HRM textbook

316 PART 3 TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
TRANSLATING STRATEGY INTO HR POLICIES & PRACTICES CASE
THE HOTEL PARIS CASE
The New Performance Management System
The Hotel Paris s competitive strategy is To use superior
guest service to differentiate the Hotel Paris properties, and
to thereby increase the length of stay and return rate of
guests, and thus boost revenues and profitability. HR manager
Lisa Cruz must now formulate functional policies and
activities that support this competitive strategy by eliciting
the required employee behaviors and competencies.
Lisa knew that the Hotel Paris s performance appraisal
system was archaic. When the founders opened their first
hotel, they went to an office-supply store and purchased a
pad of performance appraisal forms. The hotel chain uses
these to this day. Each form is a two-sided page. Supervisors
indicate whether the employee s performance in terms of
various standard traits including quantity of work, quality
of work, and dependability was excellent, good, fair, or
poor. Lisa knew that, among other flaws, this appraisal tool
did not force either the employee or the supervisor to focus
the appraisal on the extent to which the employee was
helping the Hotel Paris to achieve its strategic goals. She
wanted a system that focused the employee s attention on
taking those actions that would contribute to helping
the company achieve its goals, for instance, in terms of
improved customer service.
Lisa and her team also wanted a performance management
system that focused on both competencies and objectives.
In designing the new system, their starting point was
the job descriptions they had created for the hotel s employees.
These descriptions each included required competencies.
Consequently, using a form similar to Figure 9-5 (pages
292 293), the front-desk clerks appraisals now focus on
competencies such as able to check a guest in or out in
5 minutes or less. Most service employees appraisals include
the competency, able to exhibit patience and guest support
even when busy with other activities. There were other required
competencies. For example, the Hotel Paris wanted all service
employees to show initiative in helping guests, to be customeroriented,
and to be team players (in terms of sharing information
and best practices). Each of these competencies derives
from the hotel s aim of becoming more service-oriented.
Questions
1. Choose one job, such as front-desk clerk. Based on any
information you have (including job descriptions you may
have created in other chapters), write a list of duties, competencies,
and performance standards for that chosen job.
2. Based on that, create a performance appraisal form for
appraising that job.
KEY TERMS
performance appraisal, 284
performance appraisal process, 285
performance management, 286
graphic rating scale, 290
alternation ranking method, 294
paired comparison method, 294
forced distribution method, 294
critical incident method, 295
behaviorally anchored rating
scale (BARS), 296
electronic performance
monitoring (EPM), 301
unclear standards, 303
halo effect, 303
central tendency, 303
strictness/leniency, 303
bias, 304
appraisal interview, 306
ENDNOTES
1. http://trw.com/, accessed June 1, 2011.
2. D. Bradford Neary, Creating a Company-
Wide, Online, Performance Management
System: A Case at TRW, Inc., Human
Resource Management 41, no. 4 (Winter
2002), pp. 491 498.
3. Experts debate the pros and cons of tying
appraisals to pay decisions. One side argues
that doing so distorts the appraisals.
A recent study concludes the opposite.
Based on an analysis of surveys from over
24,000 employees in more than 6,000
workplaces in Canada, the researchers
concluded: (1) linking the employees pay to
their performance appraisals contributed
to improved pay satisfaction; (2) even when
appraisals are not directly linked to pay, they
apparently contributed to pay satisfaction,
probably through mechanisms related
to perceived organizational justice ; and
(3) whether or not the employees received
performance pay, individuals who do
not receive performance appraisals are
significantly less satisfied with their pay.
Mary Jo Ducharme et al., Exploring the
Links Between Performance Appraisals
and Pay Satisfaction, Compensation and
Benefits Review, September/October 2005,
pp. 46 52. See also Robert Morgan, Making
the Most of Performance Management
Systems, Compensation and Benefits Review,
September/October 2006, pp. 22 27.
4. www.ball.com/page.jsp?page=1, accessed
June 1, 2011.
5. Aligning People and Processes for Performance
Improvement , T*D 65, no. 3
(March 2011), p. 80.
6. Ibid.
7. Peter Glendinning, Performance
Management: Pariah or Messiah, Public
Personnel Management 31, no. 2 (Summer
2002), pp. 161 178. See also Herman Aguinis,
Performance Management (Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall 2007), p. 2.
8. Herman Aguinis, Performance Management
(Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson,
2009), pp. 3 4
9. Ibid., p. 3.