Southfield Packaging Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

Question 01: Discuss how performance appraisals relate to other core HRM practices such as Job Analysis, Training and Development, and Compensation.

Performance appraisal is a major driving force to actually motivate employees and bring the best out of them. Performance appraisal is directly related to many human resource management practices such as job analysis, training and development and compensation. Performance appraisal supports job analysis in a way that in all organizations, the employees knows that if they perform their job in an efficient manner and if they will perform more than the expectations of the employer than they will receive appraisals.

This is rather a direct relationship between the job analysis and appraisals. While performing a job employee is given certain guidelines and they are if achieved or crossed; it makes the employee eligible for bonus and appraisal, therefore it can be said that the two are directly proportional to one another. On the other hand, training and development is necessary if the employee is unable to achieve specific task in a company. If an employee is unable to outperform in order to become eligible for appraisal than he needs to be trained, therefore again it is a fact or a concept that with adequate and effective training of employees one can make his work force eligible for the monetary and non-monetary rewards.

Lastly, compensations to employees are given on their high or improved performance. If an employee within an organization has shown improvement and has surpassed the expectations, fair rewards are provided to the employee. This is a motivating factor for each employee because he knows that the company values his efforts and they are keen to retain him at the company for a long time.

Therefore, it can be said that the performance appraisal is rather linked to the compensation, job analysis, training and development in quite a few ways. It is an objective of the human resource management to link these attributes to one another.

Question 02: What is your evaluation of the appraisal process (Southfield Performance Reviews or “SPRs”) at Southfield? Is the instrument well designed? Is the required performance interview a good idea? What changes, if any, would you recommend to improve its effectiveness?

The current appraisal process at Southfield was quite an effective one. The reason for it being a good observer and the decision maker for the company was because it had the ingredients and the criteria which were actually beneficial before evaluating the performance of the subordinate. The idea of SPR files was a good one, where the extra ordinary effort and performance were saved by the manager. These files may include the presentations for the client, email response to a specific query, etc.

Basically, the evaluation method is quite clear where it judges the performance of employees on a certain criteria which help the managers decide the future of the employee at Southfield in terms of pay rise, bonus allocation, etc. Therefore, the evaluation appraisal process SPR is quite an effective method. Another major advantage of this appraisal system is that eventually the employee gets the chance to discuss his performance with the manager directly.

They interacted for two hours in the meeting where the manager highlights the outstanding performance of the employee and the shortcomings in a one on one discussion. It is a rather effective idea because eventually employee will always have this concern that they are not appreciated in terms of growth and bonus as they should have been treated, therefore a meeting with the subordinate or the employee can serve as the bridge between the manager and employee.

Although the interview criteria are quite good and it highlights all the minute details of the employee, but there are some issues in its judgment criteria which needs to be rectified and in fact reanalyzed. For instance, the management should inform each employee the criteria which will be observed while evaluating the performance of each employee.

As for now, it is not clear as to what specific judgment criteria does the manager observes while performance evaluation. Therefore, it is necessary to communicate the system to each employee. Secondly, while performance evaluation method; along with the manager the director of the specific department should also attend the meeting of performance evaluation. The reason for this suggestion is simple; it is a possibility that the manager might evaluate the performance of an employee based on his personal likes and dislikes..............................