PART ONE
Questions 18
Look at the sentences below and at the fiveextracts from a book about staff appraisals and feedback on the opposite page.
Which new item （A， B， C ，D or E） dose each statement 1 8 refer to？
For each statement 18 ， make one letter（A， B， C ，D or E） on your AnswerSheet .
You will need to use some of these letters more than once.
1 Genuine feedback would release resources to be usedelsewhere.
2 Managers are expected to enable their staff to workeffectively.
3 Experts are unlikely to facilitate a move to genuinefeedback.
4 There are benefits when methods of evaluating performance havebeen negotiated.
5 Appraisals tend to focus on the nature of theface-to-face relationship between employees and their line managers.
6 Theidea that employees are responsible for what they do seems reasonable.
7Despite experts‘ assertion， management structures prevent genuinefeedback
8 An increasing amount of effort is being dedicated to theappraisal process. A
Performance appraisal is on the up and up. It used torepresent the one time of year when getting on with the work was put on holdwhile enormous quantities of management hours were spent in the earnest ritualof rating and ranking performance. Now the practice is even more frequent. Thisof course makes it all the more important how appraisal is conducted. Humanresources professionals claim that managers should strive for objectivity andthus for feedback rather than judgement. But the simple fact of the matter isthat the nature of hierarchy distorts the concept of feedback becauseperformance measure are conceived hierarchically. Unfortunately， all too manyworkers suffer from the injustices that this generates.
B
The notionbehind performance appraisal- that workers should be held accountable for theirperformance-is plausible. However， the evidence suggests that the premise iswrong. Contrary to assumptions appraisal is not an effective means ofperformance improvement- it is judgement imposed rather than feedback， ajudgement imposed by the hierarchy. Useful feedback ， on the other hand， wouldbe information that told both the manager and worker how well the work systemfunctioned， and suggested ways to make it better.
C
Within theproduction system at the car manufacturer Toyota， there is nothing that isrecognizable as performance appraisal. Every operation in the system has anassociated measure. The measure has been worked out between the operators andtheir manager. In every case， the measure is related to the purpose of the work.That measure is the basis of feedback to the manager and worker alike. Toyota‘sbasic idea is expressed in the axiom “bad news first” . Both managers andworkers are psychologically safe in the knowledge that it is the system- not theworker –that is the primary influence on performance. It is management’sresponsibility to ensure that the workers operate in a system that facilitatestheir performance.
D
In many companies ， performance appraisal springsfrom misguided as assumptions. To judge achievement， managers use date abouteach worker‘s activity， not an evaluation of the process or system’s achievementof purpose. The result is that performance appraisal involves managers‘judgement overruling their staff’s， ignoring the true influences on performance.Thus the appraisal experience becomes a question of pleasing the boss，particularly in meetings， which is psychologically unsafe and socially driven，determining who is “in” and who is “ out”。
E
When judgement isreplaced by feedback in the true sense， organizations will have a lot more timeto devote to their customers and their business. No time will be wasted inappraisal . This requires a fundamental shift in the way we think about theorganization of performance appraisals， which almost certainly will not beforthcoming from the human resources profession |
