ST.

Lukes Hospital,Jacksonville,Florida

THE CASE
It was a modern Hospital facing a serious problem of a huge amount of paper work of about 1325 employees The existing performance appraisal system consisted of job description and performance appraisal. Contained a competency management program with special emphasis on employee development and education. The managers and supervisors evaluated employee performance on formal weighted criteria and summarised information by compensation and benefits class.It resulted into a paper intensive process of 36 different steps.

PROBLEMS
A traditional performance appraisal system that included job description and competency profiling which was lengthy and time consuming Performance appraisal records consisted of a huge documentation@20 pages per employee for 1325 employees. They lacked an automated database system(HRIS). To arrange training for all the 97 managers and supervisors to acquaint them with the new online performance system.

ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM

From the case it is clear that the company was using Critical Incident Technique for performance appraisal. To reduce the excessive paperwork they needed an upgraded HRIS that could streamline administration and record keeping tasks. Access to the HR records needed an all time assistance of HR staff. They formed a steering committee that reviewed various problems of the traditional performance appraisal system

SOLUTIONS
The traditional pa system was replaced by an automated pa system. The newly developed pa system transformed the numerical scores of individual employees on jd to a summary sheet that compared the scores of 6 employees in one form. The integrated HRIS provided applications like Bulletin boards, data access, employee self service and extended linkages.

IMPACT OF THE CHANGES

They used a time saving and modern approach to pa(rating scale appraisal in case of absolute standards;ranking in case of comparative standards). The new automated pa system reduced paper work from 20 to 7 pages per employee. There was significant reduction in paper,fewer arithmetic errors and precise appraisal information.

ANSWERS
The new automated pa system made a comparative analysis of the performance of the employees on various critical factors(contribution to turnover,absenteeism,job involvement). The new pa system enabled the employees to foresee their position w.r.t. Other co-workers in the department. The new pa system expressed performance measures in quantitative terms and better defined the results.It further emphasized on corrective actions if required