Hr 700 Case Study Analysis - Ge90 Jet Engines

Case Study Analysis

April Alejos

Davenport University

Case Study Analysis

        The plant manager of GE90 jet engines has asked for HR to implement a 360 degree appraisal. The GE90 jet engines organization is made of teams. Each team owns their own jet engine in which they are responsible for constructing the jets from parts to finish product. The team members are in charge of ordering parts, tools, and are responsible for writing their own schedule for instance who gets a day off or not, and when each will work. These teams are responsible for correcting their own problems. The plant manager on the other hand oversees that the products are delivered in a timely manner, and are finished correctly and cheaply. The other task the plant manager has is to listen to the employees and provide feedback to the higher ups.

        Some of the concerns that arise with implementing the 360 degree appraisal is the plant manager is not the one who makes the final decision. She is the one who relays the messages from the employees, to the task force, and to the upper level managers. Her main job is to listen to the problems at hand, and not come up with the solution herself. The main problem that needs to be addressed is the form of communication she portrays is causing her employees to not trust her. The way she is communicating is coming off to her employees as though she is micromanaging. She is following up with her employees, but comes off as though she is watching how they perform.

 The fact that the plant manager does not make the final decision, but sends messages to the higher ups can also, cause a form of mistrust between the employees and plant manager. The plant manager may be viewed to the employees as being an unnecessary positon, a sit in babysitter. This could potentially cause friction between employees and plant manager.

360 Degree Appraisal Can Cause Problems

The 360 Degree Appraisal could cause problems for the Plant Manager. The employees already do not trust her. If she is the only one rating the employees, and the employees are rating themselves this could cause further mistrust, and could cause a break down amongst the team members.  The 360 Degree Appraisal is costly. In order to have a successful appraisal it will be time consuming. This will take time from the employees to fill out the surveys, it will take time to construct the right surveys, and it will take time to gather all of the information. Once this step is complete it will cost the organization money to pay someone who can generate the appropriate feedback to give to the employees, and managers. Not having this step complete would cause the employees to feel as though their time was wasted, and the upper management to feel as though there money was wasted in lack of production hours.

Other Alternatives

        One alternative to the 360 degree appraisal would be peer evaluations, and self-evaluations (Nordmeyer, n.d.). Peer evaluations are based on what an employee’s peers view their performance, and what their strengths are and what their weaknesses are. Self-evaluation would allow the employee to evaluate how they perform on the job themselves, and what they would need to improve on in the future.

        Another alternative is manager coaching (Nordmeyer, n.d.). Manager coaching can be utilized throughout the year. This is not just given once. Coaching can provide guidance to the employee on what they are doing wrong, and what the manager is expecting from them. This form of feedback would allow the manager and employees to have one on one time and allow the employee’s to come up with the solutions of to the problems at hand with the manager’s guidance.

        Performance preview is another alternative solution to the problem (Nordmeyer, n.d.). The performance preview allows for the manager an employee to sit down and brainstorm how both the manager and employee can increase their performance.

Evaluating the Alternatives

        Peer and Self Evaluations can be misleading. Are these evaluations anonymous? Will these evaluations be honest? A peer evaluation can cause for answers to be falsified. For instance, a peer knows he/she was chosen to evaluate another peer, and suggests they both evaluate each other’s performance in a favorable way which, would give invalid answers to the manager in how to evaluate the employee. Self-evaluation is another that can be invalid as well. Not all employees will reveal their actual weaknesses on a survey. Not all employees will be honest to admit they have a weakness that needs improving.