Organization Development

The Center restaurant and bar is a medium sized and well established company. It is situated at the central of District of Columbia close to the train station. This is a relatively easily managed restaurant bar with an effective management structure in place, excellent servers and bartenders, and kitchen staff. The company's business objective is to offer an international flavor with broad selection, and serve the best drinks in town. Assume I am a trainee manager in the company; I would implement the following policies.

2. Current performance appraisal system

After 30 years in business, Center restaurant and bar is still using the traditional performance appraisal system to assess their employees’ work performance. The manager is the soles rater, who writes his opinion based on the staff's report given by the human resource department. In addition, the senior staff members have to fill up the peer assessment form to share with the manager. Most of the time, the appraisal has to depend on the manager’s memory, which makes this assessment to be relatively inaccurate.

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The other informal appraisal is from outsiders.

The company secretly hires a different group of people to pretend as customers, who analyze the performance of employees. This is a more effective tool to use for performance appraisal. This system focuses more on individual behavior and task performance. The company does not efficiently use the 360 degree feedback system (Sandler and Keefe, 2003). This is due to the reason that managers lack skills in giving feedback and some feel uneasy to critic other people’s work.

As a result, some managers end up providing dishonest feedback, which undermines the principle of performance appraisal. 3.

Major goals for the organization’s performance assessment system With the growth of service industry, it is important to have goal setting in helping organization to develop an effective strategic plan. Goal setting is a well- recognized and theoretically of motivation. The main function of the appraisal system is to assist the employees to learn from their past experience and take actual action for improvement. In another aspect, the organization could make better decisions regarding the employee’s career development, in terms of promotion, training program, compensation, international transfers as well as others’ management program.

The manager, for example, discovered a worker's talents in customer service and managing skills, through the positive customer’s appraisal report. After a month working as a server, he got promoted to become a bartender and his salary rose as well. This effect motivated the employees to commit themselves to their field of work. Furthermore, the organization would be enabled to hire the right person to fit each job position. New workers, for instance, would get two months probation period which allowed the company to observe and ascertain whether the individual’s behavior matched with the job.

The other major objective would be to facilitate the organization understand the diversity in the workforce. It would definitely help to consider the employees come from different cultural backgrounds, as the competitive advantage in the latest globalization trend. 4. Strengths and limitations of the current system. Strengths. One strength of the current system is that it is relatively cheap to operate. The feedback is sourced from customers and managers, and it does not use expensive professionals who require high remuneration. This saves the costs of employee appraisal and helps the firm to boost profits in the long run.

Another strength is that the system is relatively simple and easy to comprehend. It does not make use of sophisticated systems and technology which takes a lot of time to implement. When using sophisticated systems of appraising employees and measuring performance, it takes a long time to train managers on how to use the system (DelPo, 2007). This causes delays in implementing it, and may face the danger of collapse if the trained managers face a unique and unforeseeable situation. Weaknesses. One major weakness of the current system is that it is inefficient due to many reasons.

The first is that it partly relies on the memory of the manager. Since the manager is human, he or she is prone to forgetfulness. He or she is also prone to being emotional and conflicts with an employee may result in poor feedback, since they will only remember the negative incident and disregard the positive impact that the employee has had on the organization. Another reason which contributes to inefficiency of the current system is the fact that some managers are not ready to criticize or give negative feedback on certain employees.

This is a weakness in the system, and it does not allow the management to get a clear picture on the performance of employees. A second weakness which is inherent in the current appraisal system is the lack of a comprehensive system of analysis. The management relies on feedback from managers and customers, but it is impossible to track down all desired attributes of individual employees. As a result, only partial aspects of employees will be captured, and others will not. The appraisal system also lacks a database which monitors employees during different periods, and can be used as a basis of comparison. 5.

