Using Employee Appraisals to Improve
Performance
Clayton Jaquins Amy R. Hurd, Ph.D.
School of Kinesiology & Recreation Illinois State University
Abstract
The purpose of this case study is to examine a summer day camp program from various angles including (a) the relationship between part time and full time staff, (b) motivation in the workplace, (c) training young/new supervisors, and (d) employee appraisals. The scenario is a summer day camp staffed by university junior and senior interns. Someone who was their peer the previous year supervises them. This person is having difficulty assuming a supervisory and leadership role and is quite upset about being left out of the staff evaluation process. Several discussion questions are provided to enable the readers to look at the situation from the mentioned angles. Anticipated outcomes include (a) develop a performance appraisal system for Kamp Kids, (b) learn how new supervisors should be trained, mentored, and empowered in a new position, and (c) gain insight into employee supervision, motivation, and staff relationships. This case study is designed for use in a senior level parks and recreation administration course.
Keywords:
Chain of command, management styles, conflict resolution, performance appraisals, staff supervision
Potential Learning Environment
This case contains useful learning content for students in course such as management, administration, human resources, human relations, and evaluation.
Using Employee Appraisals to Improve Performance Agency Background
The City of Galveston Parks and Recreation Department serves a population of 250,000 people. It has traditionally focused on youth programs, some senior programming, and a few sports leagues for adults. There are six community centers in the city. Five of them are youth and teen centers and 1 is a senior center. The mission statement for the City of Galveston Parks and Recreation Department is as follows: To enrich the quality of community life through a balanced program of leisure services for Galveston residents.
The Youth Program Manager
Mike Santos is the Youth Program Manager for the City of Galveston. He oversees the organization’s year round youth programs and facilities for youth ages five to eighteen. The Youth Program Manager supervises a staff of ten permanent full time Center Coordinators who oversee the five youth and teen centers within the agency. Mike also indirectly supervises 20 part time Center Supervisors who work in the centers. These people answer directly to the Center Coordinators (see Exhibit 1). During the school year the youth centers are only open before and after school from 6:00 a.m. - 8:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m. During the summer when the children are out of school, the centers are open for the day camp program (Kamp Kids) and other organized programs from 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. and then for drop in hours from 5:00 - 10:00 p.m.
In the past the Youth Program Manager served as the Director of Kamp Kids and
managed the day-to-day operations of the camp. Because of special projects assigned to Mike, he is unable to give the camp enough of his time to make it successful. This summer Mike has hired Lynn Kramer as the seasonal Director of Kamp Kids. Lynn spent the previous summer as an intern at Kamp Kids where she was a camp counselor. Mike is confident she will do a good job given her performance last summer. Mike wanted to make sure he hired someone who could totally be in charge of the camp without much supervision from him. Mike is very laissez-faire in his management style and expects to just let Lynn run the camp as she sees fit. He will step in if there are major problems, but he expects her to handle minor ones on her own. He also feels that if she struggles as a young supervisor she will learn a lot more than if he steps in and helps her when the situation gets difficult. He uses this same management style with his center coordinators who have worked at this agency anywhere from 5 to 16 years. The Director of Kamp Kids
Lynn is a recent graduate from an accredited university with a degree in recreation and park administration and is ready to take on her new role. Though this is only a seasonal position it could lead to future full-time employment as there are several openings to be posted at the end of the summer. Lynn loved working for the agency last summer and really wants to get a full time position there.
Since this is a brand new position, Lynn was given a very generic job description
outlining her duties and must define her role within the organization as she goes (Exhibit 2). The position requires Lynn to work Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and some weekends. Lynn is responsible for training the 8 staff members who are junior or senior interns from universities across the country, setting their work
schedules, managing program schedules, evaluating staff, utilizing the permanent staff when needed, communicating regularly with Mike about camp related issues, and general supervision of all interns working at the camp.
The Interns at Kamp Kids
The 8 interns are in charge of planning and implementing the daily activities. The interns are all earning college credit for working for the summer camp. Five of them are
completing their senior internships and will be graduating, and the other 3 are
completing junior internships and will return to school for one more year. Their direct supervisor is Lynn Kramer. However, Mike’s supervisor, Wendy Dawson, is responsible for evaluating the interns’ performance and working with their universities. It is Wendy’s policy, after years of experience with interns, to automatically give them A’s so they will not worry about their grade and put more focus on their work. This is an interesting policy that Lynn strongly supported when she completed her internship last year. To gain supervisory experience Wendy told Lynn that she would help evaluate the
performance of the interns at the end of the season even though they are all getting A’s. Camp Life
At the start of the 12-week camp there were between 60 and 75 children ranging from 5 to 12 years old and among these there are children with disabilities. The camp is totally inclusive and on most days there are 8 children with attention deficit hyperactive
disorder and 4 with mild developmental disabilities. The camp has the use of all 5 youth centers including a pool, numerous playgrounds, and ample open space. Two staff members work with each specific age group throughout the entire summer. This allows the staff to create a relationship with the campers in hopes of providing a positive experience for both the campers and staff.
