You’ve been appointed to a task force with the mission of coming up with ways to improve your organizations human resource strategy. Top management has bought into the idea that the people in their organization are a source of competitive advantage and they want you to think about ways the organization can improve in this area. Your organization is a large corporation that includes employees in a wide range of occupations from clerical and secretarial work, to sales, to knowledge work, and everything in between. One of your colleagues on the task force has been learning about pay-for-performance systems and is all in on the idea. That colleague goes so far as to suggest that all aspects of your companys human resource strategy should be focused on employee production and pay-for-performance. For example, pay would be based solely on how much each employee produces. Employee performance appraisals would only focus on how much an employee produced. Hiring decisions would be made with a sole focus on applicants production potential. a. Do you agree with your colleagues suggestion to link employees pay to their production, and why? Would this be an effective way to motivate employees? Can you envision any potential downsides or feasibility issues? b. Based on your understanding of what job performance is, do you agree with your colleague that employees job performance appraisals should be based only on how much they produce? Do you think a wider range of employee behaviors should considered? If so, what classes or dimensions of behaviors do you think are important to consider when assessing employees job performance (i.e., what behaviors differentiate poor vs. average vs. excellent performing employees)? Can you think of advantages or disadvantages to focusing on employee behavior versus production? c. Based on your answer to (b) about what job performance is and the types of behaviors that contribute to employee job performance, what individual differences would you suggest your organization should consider assessing in job applicants when making hiring decisions?
