Family Owned Funeral Home Adopt Performance Appraisals?

¶ … family owned Funeral Home adopt performance appraisals? When dealing with a topic as sensitive as death, it can be difficult to know how to proceed with different families. The standardized implications of formal performance appraisals might seem to be counterintuitive to the nature of a family-based funeral parlor, especially if family members would be doing the critiquing during the meeting. But in a service-based industry, appraisals of individual and collective performance are still key to overall organizational responsiveness to the industry's shifts and the multifaceted needs of clients.

There is, perhaps, "a basic human tendency to make judgments about those one is working with, as well as about oneself," and so a performance appraisal, it seems, is an inevitable and universal need in all businesses.

(Dulewicz, 1996, cited in "Introduction: Performance Appraisal," 2005) "In the absence of a carefully structured system of appraisal, people will tend to judge the work performance of others, including subordinates," and even family, "naturally, informally and arbitrarily." ("Introduction: Performance Appraisal," 2005) One simple way to do such an appraisal as a family might be to have the subordinate staff members meet and discuss with their superiors as to what they could have done better, in terms of offering clients a variety of options regarding the conferences proceeding service, a review of how the staff conducted themselves during the service itself, and to discern any possible ways to make the functioning of the business better, and conduct a narrative or essay-based evaluation of the overall performance.

(Hansen, 2005) Also, the organization could send a follow-up letter to those family members who utilized the service, expressing the funeral parlor's condolences, and asking, if he family felt comfortable, for a review of the services.

This could serve as a guide for modifying potential deficits in individual and collective service, as well as a guide as to what to continue to do, to ensure quality service, and possibly creating a list of things clients look for, to create a more standardized set of performance standards for employees, especially if the organization wishes to expand to include non-family members at any point.

Question 2 Do performance appraisals motivate employees? Why or Why not? "Early motivational researchers became aware that "different people with roughly equal work abilities could be paid the same amount of money and yet have quite different levels of motivation and performance. These observations were confirmed in empirical studies. Pay rates were important, yes; but they were not the only element that had an impact on employee performance.

It was found that other issues, such as morale and self-esteem, could also have a major influence." ("Introduction: Performance Appraisal," 2005) The performance appraisal process can help to motivate employees to succeed, if they appear to be objective, accurate, and fair. However, conducting reviews upon higher skilled or technical employees can prove much more difficult than doing them for employees that are performing routine or production oriented tasks.

For production employees, developmental aspects and expectations for job growth are typically not as great and success can be more easily measured than for higher placed employees, and thus appraisals may be more easily determined. (Hansen, 2005) However, such employees may also be less ambitious, and ambitious employees who have just completed difficult tasks want and need to know that their performance and excellence was appreciated and noted.

Question 3 What are some common problems when administering employee relation policies in an organization? Two serious flaws in the traditional approach to performance appraisal exist. The flaws are: "Organizational performance appraisal is typically primarily concerned with the past rather than being forward looking through the use of setting objectives or goals," and can create a sense of satisfaction in an unproductive way.

Or, performance appraisals are "usually tied to the employees' salary review," or promotion prospects Dealing with salary generally overwhelms and blocks "creative, meaningful, or comprehensive consideration of performance goals," diverting the focus to money or what the employee will be doing in his or her professional future in the long-term, rather than ideas that the employee may have to immediately increase productivity in the organization itself.

(Hansen, 2005) What is HR's role in maintaining effective working relationships with unions and can HR develop proactive employee relations polices that can reduce the likelihood of union organization. To create a proactive employee relations in a non-unionized workplace, using performance reviews to creatively and openly solicit grievances and suggestions about the organization, treating the employee as an equal player rather.