Case Study: Maple Leaf Shoes Ltd.

Introduction

Performance appraisal or performance management? If nothing else we are seeing a change in terminology. Whereas Maple Leaf Shoes Ltd. once would have referred to “performance appraisal”, today the likelihood is that that term will have been replaced by the label “performance management” in the same way that the term “human resource management” has come to replace “personnel management” (but without necessarily any real change in philosophy or practice). This, though, may be too simplistic a view of the change that we are seeing in the latter part of the 1990s.

Performance management” has several meanings, and much turns on the level of analysis that we adopt - individual, organizational, or something in between. Williams reviews contemporary perspectives on performance management, and ranges over such issues as the nature of performance (organizational and individual), feedback, reward, and the design, implementation, and evaluation of systems (Johnston, et al.). This discussion will attempt to make use of the case study of Maple Leaf Shoes Ltd. in order to highlight an assessment of the positive and negative aspects of the performance appraisal system at Maple Leaf Shoes Ltd. The discussion will also highlight the threats/obstacles to having any changes in the performance appraisal system accepted. To conclude, the discussion will give consideration to the changes in the performance appraisal system at Maple Leaf Shoes Ltd.

Assessment of the performance appraisal system at Maple Leaf Shoes Ltd.

“Performance management” and “performance appraisal” might be seen as interchangeable labels for the same practice (or set of practices) but there also is the view that performance appraisal is one component of the latter. As well as the several textbooks there are an enormous number of papers in journals, chapters in books, and review essays (Johnston, et al.). The following represents an illustrative selection. It draws on material published in the past five years for the most part.

The performance appraisal system at Maple Leaf Shoes Ltd. Is clearly extremely traditional and does not give regard to any of the modern day principles of performance assessment (Appelbaum & Gilliland). The fact that the performance appraisal system at Maple Leaf Shoes Ltd. makes use of the traditional paper based approach is perhaps the first and most critical demerit of the performance appraisal system. The case study clearly shows that there are a number of key demerits that are incorporated in the performance appraisal system at Maple Leaf Shoes Ltd.

Firstly, the performance appraisal system is paper based. Executing an appraisal of performance in 500 employees through a paper based system can be expected to be extremely time consuming as well as demanding on other limited resources as well. In today's modern time, it has become traditional to implement performance appraisal systems through software. The usage of performance appraisal software allows for the swift and accurate collection of data as well as the ability to mine the collected data for valuable information.

While it may sound tedious and time consuming to implement software based performance appraisal system, the ...