Jerome had been working in an accounting department for nine months and has not received much feedback from his supervisor

These five factors lead to the instructors perceiving high meaningfulness in their

work where they are responsible for outcomes (student grades) and acquire knowledge of results (how the students perform as well as how the instructor performs).

This, in turn, leads to overall job satisfaction, internal motivation, higher performance and lower absenteeism and turnover.

Enhancing the motivational potential could occur through increasing autonomy and feedback to their highest levels possible.

152. Jerome had been working in an accounting department for nine months and has not received much feedback from his supervisor. What steps could he undertake to increase the feedback he is receiving?

Jerome can first seek the feedback, instead of trying to guess how he is doing. Jerome’s manager will become aware that Jerome cares about his performance and wants to be successful.

Jerome needs to be genuine in his desire to learn. He does not want to suggest to the manager that he is only giving an impression of being motivated, but is sincerely interested in improving his performance.

Jerome needs to develop a good relationship with his manager so that he can ask questions about his performance.

Jerome should also find trustworthy peers who can share information regarding his performance.

Finally, Jerome should be gracious in receiving his feedback.

153. Matilda is a new sales manager in a pharmaceutical organization. She decides that she wants to implement an MBO (management by objectives) approach in that department. Describe the steps she will complete to institute such a program.

Matilda will begin the process by setting company-wide goals derived from the pharmaceutical organization’s strategy. From that, team- and department-level goals are set. Next individual level goals will be collaboratively set between Matilda and her employee. Both Matilda and the employee must ensure that the goals are aligned with corporate strategy. Once the goals are set, an action plan is developed and implemented. Periodically, performance is reviewed and goals revised as needed.

154. Brett has been a manager of the accounting department for eight months now. He will be holding his first performance appraisal meetings in the next few days. Describe some ways in which he could enhance the effectiveness of those performance appraisal meetings.

Present feedback in a constructive manner, focusing not on criticizing the person, but on discussing performance problems.

Increase employee participation throughout the meeting. When employees have the opportunity to present their side of the story, they react more positively to the overall appraisal process and feel the system to be fair.

Be knowledgeable about the employee’s performance and the job that is being evaluated.

Prepare before the actual meeting. You might have the employee complete a self-appraisal. The rater definitely should have his form completed before the meeting with specific examples of each kind of behavior evaluated indicated on that form. Also, handle all the logistics of that meeting, including having sufficient time to actually conduct the meeting.

During the actual meeting, show empathy and support for the employee. One way to do so is to avoid opening the meeting with a criticism of the employee. Keep in mind that criticism of performance is acceptable but not of the person.

After the meeting, make a conscious attempt to maintain a steady feedback schedule with the employee and to follow through on all goals set during the appraisal meeting.

155. Harvard uses a forced choice ranking system in evaluating a number of classes in its business curriculum. In this system, for example, 10% of the students might receive As, 20% Bs, 60% Cs and 10% Ds. Discuss the issues surrounding such a grading system.

Students admitted to Harvard are already outstanding students or high performers. To then place them in a situation where they are forced into recognition that some of them are not high performers, but essentially “failures” is problematic. While some students clearly will not be able to make the transition from high school to Harvard, a large number of them will. To assume that only 10% of them will perform well enough to receive As is a bit of a stretch. Those students who have worked very hard and do not receive the grades they believe they deserve due to these artificial standards could experience a real lack of motivation. In general, this system may be counterproductive in the educational setting.

156. Discuss an incentive system that an inner city school system might use to motivate teachers.

Merit pay is an incentive system being considered by a number of school systems. The system involves giving employees a permanent increase in pay based upon past performance. The notion of how to measure such performance in the education setting is, of course, controversial. Some options being instituted include rewarding teachers for increased standardized test scores and higher graduation rates. A formula is established whereby for every point higher a class scores on a standardized test compared to the previous year, a certain bonus is paid.

157. Discuss some of the research findings on goal setting and ethical behavior.

In general, goal setting and rewarding employees for achievement of those goals  are successfully implemented by firms. However, in some settings, unintended consequences arise where unethical behavior arises. If goal accomplishment leads to rewards and the rewards are desirable, employees may feel they have only two choices: work hard to achieve the goals, or cheat.

There is a multitude of examples of unethical behavior undertaken by employees to achieve desirable rewards. Sanitation workers have taken trucks far over their legal limit to landfills, car repair places have found phantom problems with cars brought in for a check-up and CEOs have exercised stock options at questionable times, to provide just a few examples.

To address some of these concerns, it has been proposed that reward achievement not be an all-or-nothing proposition, but that various reward levels be established to address those who fall just short of the established goal.

158. Discuss some of the research on goal setting and performance appraisal in other cultures.

There are differences in the motivational impact of goal setting, depending on the culture in question. American employees need challenging but not difficult goals to be motivated. The Chinese, in contrast, are more motivated when the goals are difficult.

Specific goals motivate salespeople from Western cultures. Again, in China, low-specificity goals are more motivational.