Problem
Jean anxiously waited outside the door of her manager. Today was performance appraisal day and Jean had no idea of what awaited her. It was the one year anniversary of her employment. As a human resource clerk, Jean enjoyed dealing with the employees at Grape Technologies. The company was very profitable and had recently secured several military contracts. This resulted in the company expanding from 50 employees to nearly 200 over the past year. The influx of employees had kept Jean very busy as she created employee files, met with employees to complete the necessary paperwork and helped to orient the employees to the company. Jean thought of herself as a creative person and so she had taken upon herself to create and distribute an employee newsletter to all employees. This newsletter outlined some of the new HR initiatives and some of the happy news (e.g. when employees have new additions to their family). Jean also prided herself on taking the time to properly address employee questions and concerns. This resulted in her working unpaid overtime as she would complete her paperwork in the quiet hours when most employees have left for the day. Jean didn't realize how much typing would be involved in her job. She was not a quick typist and tended to still "hunt and peck" to find the letters on the keyboard. Jean hoped that with practice she could learn to type faster.
Jean was hoping she would get a good performance rating from her boss, Malcolm Brown. Malcolm was the HR manager at Grape Technologies. Malcolm had worked as an engineer at Grape Technologies for 12 years before assuming the role of HR manager. Despite not having an HR background, Malcolm recognized the need for a proper HR department. Malcolm was liked and respected by the employees and had a reputation of dealing fairly, efficiently and effectively with all employees.
Malcolm felt frustration in his current role. Malcolm felt there just weren't enough hours in the day to get everything done. He felt he spent his days barely keeping his head above the flood of paperwork resulting from all the new hires. He spent so much time hiring new employees it left very little time to focus on thinking strategically about his new role. Malcolm had designed the following performance management system. Each supervisor rated their subordinates with a simple 1-5 rating scale (1 being unacceptable and 5 being excellent). A performance rating bonus of $1,000 was paid for a 3 rating, $2,000 for a 4 rating and $3,000 for a 5 rating. No bonus was paid for those scoring a 1 or 2 rating.
Malcolm's immediate concern was what to do about Jean. Jean was one of the nicest people he'd ever worked with. She was conscientious, thoughtful and very dedicated. However, there were two concerns about Jean's work. First, her typing was very slow and it seemed to take her much longer than it should to complete routine paperwork. Furthermore, Malcolm had had some complaints from employees. Apparently they felt Jean took too long when talking with them. A simple question or request would lead to a five to ten minute conversation and people were expressing frustration. Lastly, Malcolm felt frustration at Jean for spending too much time performing activities that weren't in her job description such as the employee newsletter. Since she spent so much time on the newsletter, she had to rush to complete her other job functions.
Malcolm felt that Jean deserved a 2 out of 5 on her performance appraisal but he didn't want to demotivate her. He sat in his office trying to decide how to handle this situation. He felt that being honest would hurt Jean. But was it fair to her to lead to her to believe that everything was fine?
Task
A. What should Malcolm do about Jean?
B. What HR-related recommendations would you make for Grape Technologies?
C. What, if any training, would you recommend for Jean and Malcolm?
D. Provide a sample SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timebound) performance objective for Jean.