Whats My Raise?

Maria Hernandez was promoted to supervisor just three months ago for the bookkeeping department for a large Midwestern property management company. Maria has been told by human resources that her annual performance reviews must be completed for all her employees in the next week. She doesnt feel comfortable in making salary recommendations since she has been in her job only a short time. Sadly, the previous supervisor she replaced has left the company and is unavailable for consultation. To make matters worse, that supervisor kept incomplete records regarding employee performance.

HR has told Maria that she has quite a bit of flexibility as there are no hard and fast rules about what raises can be awarded to each individual employee. Maria's boss told her that her teams share of total amount of money available for raises would be 4 percent of the groups total payroll for the past year. In other words, if the sum total of the salaries for all of Maria's employees was $100,000 Maria would have $4,000 to allocate for raises. Maria is free to distribute the raises just about any way she wants, within reason.

After doing quite a bit of digging in her predecessors files, Maria has found the following information on each of her employees. She has also made notes on her observations during her short time as supervisor.

Keisha Battle. As far as Maria can tell, Keisha is one of her best employees. Her previous performance appraisals also indicate she is a superior performer. In addition, Maria knows Keisha badly needs a substantial salary increase due to some personal problems. In addition, all of Maria's employees are aware of Keishas problems. She appears to be well respected by her coworkers. Present salary: $35,000.

Barbara Carrera. Barbara has been on the job for three years. Her previous performance appraisals have indicated superior performance. However, Maria does not believe the previous evaluations are accurate. She thinks Barbaras performance is average at best. Barbara appears to be well liked by all of her coworkers. Just last year she became widowed and is presently the sole supporter of her five-year-old child. Present salary: $38,000.

Rathin Patel. Rathin has been with Maria's department for only four months. In fact, he was hired just before Maria was promoted into the supervisors job. Rathin is single and seems to be a carefree bachelor. His job performance so far has been above average, but Maria has received some negative comments about Rathin from his coworkers. Present salary: $36,000.

Edgar Whitcome. Edgar has been performing his present job for eight years. The job is more technical than that of other members of the work group, and Edgar would be difficult to replace. However, as far as Maria can discern, Edgar is not a good employee. He is irritable and hard to work with. In spite of this, Edgar has received above-average pay increases for the past two years. Present salary: $40,000.

Iris White. Iris has been on the job for four years. Her previous performance appraisals were all average. In addition, she has received below-average increases for the past two years. However, Iris recently approached Maria and told her she feels she was discriminated against in the past due to both her age and her sex. Maria believes Iriss work so far has been satisfactory but not superior. Most employees do not seem to sympathize with Iriss accusations of sex and age discrimination. Present salary: $34,000.

Questions

1. How much is the total pool of raises available to Maria?

2. What criteria should Maria use in determining the size of the raises?

3. If you were Maria, what size raise would you give each of these employees?

4. How would the employees feel about the raises you allocated if they discovered the amount everyone received?

5. If you knew the raise figures would be shared with all employees, would that change your recommendations? Why or why not? If yes, how?