Question: Designing Effective Performance Appraisal and Pay Systems

Objective: Your objective is to gain experience in designing a performance appraisal and pay system to motivate employees.

Procedure: The class divides into groups of three to five people, and each group appoints one member as spokesperson to present the group's recommendations to the whole class. Here is the scenario: Assume the role of a gourmet cook who has just started a catering business. You are located in a college town with approximately 150,000 residents. Sixty thousand students attend the large state university located in this town. Your customers include professors who host parties and receptions in their homes, student groups who hold parties at various locations, and local professionals such as doctors and lawyers who hold parties both in their homes and at their offices. Your staff includes two cooks who help you prepare the food and four servers who help you set up and serve the food on location. Often, one or both cooks go to the location of a catering job to help the servers prepare food that needs some cooking on site, such as a soufflé with hot raspberry sauce. Your business is getting off to a good start, and you want to make sure you have an effective performance appraisal and pay system in place to motivate your cooks and servers. It is important that your cooks are motivated to prepare high-quality and imaginative dishes, are flexible and willing to help out as needed (you often get last-minute jobs), work well with each other and with you, and are polite to customers on location. It is crucial that your servers follow your specific instructions for each job, attractively set up the food on location, provide excellent service, and are polite and pleasant to customers.

1. Using the concepts and ideas in this chapter, design an effective performance appraisal system for the cooks.

2. Using the concepts and ideas in this chapter, design an effective performance appraisal system for the servers.

3. How should you pay the cooks to ensure they are motivated to prepare high-quality and imaginative dishes, are flexible and willing to help out as needed, work well with each other and with you, and are polite to customers on location?

4. How should you pay the servers to ensure they are motivated to do a good job and provide high-quality service to your customers? When your group has completed those activities, the spokesperson will present the group's recommendations to the whole class.