One week prior to camp beginning, Lynn conducts staff training everyday from 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Two days of training focus on behavior management, activity planning, reporting physical abuse, general policies and procedures of the camp, how to work with children with disabilities, and a brief overview of the entire Youth Program Division. The remaining three days of training are spent on planning for the upcoming weeks.
When the camp begins the overall attitude of the staff and Lynn’s relationship with the 8 interns is positive. Lynn initially begins to spend time with the interns outside of work. This is not a surprise because they are mostly very similar in age, share many of the same interests, and do not really know anyone else in town. This socializing has allowed the staff to really get to know each other prior to the arrival of the children for the summer. In addition, 5 of the staff members returned from last year where they were counselors with Lynn and all had equal job responsibilities.
As the camp begins Lynn’s role becomes clearer and things begin to run very smoothly. The camp is going well as indicated by an increase in daily attendance to 100 children. However, as more children attend the camp, the strain on the staff begins to show. As the staff becomes more stressed, Lynn starts to see several serious issues arise. First, the interns begin to make decisions without consulting Lynn. This creates problems because some of the decisions conflict with the Youth Program Division policies. The staff does not tell Lynn about some of these decisions until they are in a social situation in the evening. Secondly, the interns begin to plan activities that are not appropriate for the group such as strenuous outdoor activities during the heat of the afternoon, or playing games such as dodge ball that are not allowed at camp because of their risk levels and impact on self esteem. Third, there is some bickering among staff about facility and equipment use, and the children have witnessed this more than once.
Fourth, Lynn has noticed that two of the 5 senior interns are not taking their concerns to Lynn, but going directly to Mike. Mike handles the situation and then tells Lynn what he
has done. Lynn is very frustrated that Mike does not send the interns to her with their concerns, but she lets it go and does not discuss it with him.
Lynn is really struggling with how to handle these situations because she lacks any clear authority and decision-making power. She does not feel she knows exactly where to draw the line with the staff and is unsure of some decisions she wants to make. Through all of this Lynn is finding that she is reducing the amount of time she spends with the interns outside of work. She is having trouble-disciplining people she considers her friends and “hangs out” with on a regular basis. Usually she just casually mentions problems in hopes the staff will “take the hint” and improve their performance.
At the half way point of the summer Lynn wants to do formative (midterm) evaluations on the staff in order to help them better understand her authority as well as improve their performance. Lynn figures that sitting down with the staff individually will give her an opportunity to correct some undesirable behaviors that she has not addressed up to this point. However, Wendy does not respond to the numerous requests Lynn makes to do these evaluations. Lynn gets tired of asking and forgets about the midterm
evaluations. She decides to prepare for the final evaluations and wants to do them correctly. She begins reading about performance appraisals and makes notes from what she has read (Exhibit 3). She gives her notes to Wendy and requests that they work together to develop some structure for next year’s director by creating an employee performance appraisal system.
Rather than focusing on the evaluations, Lynn starts to work with the interns on their summer projects. As part of their internship, the interns must complete a special project such as planning and implementing a special event. Brett, one of the senior interns who is experienced in special event planning, is now planning the Kamp Kids Karnival that Lynn developed last year as her project. Since Lynn planned the event the previous summer, she is in charge of helping Brett plan the event. Brett and Lynn meet on a weekly basis to check the progress of the planning. Brett assures her that everything is in order according to the event timeline and plans. As the event nears Lynn begins to check with the other permanent staff to make sure everyone is on the same page. She begins to discover that much of the work that she had been told was done had never been started. This creates a major problem because there is a lot of work to do and barely enough time to do it. Brett was overheard as saying “who cares how the event goes, I still get an A in the internship. The kids won’t know if it is a good event or not.” Lynn immediately meets with Mike and explains the special event situation, and he decides to take over the event.
