and supervised their secretaries. Moreover, at the end of the first year it became obvious to everyone that each secretary\\\\\\\'s salary increase was tied directly to the March appraisal. For example, those rated \\\\\\\"excellent\\\\\\\" received the maximum increases, those rated \\\\\\\"good\\\\\\\" received smaller increases, and those given neither rating received only the standard across-the-board, cost-of-living increase. Since universities in general—and Sweetwater in particular—have paid secretaries somewhat lower salaries than those prevailing in private industry, some secretaries left in a huff that first year. From that time on, most administrators simply rated all secretaries excellent in order to reduce staff turnover, thus ensuring each a maximum increase. In the process, they also avoided the hard feelings aroused by the significant performance differences otherwise highlighted by administrators. 

Five Sweetwater School of Business experts agreed to consider the problem, and in one week they came back to the vice president with the following recommendations. 

Figure 1: Graphic Rating Scale

                        

	Excellent	Good	Fair	Poor
Quality of work
Quantity of work
Creativity
Integrity

 

Questions 

You are one of the experts who has agreed to consider the problem. What problems did you identify with the current performance appraisal system at Sweetwater University? 

What performance appraisal system will you develop for the secretaries? Highlight a few key points of the changes you will suggest (suggest at least 2 – 3 changes).