Organizational behavior v 2.0 by talya bauer and berrin erdogan

Introduction

Company Information

University pointe is belonging to American campus community (ACC), American campus already manages approximately 200 properties with over 130,000 beds, many in partnership with universities on campus property. American campus community is a largest developer, owner, and manager the high-quality students on-campus housing communities in the national. American campus community is not only providing great living space and great amenities also giving students the resources and environment to be succeed on the academically and personally. Their goal is deliver the best possible experience for students at every price point. American campus community is professional student housing community; they know where students love to live, and put students first as their values. American campus community (ACC) was co-found by Bill Bayless, he began his career as a resident assistant and turned his dedication to student success into the company he runs today. ACC's senior corporate staff of twenty-five members began their careers as resident assistants, and most of the management staff first time to join the ACC community as students working.

Findings

At University Pointe they have one performance appraisal each year (Ian). A performance appraisal is “a process in which a rater or raters evaluate the performance of another employee” (Bauer). The process should “provide adequate feedback to support employee development,” serve as a basis for modifying behaviors to produce more effective work, and provide useful information to supervisors (Vasset). Another researcher, David Law, suggests that there are five main parts to a performance appraisal. First, the individual’s performance behaviors or traits are judged by someone. These ratings are usually scheduled, so most of the time they are not directly after a particular task or project. The ratings are often not applied to the individual themselves, but to the department or organization instead. The appraisal is often tied to some reward. And lastly, the information is kept in the employee’s file about them (Law). Law goes on to say that the benefits of such a system are to provide useful information to employers and improve individual feedback, as well as determine pay raises or downsizing. However, Law also determines that performance appraisal systems are heavily despised by both employee and employer.

According to Froydis Vasset, in his research of employees’ perceptions of justice in performance appraisals, he determines that performance appraisals have been perceived as unfair and biased. Therefore, for performance appraisals to be effective, the best way to make sure they are perceived as fair is if they are “transparent and explained sufficiently” beforehand so that employees know what to work towards, “gather evidence rather than express personal bias, and allow employees to present their own views and point out the elements of PAs they have perceived to be unfair” (Vasset). It is also important, that before assigning blame to an individual, appraisers must determine whether certain situations were the effect of “personal or systematic reasons” (Law). Another aspect to making sure they fair is to make sure that the appraisal is up to date with the company’s goals and the improvement of the company (Daoanis). And, huge attributor to appraisal fairness is two-way communication, according to Benson et al.

In order for a performance appraisal system to be most effective in creating higher worker performance, empowerment, and development, there must be a reward or consequence (Daoanis). Just like if there is no clear criteria for which an employee knows they will be rated on, an employee will not have high motivation to perform a certain way if they know that there is not going to be a particular outcome for either good or bad performance.

Lastly, there must be an efficient follow up meeting for the performance appraisal (Bauer). This part of the performance appraisal is directly related to employee development and “is the best way to bring improvement to success” (Daoanis). During the meeting, it is important to start with positive performance before talking about the criticisms (Bauer). It is also important to hear the employee out and let them point out what elements of the appraisal they see to be unfair, as well as other administrative issues (Vasset). Finally, together, employee and employer should set goals and a plan for action (Bauer).

According to our interview findings from employees of University Point, we can determine that overall, the employees are not happy with the current performance appraisal system. To begin with, all respondents said that the appraisal is given once a year. Because the performance appraisal is only offered once a year, the appraisal lacks time effectiveness when it comes to events that employees needed helpful feedback for (Ian). Ian also said, “some appraisals discussed an accident that happened over six months in the past that you had forgotten about” and therefore, did not help them in handling the situation since. Because there are no bonuses awarded or consequences given for appraisals, there is really no incentive to have appraisals with feedback just once a year. Ian also implied that sometimes the manager’s resort to passive emails as a means to delivering the feedback. Other interviewees also said that the evaluations do not offer helpful feedback (TK), they’re not properly trained after criticism (Ian), and overall, they lesson work performance because of the frustrating criticism that they receive (Alexis).

This brings up fairness. Employees at University Pointe also perceive the evaluations to be unfair. Employees believe that the appraisal does not have clear criteria, and a lot of the time they are criticized for things that are out of their control (Alexis). When the feedback is offered face to face, the appraiser does not keep an open mind or seem to value the reciprocal feedback of the person being appraised and therefore it is a bad environment for employees to “express concerns that [employees] may have with the managers” (TK).

Expectancy theory: “is a process theory of motivation, suggesting that expenditure of an individual’s effort will be determined by expected outcomes and the value placed on such outcomes in a person’s mind” (HSIU-LI). It is consisted of three parts which are: expectancy, instrumentality, and valence. Expectancy is: “a person’s estimate of the probability that job-related effort will result in a given level of performance.” Instrumentality is: “an individual’s estimate of the probability that a given level of achieved task performance will lead to various work outcomes.” And valence is: “the strength of an employee’s preference for a particular reward” (Lunenburg).

In order for employees at an organization to be motivated to put forth their effort, they must have both high expectancy and instrumentality and find the reward system they are offered desirable. Increasing expectancy could be through offering training sessions in order for employees to have the proper skills for the job and assuring employees that their effort is making a difference. Instrumentality could be increased through rewarding employees’ performance and making sure that employees are aware and have knowledge of the rewards. Finally, valence could be increased through rewarding employees with something they desire and giving them choice (HSIU-LI).