This problem occurs and consumes a lot of Lynn’s time just as the rest of the staff are increasingly becoming withdrawn and losing their early summer enthusiasm. They are continually questioning any decision Lynn makes. It is becoming quite apparent that the staff does not like Lynn in a leadership role. It has been said many times by the staff “Lynn sure was a much better counselor than director. She can’t seem to make a
decision, so why even ask. She was so much fun last summer, but now she acts like she is better than us just because she is the director. It’s not like she has any power over the camp.” Lynn does not know what to do about this problem. She finds herself withdrawing from the staff just as they are withdrawing from the campers.
Lynn decides to talk to Mike about these problems. Mike, who is seen as a really nice guy and not one to upset his staff, tells Lynn “these issues happen every summer and they will pass. The staff has worked long hours all summer with very little time off other than the weekends. My suggestion is to do the best you can, and try to make the staff happy. They are the backbone of the camp and we can’t have them quitting before the end of the summer.” Lynn does not feel Mike was any help with this situation. He always seems to be in a hurry and just wants her to smooth things over rather than fix it as he hates confrontations with staff members. Lynn is beginning to count down the days until summer is over so she can leave the camp and the agency. The summer is not going at all how she envisioned it.
During the last week of camp the Kamp Kids Karnival is held with only minor problems. This is because Mike stepped in and worked with Brett one on one to put it together. Mike really did not feel Brett was ready to graduate and take on a full time position because his programming skills were quite weak. Mike told Lynn, “Brett isn’t a very good programmer, and his organizational skills are terrible. There is no way I would hire him back next year, but I guess he won’t look to come back since he will graduate with an A for his internship from Wendy.” Lynn was upset that no one would share this
information with Brett.
At the end of camp the staff is preparing to leave to return to school or graduate and seek a full time job. Once again Lynn asks Wendy to be involved in the intern
evaluations. Her requests are ignored. Lynn is quite upset about this since Wendy only visited camp 3 times the entire summer. As expected all 8 interns received an A for their internship.
Discussion Questions
1. Towards the end of the season the interns seem to be withdrawn and not as focused on their work, what might be causing this? As a supervisor Lynn is also withdrawing from the staff at the end of camp. How can she regain focus and help the staff do the same?
2. What were the weaknesses demonstrated by Lynn, Mike and Wendy?
3. As a supervisor is it okay to socialize with employees? What are the positives and negatives of socializing with people you must supervise?
4. Since Lynn was on the same level as many of the interns last year, what can she do to earn the respect of her employees and establish herself as their supervisor? 5. How can Lynn, a young supervisor, work with the management team (Mike and
Wendy) to improve her job performance?
6. How do you think Wendy’s decision to give the interns A’s before the start of camp effect job performance?
7. What issues are there in the structure of the organizational chart, each person’s responsibilities, and how the chain of command actually functioned?
8. How could the job description be improved for Lynn’s position?
9. Using the outlined research in Exhibit 3, develop a performance appraisal system for Kamp Kids.
Exhibit 2:
Kamp Kids Director Job Description Direct Supervisor: Youth Program Manager
Qualifications:
• Bachelors degree in recreation, education or related field • Ability to hire, train, and supervise part-time staff
• Demonstrated program innovation and administration
• Significant knowledge of children and age-appropriate activities Duties:
• Plan, program and implement a high quality day camp program • Develop, implement and oversee all operational issues at Kamp Kids • Train and supervise 8 camp staff
• Participate in problem solving and work to develop a cohesive staff • Establish/maintain communications with camper’s family members
• Assist in enforcing applicable Kamp Kids and Youth Program Division policies and procedures
• All other duties as assigned
Exhibit 3: Memo about performance appraisals To: Wendy Dawson, Administrator
From: Lynn Kramer, Kamp Kids Director Subj: Employee Performance Appraisals
Employee performance appraisals have been viewed as key to organizational success. They have been used for decision making in terms of employee advancement, retention, and separation; salary increases; and employee improvement. Given the importance of these things, I am recommending that a formal evaluation process be implemented with the Kamp Kids program. After reviewing the research on performance appraisals, several key issues can be summarized and used to establish the process. They are listed below. After your review of these issues, I would like to meet to discuss a formal appraisal system to implement into the camp next year.
o Performance appraisals include 3 basic steps: (a) collect the data, (b) evaluate the
performance based on the data, and (c) write the review. In collecting the data the supervisor should assess behaviors of the employee, and avoid personality issues and differences unless they impact performance. Keep in mind the evaluation is about the person’s performance and not their personality. Once the data is collected, it is used to measure performance and written on an appropriate and well-designed form (Grote, 1997).
o Most performance appraisals take no more than 30-40 minutes (Grote, 1998).