Legal or ethical concerns There is one major ethical concern which might arise due to the current system. It involves the objectivity of managers in appraising employees. As stated, the managers are human beings and are naturally emotional. Since most of the powers for appraising employees are vested with the managers, if the manager and an employee have a conflict, the manager may intentionally give negative feedback, disregarding the actual performance of the employee. If the employee genuinely performs well, and according to the policies of the organization he or she deserves promotion, this will be unethical for the manager.

It may also open up a course for legal redress, since the employee may sue for cruelty, discrimination or any other relevant charge. 6. Possible challenges for a multicultural or diverse workforce. There are several challenges which arise when operating with a multicultural or diverse workforce in an organization. The first is a barrier in communication, and this may arise if some of the employees do not clearly understand the language spoken (Cummings and Worley, 2005). Another challenge that may occur is organizational conflict.

This challenge may be caused by negative perceptions among employees from different races who work in the organization. There may be historical or cultural issues which create these negative perceptions, like for instance, black people may disrespect whites due to past historical injustices where some white people oppressed blacks, especially during the 1960s in US (Mugisho, 2007). Another challenge may understand the culture and religious beliefs of the employees from these diverse ethnic backgrounds.

For instance, there may be conflict between Muslims and Christians on the basis of religious beliefs. Some people may also perceive the culture of others to be primitive, and this may be a source of conflict (Cohan, 2003). There is also the possibility that culture which is acceptable by certain ethnic groups may be frowned upon by others. This can be a cause of conflict between the two groups. 7. Changes which should be made in order to improve system. There are a few changes which should be implemented in the Center Restaurant in order to improve the appraisal of employees.

The first is the formation of an effective appraisal system which is free from human interference. This can be achieved through the use of computer software designed for this purpose. The software can be operated by an independent professional who will capture different attributes of employees. It will be very effective in capturing 360 assessments, and would capture both comment based and numeric ratings. These include effectiveness in completion of duties, promptness in reporting to work, disciplinary actions faced, and other necessary attributes required for appraisal.

This information would be stored in a central database and would be used for comparison as well as evaluation purposes. The information gathered by use of the system would be used to identify the specific aspects in which employees require training, as well as provide basis for promotions, salary increases, disciplinary actions and others. It would thus increase the efficiency of the evaluation process. Another change would be to improve the communication channels in the organization. It is clear that there is a communication problem, if some managers are unable to criticize non-performing employees.

Interaction and frequent meetings between lower level and upper level management should be able to solve this problem (Brown, 2001). This would make all employees free with each other and the managers would find it relatively easy to give constructive criticism to non-performing employees. 8. Lessons I would learn from this analysis as a future or current leader in this organization. There are many lessons which I would learn from this analysis as a future or current leader in this organization. The first is the weaknesses of using manual systems of evaluation.

I would learn that human beings are prone to error and that it is important to computerize all systems in order to minimize these errors and increase efficiency. The challenges brought by globalization ensure that only the companies which use technology to their advantage survive. The second aspect which I would learn is the techniques of solving organizational conflict. In the course of analysis, I would find conflicts between employees from diverse ethnic backgrounds, and also conflicts between managers and employees.

I would then solve them, mostly through the use of an arbitration process involving a mediator chosen by employees. Finally, I would learn how to improve the communication links in organizations, specifically those between lower level and upper level management. This would make me a better manager and give me the ability to face any challenge which I face in the course of my career. References. Brown, D. (2001), The turbo charged company, igniting your business to soar ahead of the competition. Washington: Parkland Group.

Cohan, P. S. (2003), Value leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Cummings, T. G. , Worley, C. G. (2005). Organization Development and Change. Washington: Thomson South-Western. DelPo, A. (2007). The Performance Appraisal Handbook: Legal ; Practical Rules for Managers. Washington: Nolo. Mugisho, R. (2007). The power inside you. New York: Author House. Sandler, C. , Keefe, J. (2003). Performance Appraisal Phrase Book: Effective Words, Phrases, and Techniques for Successful Evaluations. New York: Adams Media.