After interviewing University Pointe employees, we found out that all employees have a common feeling that they are not provided with the appropriate training prior to starting doing tasks in the organization. According to TK’s interview, University Pointe does not train employees as well as they should for the job and it takes a while for new employees to feel equipped for the tasks. Lack of training and not receiving appropriate training lead to low expectancy for employees (Lunenburg). This is harmful for organizations because employees will be confused when doing their tasks and won’t be as productive as if they received decent training.

Moreover, At University Pointe, employees believe that their efforts at work do not lead to outcomes they desire or find it motivational to put in more effort. All the employees we interviewed agreed that the only motivation that drives them is receiving good recommendations from current managers for future jobs. They are not incentivized to help the organization succeed and become a better workplace. When we asked Alexis during the interview about incentives for giving her best performance, she replied that University Pointe does not incentivize their employees and she is considering trying to stay with the company and moving to a higher position so her only incentive to perform well is so that she may have a good recommendation from her current managers (Alexis). However, when we asked Ian about incentives at University Pointe, he replied that you get a shout out during weekly meetings for giving your best performance and you sometimes receive gift cards for hitting certain benchmarks from the management (Ian). According to expectancy theory, University Pointe employees have low expectancy and instrumentality due to the lack of motivation and incentives to perform well (Lunenburg). Incentives provided by University Pointe are not defined and unclear to the employees and sometimes they are not desirable to employees. Overall, employee motivation at University Pointe is very low.

Recommendations

Based on the feedback we received from interviewing several employees from University Pointe, we have developed a recommended plan of action for the management which addresses the organizational behavior concerns of the staff. We have recommendations in three different areas: performance appraisals, motivation/incentives, and leadership.

The consensus among the University Pointe employees we interviewed was that the performance appraisals management used were ineffective, counterproductive, and somewhat useless. The employees we interviewed felt that having an annual performance appraisal was not frequent enough to be effective. We would recommend management conduct appraisals quarterly, or at least semi annually, in order to keep appraisals focused on employees recent performance. “There are advantages to conducting quarterly appraisals, such as allowing managers to revise goals more quickly in the face of changing environmental demands” (Odiorne). Interviewees claimed that they felt the appraisal process to be unfair. “Research identified at least three characteristics of appraisals that increase the perception that they are fair. These characteristics include adequate notice, fair hearing, and judgment based on evidence” (Bauer). We would recommend that management meet face to face with each employee after the appraisals are wrapped up and have a two way conversation, giving feedback and listening to the employee’s side of the story, as well as developing a defined set of goals. This will help to increase the degree of interactional justice as well as expectancy. And we would recommend that employees have adequate notice of when the appraisals will take place and what criteria will be used, this will help to increase the degree of procedural justice. “High levels of justice create higher levels of employee commitment to organizations, and they are related to higher job performance, higher levels of organizational citizenship (behaviors that are not part of one’s job description but help the organization in other ways, such as speaking positively about the company and helping others), and higher levels of customer satisfaction” (Ambrose). Implementing the last two recommendations will help the appraisal process to be perceived as more fair. Lastly, we recommend tying some sort of performance based reward system to the performance appraisals, including both merit pay and employee recognition awards. The concept of incentives brings me to our next area of recommendations, motivation.

Expectancy theory argues that an individual’s motivation to put forth effort is based on three perceptions: expectancy, instrumentality, and valence. To increase expectancy, employers need to make sure that employees are well trained and qualified. To increase instrumentality, employers need to assure employees that they will be rewarded for their increased efforts. And to increase valence, employers must learn about the employees and reward them based on what they value and desire; giving them more than one reward option is often a good idea. “Perhaps the most tangible way in which companies put motivation theories into action is by instituting incentive systems” (Bauer). Introducing some sort of incentive system will help to motivate employees. We believe by recognizing employees efforts and rewarding them for them, they will be more motivated employees. As already mentioned, we believe the best type of incentives would be merit pay and employee recognition awards. The merit pay would be based off of performance, once a year management will evaluate the performance appraisals of employees performed throughout the year, and give pay raises for those whose appraisal ratings were consistently high. The employee recognition awards will also be based off performance appraisals, except they will be given out throughout the year, they may consist of a placard, an announcement, or a non-monetary gift, like bottle of wine, a gift basket, or a gift card, this is where knowing the employee’s is useful. When the employee knows their efforts will lead to a higher performance, believes that performance will lead to an outcome, and that the outcome is desired, they will be much more motivated to give their best performance at work.

Our last recommendation has to do with leadership. Management needs to act more as leaders. They need to make sure that the three conditions of expectancy theory exist for the employees, knowing that their effort will lead to high performance, their performance will be rewarded, and that reward is desirable. Management also needs to act as leaders by removing barriers along the way and create an environment that is motivational. This will lead to higher performance and more satisfied and motivated employees.

These recommendations, if implemented, will enhance the organizational behavior of University Pointe by providing employees with leadership, a motivating environment, and a sense of acknowledgment.

Summary

Works Cited

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