Week 5 Reflection Paper

Keri Cobb

Summary
This week was all about employee performance, assessment, and training and development. I
enjoyed these areas because as a manager these things never stop. For a company to be
successful, it starts with training. After hiring the right people based on their experience, the
training starts. Our text tells us that, “Lack of training can result in lost productivity, lost
customers, and poor relationships between employees and managers”. (Saylor Academy. 2012)
An important step in training is making the employees feel welcome by having an orientation.
You want to do this before getting into work tasks. Orientation has many goals. One goal would
be to decrease the anxiety of the new employees. As with any new job, it can be stressful.
Employee performance can cover a wide range of things. Attendance, not being focused,
substance abuse, and just not performing can all affect an employee’s performance. Some
employees bring their personal problems to work, and the manager must be aware and able to
handle them before situations get out of hand. Dealing with these can be difficult. We love
positive performance but unfortunately, there will come a time when an employee is not doing
a good job. The assessment can also point these things out. During an assessment, an employee
can be encouraged and answer all questions they may have about their job performance.

Meaningful Ideas
Doing a good job should be everyone’s goal. When I read the text, it stated “It is a way to satisfy
employee curiosity as to how well they are performing in their job”. (Saylor Academy. 2012)
This was about a performance evaluation. This is so true. It is a time for the employee to get the
knowledge that they are seeking to do their job better. I have witnessed employees not asking
anything or commenting because they are not interested in doing better. As a leader, it is
disappointing because you always want the best for your employees. However, it is not
something you can force onto them.
The ranking method system which ranks employees based on how the managers value them
can be very controversial to employees. “However, the main disadvantages of job ranking are
that it is subjective and prone to bias, that it does not provide clear criteria or standards for
ranking the jobs, and that it does not account for the differences in the degree of difficulty or
importance among the jobs”. (LinkedIn. 2024) An employee can feel that a manager is showing
favoritism when ranking this way. Is it really about job performance? I can see why an
employee would feel this way. It could lead to an employee leaving their job searching for
better treatment.

Personal Connecting
The topics this week gave me insight and a better understanding. Being a manager or leader in
an organization is not easy work. I was able to connect to this week’s lesson in various ways. I
have had to oversee training. Training new employees can be exhausting. Mainly because
everyone does not think the same. You want everyone in the training to grasp the information,
but sometimes, not everyone will. This takes time away from the trainer to do one on one’s or
stop the training because not everyone can keep up. To be in leadership takes patience and
understanding.
References

LinkedIn. 2024. How do you deal with the challenges and limitations of job ranking and job

grading methods? https://www.linkedin.com/advice/0/how-do-you-deal-challenges-

limitations-job-ranking

Saylor Academy. 2012. Chapter 8 Training and development.

https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_human-resource-management/s12-training-and-

development.html

Saylor Academy. 2012. Chapter 11 Employee assessment.

https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_human-resource-management/s15-employee-

assessment.html