Ch10 Evaluating Employee Performance.docx

Chapter 10: Evaluating Employee Performance 1. There are two main constituencies in the performance management system: employees and supervisors. Ans: False Response: There are three main constituencies: employees, appraisers, and organizations. 2. A major advantage to absolute standards is that they tend to be biased by positive leniency. Ans: False Response: Positive leniency is a major disadvantage associated with absolute standards. 3. Relative standard appraisal methods compare the work of employees to each other. Ans: True Response: For instance, grading on a curve. 4. A graphic rating scale is a performance appraisal method that lists traits and a range of performance for each. Ans: True 5. A behaviorally anchored rating scale is a performance appraisal technique that generates critical incidents and develops behavioral dimensions of performance. Ans: True Response: Aka BARS. Multiple Choice 6. Which of the following is the best performance appraisal system? a) Critical incident appraisal b) Checklist appraisal c) Forced-choice appraisal d) Behaviorally anchored rating scale e) None of the above Ans: e Response A: It depends. Response B: It depends. Response C: It depends. Response D: It depends. Response E: Correct! 7. Don, a fast food supervisor, is talking to a new employee, Lydia, about the job. He explains to Lydia that she is expected to take 3 orders per minute, take care of the fryer when the buzzer sounds, and smile at everyone. What part of the performance appraisal process is he performing? a) This is not part of performance appraisal. b) Initiating corrective action. c) Discussing the appraisal with the employee. d) Setting measurable goals. e) Measure actual performance. Ans: d Response A: It is! Response B: No. That’s after she has made some mistakes. Response C: No. That’s after she has done some work. Response D: Correct! Response E: No. Not until she has done some work. 8. Galacion is the HR manager of a medium-sized company. She is redesigning the performance evaluation system of her company. She wants to use an appraisal method that generates critical incidents and develops behavioral dimensions of performance. Which appraisal method should she use? a) Forced-choice appraisal b) Graphic rating scale appraisal c) Checklist appraisal d) BARS e) Paired comparison Ans: d Response A: No. Response B: No. Response C: No. Response D: Correct! Response E: No. 9. Don, manager of a fast food restaurant, is evaluating Lydia, an employee. He has a sheet of paper with a number of grouped statements. He has to pick one of the statements. For instance, Employee greets customers with “smile and eye contact” or “distracted frown.” What method is Don using? a) BARS b) Forced-choice comparison c) Graphic Rating Scale d) Ranking e) Checklist appraisal Ans: b Response A: No. Response B: Correct! Response C: No. That would give a statement such as “Employee is friendly and focused on each customer.” Then a Likert-scale range of responses from poor to excellent would be provided for choice. Response D: No. Response E: No. 10. Don, a fast food manager, is evaluating Lydia, an employee. He has just reported that she is 4th out of 9 employees. What performance evaluation technique did Don use? a) That is not performance evaluation b) BARS c) Forced-choice comparison d) Group order ranking e) Individual ranking Ans: e Response A: It is! Response B: No. Response C: Good guess, but not what this technique is called. Response D: No. That would indicate “top half” or some such. Response E: Correct! 11. Michael is the owner of a small real estate agency in New York City. He has four employees and wants to be able to evaluate each employee against the other employees. Which appraisal technique should Michael use? a) BARS b) Graphic rating scale appraisal c) Paired comparison d) Checklist appraisal e) Forced-choice appraisal Ans: c Response A: No. Response B: No. Response C: Correct! Response D: No. Response E: No. 12. Aimee, a fast food manager, evaluated Juan, a long time employee, “Excellent” on his performance for the year. Juan had been rated “Excellent” in all prior years, but this year he had lots of customer complaints and lots of burned food. What rating error is evident? a) Halo effect b) Central tendency c) MBO d) BARS e) Similarity error Ans: a Response A: Correct! Response B: No. That’s when all employees are rated “Average.” Response C: Not a rating error. Response D: Not a rating error. Response E: Maybe, but we don’t have enough information to know if Aimee sees Juan like or unlike her. 13. Which of the following best describes the halo effect? a) Performance appraisal distortion caused by evaluating employees against one’s own value system. b) The tendency to let our assessment of an individual on one trait influence our evaluation on that person on other specific traits. c) Evaluating employees based on the way an evaluator perceives himself or herself. d) The tendency of a rater to give average ratings. e) The tendency of a rater to give very low ratings. Ans: b Response A: No. Leniency error. Response B: Correct! Response C: No. Similarity error. Response D: No. Central tendency error. Response E: No. It would be called strictness error. 14. What is approximately the percentage of all U.S. organizations using some form of performance evaluations? a) 15% b) 35% c) 50% d) 70% e) 90% Ans: e Response A: No. Response B: No. Response C: No. Response D: No. Response E: Correct! 15. Which of the following is unlikely to be a key factor used in China to evaluate executives? a) Positive attitude b) Industriousness c) Compliance with rules d) Cultural empathy e) Diligence Ans: d Response A: An evaluation focus for executives in China. Response B: An evaluation focus for executives in China. Response C: An evaluation focus for executives in China. Response D: Correct! Response E: An evaluation focus for executives in China.