Who Is Bill Martin's Athletic Shoe Shop Supervisor

The case is about Bill Martin, a supervisor of Athletic Shoe Shop, has to submit his annual evaluation of his employees to his area manager. Every year around October, this is the time that each supervisor of Athletic Shoe Shop is expected to conduct a performance review for every employee. The company uses a standard form to evaluate employees, which requires each supervisor has to assess carefully each of their employees to have an objective evaluation. Last year, Bill was not adequately evaluating his employees, so he got a warning from his boss, Leslie Hines. In this year, Bill knows that he needs to change to avoid what happened last year.

Responding to the case

1. Why do you think Bill Martin is so concerned about his meeting with
his area manager? Should he change the rating methods he uses to evaluate his employees? Why or why not?
Bill is so concerned about his meeting with his area manager last year because he feels bad about being not adequately evaluating his employees well. He should change the rating methods he uses to evaluate his employees because if he is not, it will cause trouble to his store. For instance, if his employees know whatever they do, they still get the high rating; they will no longer focus on their duties. Also, when comparing the financial result with employees rating, there will be incorrect since Bill doesn’t evaluate properly.

2. What are some of the benefits Bill Martin’s employees get from their performance reviews? What are some drawbacks?
Bill Martin’s employees appear to be excellent workers because Bill Martin scores everyone highly on all categories in the performance evaluations.
This lets the managers know that the entire employee’s under Bill work well and they appear to above average employees, and also get extra bonuses. The drawback is that since all of Bill’s employees are rated so highly, the area managers will expect them to perform extremely well next year. When the next annual review is done, the performance for that year is supposed to be high, but if Bill decides to take time to evaluate carefully, the result might be low. This makes the managers looks down on both Bill and his employees, and causes a chain of problems to Bill’s store. The employees, which are rated high, will no longer care about their responsibilities to the job and take the store fall down from the selling
goal.

3.
What could Bill do to improve the performance evaluation process in his store?
Instead if giving everyone a high score across the board in all criteria, Bill can apply an individual ranking system that forces him to review the individual performance of every employee and compare them to determine who has the highest performance and who has the lowest. This will ensure that there is only one best employee.

4. What are the legal issues Martin and other supervisors need to consider in conducting performance appraisals? Develop a list of guidelines Bill could follow to avoid legal problems?
To minimize legal problems, Bill and other supervisors should make sure that they carefully follow all performance appraisal policies and procedures set forth in the organization’s employee handbook (if it exists) and make every effort to avoid prejudice and discrimination.
List of guidelines:
1. Develop an appraisal form that relates specifically (or can be adapted to relate specifically) to the employee's job
2. Train the evaluators
3. Develop a rating scale
4. Safeguard against inaccuracy
5. Ensure against bias of the evaluator
6. Provide for cross-checks on the
evaluators
7. Provide for the employee's agreement that the job duties on which he has been rated constitute an accurate and complete list of his major job duties
8. Require employees to sign their evaluations after giving them an opportunity to review the evaluation and to comment in writing
9. Provide for appeals on grievances
10. Timing of evaluations
11. Review performance evaluations for adverse impact
12. Follow whatever system or procedure has been established to the letter, and carefully refrain from any actions or statements in performance evaluations that connote a