Performance Appraisal Essay Example for Free

Performance Appraisal Essay Performance Appraisal is a formal management system that provides for the evaluation of the quality of an individual’s performance in an organization, and is usually prepared by the employee’s immediate supervisor, and the procedure typically requires the supervisor to fill out a standardized assessment form that evaluates the individual on several different dimensions and then discusses the result of the evaluation to the employee (Grote, 2002). According to Grote, too often, performance appraisal is seen merely as a once-a-year drill mandated by the personnel department, but in organizations that take performance appraisal seriously and use the system well, it is used as an ongoing process and not merely as an annual event. To obtain the best information possible if performance appraisal data must be used, four phase model of performance appraisal must be used, and these are through, performance planning, performance execution, and performance review. In performance planning, this is usually set at the beginning of the year, the manager and individual get together for a performance-planning meeting in which they discuss what a person will achieve over the next 12 months. In the performance execution, the manager provides coaching and feedback to the individuals to increase the probability of success and creates the condition that motivate and resolves any performance problems that arise and in the midway through the year, they meet to review the individual’s performance thus far against the plans and goals that they discussed in the performance planning meeting (Grote, 2002). In performance assessment, the manager reflects on how well the subordinate has performed over the course of the year, assembles the various forms of paperwork that the organization provides to make this assessment, and fills them out, and the manager also recommend a change in individual’s compensation based on the quality of the individuals work (Grote, 2002). The completed assessment form is then reviewed and approved by the appraiser’s boss, department head, or the compensation manager. In performance review, the manager and the subordinate meet, usually about an hour, and they review the appraisal form that the manager has written and talked about how well the person performed over the past 12 months, and at the end of the review meeting, they set a date to meet again to hold a performance-planning discussion for the next 12 months, at which point the performance management process anew (Grote, 2002). Self-ratings fit to this approach in the way that, it is needed by the manager in the performance assessment to be able to fully evaluate the employee.

Global Warming Essays -- Environment Global Warming Climate Change

Global Warming Climate change is neither new nor unusual. Throughout the history of the earth, the average surface temperature, climate and greenhouse gas concentrations have changed, sometimes gradually other times quite sharply. During the past 10,000 years the earth has been in an interglacial period with a fairly stable climate, surface temperature, and greenhouse gas concentration1. The problem that has arisen in recent times is when scientists analyze the past 150 years, especially the last 50. Scientists have found an increased greenhouse gas concentration, making the 20th century the hottest in the last 10,000 years. Although the earth has undergone periodic changes known as global cooling and global warming, today’s global warming is unique, due to human influences. The greenhouse effect is essentially gasses in the atmosphere trapping heat, rather like a car window does in the summer. The major heat trapping gasses found in the atmosphere are; CO2 and water vapor- which are found in large quantity, 03(ozone), ch4(methane), and N2O(nitrous oxide)-which are better heat trappers but found in smaller quantity, CFC’s and PFC’s- which are very potent and destroy ozone. The rapid elevation of these gasses in the past fifty years have been the cause for concern of scientists calling it a global warming problem. Global warming is a natural process as well as a human assisted process. Solar flares and sunspots along with natural elevation of greenhouse gasses due to volcanic activety are the natural causes for global warming. Dr. Judy Lean, a leading astrophysicist, looked at global warming trends from 1860 to the present day. Her research has found from 1860 to 1970, global warming was largely due to natural sources. But from 1970 to the present natural sources accounted for only one-third the increase while human influence accounted for the remaining two-thirds of the increased greenhouse effect. The increase in greenhouse gasses from human sources comes from a variety of things. Elevated Co2 levels, which have been increasing at a rate of 0.5% per year, largely come from the burning of fossil fuels(70-75%), especially coal. Deforestation and plant burning account for the remainder. Increased Methane and Nitrous oxide in the atmosphere are mostly due to agriculture; rice patties, cattle, termites and decomposition of dead... ...ns in order to stop the increase. In order to slow the increase, the efficient use of fossil fuels must be adapted. Natural gas gives off very little co2 and methane if burned properly. Deforestation must also be stopped in order to give natural co2 scrubbers, plants, a chance to aid in the process. Governmental programs have also been implemented. A carbon tax has been considered along with the passing of the 1990 Clean Air Act, aimed at lowering emissions and cleaning air pollution. On a world wide scale, the Kyoto Accord in 1997, in which 159 nations agreed to work together to decrease Co2 emissions by 5.5% by 2012. The United States agreed, since it accounts for 25% of the worlds total emissions by 1990 figures, to cut its emissions by 7%. Global warming is still a major issue in world and U.S. politics. Conservatives argue for more market-orientated solutions, resulting in the imposition of taxes, resulting in higher prices for environment polluting goods. Liberals on the other hand advocate stiffer industry regulation and more direct controls. Any action taken, whatever the ideology, can only help to solve an increasing problem but at what cost to the consumer?

Hoosiers Essay

‘Hoosiers’ is a sports film made in 1986 about a basketball team of high school of a small town in Indiana. The film represents a time during 1952 when every high school in Indiana used to compete in one or the other state championships. The film is based on the new coach of the basketball team, Norman Dale who in fact has a past with a spot and has been out of the game for nearly more than a decade. The people in the town are adamant to fire him because they are not sure about the coach, not at all trust him and also dislike his coaching style. Despite all these opposing, Coach Dale sets himself focused and finally brings the whole team together and helps it to win the state championship and at the same time wins the heart of the people too. Coach Dale explains to the team members that it becomes necessary to apply different leadership styles in different situations. One of the styles that help the team members to unite and win the championship is authoritative style. Initially, in fact immediately in his first interaction with the team members, Coach Dale applies this style on them and asks Ray to keep out of the game just because he didn’t follow his instructions word by word. The movie is of course about a high school basketball team but it depicts that a person’s leadership and right directions can lead even a community and if one were focused on his goal, he would definitely achieve it. Authoritative style is, in fact, uniting the members of the team by focusing on a common goal that has to be achieved but here the members are to follow the instructions of their leader on the way of achieving the goal. But in this movie it was not only the leadership style but also lot of other characteristics of Coach Dale like his optimism, self-confidence, farsightedness, enthusiasm, toughness and of course motivation, that helped the team to win and follow his instructions. There are times when authoritative style of leadership seems to look like dictatorial or bossy but it best fits in situations when the leader has the best knowledge and experience as compared to other members of the team or when time limit is less for the group to take decisions. Authoritative style of leadership becomes important when the goal is common but the group members are not very sure about the ways to achieve it but the leader has a concrete idea, which if followed there is maximum chance of achieving the goal. The whole and sole responsibility lies on the leader’s shoulders and he or she must have the expertise and should possess all the basic and detailed information to handle the situation. In the movie, Coach Dale has his goal focused and applies this style of leadership most of the time because he has the self-confidence and farsightedness in him along with the experience of the game much more than the other members of the team. Initially his players don’t listen to him and two among them even walk away because they don’t trust him and to follow someone it is very important to have faith in his words. The movie focuses on the significance of determination and importance of right leadership in not only a basketball game but in life too. When it becomes difficult to  achieve the target in life and you have someone who has the confidence and expertise to guide you, you must follow him and trust him.

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