However, ample time should be spent preparing for the evaluation, both by the employee and the supervisor. The supervisor examines the data and the employee
should outline their accomplishments for the appraisal period to discuss with the supervisor.
o For part time staff, a formative evaluation may be conducted half way through the
program and a summative evaluation at the end. The formative evaluation can be used to help the employee understand how they can be a better staff member for the rest of the program. The summative evaluation should be used to review performance throughout the season and what would make them a better staff member in the future.
o The performance appraisal should be seen as a way to maximize performance in the
future rather than dwelling on the past. Help the employee use the information to do a better job in the future. Performance appraisals should be career building.
o The evaluations should be done in writing and verbally reviewed with the employee.
The employee should be given advanced warning when the evaluation meeting will occur. It has also been suggested that each employee do a self-evaluation of their own performance and then use that as a discussion point by making comparisons to their supervisors rating on each item (Pynes, 1997).
o Thirty minutes prior to the appraisal, the supervisor should give her written
assessment to the employee so that he may read it carefully. This allows the employee time to process the information and makes them better able to have
meaningful discussions with the supervisor. If the appraisal is handed to the employee in the meeting, they will only skim the results and not retain any information (Grote, 1998).
o Their direct supervisor should rate employees. If the direct supervisor does not have
sufficient contact with the employee, a 360-degree evaluation method can be utilized where the supervisor, peers, and customers rate the employee and the direct
supervisor uses this information for a more thorough evaluation of performance (Milliman & Zawacki, 1994).
o Employees fear and/or dread performance appraisals and managers fear and/or
dread the employees’ reactions to the ratings. There are several ways to eliminate the fear for both parties including: (a) provide rewards employees expect at different levels of performance, (b) give employees the resources they need in order to
succeed such as proper training and development to do their job, and (c) set
organizational and personal objectives the employee should achieve (i.e., a clear job description) (Wing, 2000). Grote (1998) further emphasized the importance of goals and objectives by suggesting that each employee set at least 2 measurable
objectives for what they want to accomplish before their next evaluation to make the program better. One major reason appraisal systems do not work is that most
systems do not link individual goals, agency goals, and performance (Losyk, 2002)
o The end result of the appraisal should be an action plan outlining major
responsibilities the employee is accountable for in the upcoming evaluation period and the performance expected for these responsibilities (Painter, 2003).
o Although performance appraisals are important for the agency and the individual,
supervisors need to keep in mind that there should be no surprises during the performance appraisal as supervisors should give feedback throughout the year and not just on review day (Butcher, 2002).
A well-prepared performance appraisal realistically examines the past, accurately examines the present, and creates a plan for the future (Painter, 2003). Given the presented information it is imperative that an employee appraisal system be established for Kamp Kids for next summer.
References
Butcher, D. (2002). It takes two to review. Management Today, 54-59.
Grote, D. (1997). Getting the most out of the review process, HR Focus, 74, 15. Grote, D. (1998). Painless performance appraisals focus on results, behaviors.
HRMagazine, 43, 52-57.
Losyk, B. (2002). How to conduct a performance appraisal. Public Management, 84, 8- 12.
Milliman, J.F. & Zawacki, R.A. (1994). Companies evaluate employees from all perspectives. Personnel Journal, 73, 99-104.
Painter, C. N. (2003). Ten steps for improved appraisals. Supervision, 64, 12-16. Pynes, J.E. (1997). Human resources management for public and non-profit organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Wing, K.T. (2000). Painless performance appraisals. Strategic Finance Magazine, 82, 62-65.
Informed
Leisure
Practice:
Cases as conduits
between theory and
practice
Nicole L. Vaugeois, Ph.D.
Editor
Volume 1
11th Canadian Congress on Leisure Research
Nicole L. Vaugeois, Editor
Informed Leisure Practice:
Cases as Conduits Between Theory and Practice
Volume 1
11th Canadian Congress on Leisure Research
May 17-20, 2005 at Malaspina University-College in Nanaimo, British Columbia
The Recreation and Tourism Research Institute
ISBN: 1-896886-06-X
For additional copies please contact: The Recreation and Tourism Research Institute
Malaspina University-College 900 Fifth Street, Nanaimo, B.C. V9R 5S5
Canada Phone (250) 740-6396
