Question: Hubert Johnson is a department head. He has been with the company for 30 years and knows his way around quite well. He has two employees, Harriet Green and Neil White. Harriet has been with the company for 15 years and Neil has been with the company for six years. Harriet has always been cooperative, loyal, dependable, but not an especially good supervisor. Recently Hubert has noticed that Harriet has begun to "slip" in the performance of some of her duties. Neil, on the other hand is a very ambitious, energetic, and dependable supervisor who grasps problems quickly and easily. Hubert has to complete performance appraisals on both individuals annually.

Ten months ago he did his appraising with a great deal of displeasure because he hated to face the unpleasantness of a negative performance appraisal review. As a result, he rated both the employees about the same. When a discussion about the ratings was conducted, both supervisors appeared to be satisfied with the rating they had received.

Six months ago business began to fall off and a reduction in force was put into effect. This week, after a number of other people were laid off or demoted, it became necessary to move either Harriet Green or Neil White from the position of a supervisor to that of a worker until sales picked up. Hubert wants to keep Neil on the supervisor job, but on the basis of the appraisals there is no difference between the two. In the past when two employees had the same ratings, the person with the most seniority receives priority. Hubert must decide today what to do.

1. Identify the performance appraisal and rating errors in this case

2. How have the inaccurate performance ratings created more problems?

3. What HR and legal issues could be raised in this case.