Case Study on Evaluations Fine Tuning

¶ … Fine-Tuning Let us first consider the case of Tom, who is a comparatively younger person in the whole group consisting of Max, Jim and Lynne. He has recently joined the company and he tries to understand as to the company's practice of assessing the performance of the staff. He wants to understand about the processes and then tries to make sure that whatever he is working or performing is right and has been according to the intended process.

He really wants to know as to how others in the group like Max, Jim and Lynne are really fine tuning their assessment of the staff. After trying to understand about it, Tom wants to know about the approaches which need to be undertaken in the matter of really difficult cases, where not much effort need to be put in, but there are no signs of achievement and performance.

Tom also shows about the situations wherein their method of evaluation or assessment is creating problems which are being carried on to another manager in place of really solving the problem of the individual. Tom realizes that the usual attitude is in terms of inflating the evaluation reports within the scheme of things of the complete group and is anxious to try and assess the outcomes if the opposite strategy was being applied.

After assessing and understanding the matter to a certain extent, he is not in a position to know about the right approach is being undertaken. Finally Tom comes out with his own answer to the activity that needs to be taken by saying "Why not give them the most accurate evaluation and let the chips fall where they may?" Thus Tom seems to be intelligent, honest and does not like making use of his powers as a supervisor to correct individuals.

This shows that he is at his correct competence levels, and it is possible that he might be even encouraged and promoted further. On the other side, we could know that Max is a manager, who is trying to handle individuals and tries to have the best amount of possible outcomes from the group which is under him, and also at the same time, one does not care too much regarding the future results to the company from his activities.

He clearly states "accuracy is not my primary objective when I evaluate my workers." This clearly shows that the individual has an inflated amount of ego and probably thinks that that he is superior to all. His other activities in increasing his ratings so that his sub-ordinates could get the maximum possible merit increases when the company lowered the ceiling on merit increases also points to the same. Probably the organization as a lot of similar individuals with inflated egos.

Max also discusses about the cases of some managers who are inflating their egos to avoid certain individuals who they were not in a position to manage, and this is like trying to run a department according to one's individual choice and not according to the wishes of the management. He also brings down a man's rating levels to get him in line, and again that is a very despotic activity.

He talks of not providing a person 7 when he deserves just two, but that is only an outline of the extent of his extreme levels that he is likely to go to. Basically he is a tyrant as a manager. Question 2 Let us remember that a job is considered to be a job and we need to take certain important actions as a part of this job. It is not considered to be necessary that we need to love all the activities that we have to do.

In several of the work situations individuals need to move through several difficult situations like heat, chemicals, etc. And most of the workers do not love to be present there. In similar terms, a manager need to do several things which he might not like to do, but he has to complete his responsibilities which he may undertake as in other situations, the organization need not run according to the principles on which it is supposed to run.

The principles on the basis of which the organization functions are being determined by the top management levels and they are either a part of the group of persons who have funds being invested in order to build up the organization or are being trusted by the group of the owners and perform like that of a group of trustees. Whatever they decide and order, needs to be followed by the organization as well as its managers.

The next question which is being brought up over here is what would be the nature of the response if one were a VP of the organization. Here the individual concerned tries to be a part of the selected group of managers who are also the trustees of the organization as well and then the responsibilities tend to increase.

If one is of the opinion that the system which consists of evaluations is leading to a considerable amount of fine tuning and the assessments are not giving us a true picture in terms of the employees, then it might seem sensible to put a stop on them. One may not however get the complete picture as being provided by the immediate boss and may be it will provide opportunities to make some individuals to be redundant inside the organization, but it would on the other hand.