You are a manager with nine employees reporting directly to you. (You have full span of control.) All nine employees have essentially the same responsibilities. They all have numerous opportunities to make mistakes (of various types) in their jobs, but only a small chance of making any one particular mistake at any one time. In the past year you have recorded the following number of mistakes for each employee. Assume that all mistakes are equally critical, so that you cannot distinguish between employees based on the type of mistake they make. It is time for evaluations and merit raise recommendations. Suggest an approach (you do not have to show any computations) to decide who to reward and who to penalize? Assume that the total number of transactions performed by each employee are the same during the year.

Question

You are a manager with nine employees reporting directly to you. (You have full span of control.) All nine employees have essentially the same responsibilities. They all have numerous opportunities to make mistakes (of various types) in their jobs, but only a small chance of making any one particular mistake at any one time. In the past year you have recorded the following number of mistakes for each employee. Assume that all mistakes are equally critical, so that you cannot distinguish between employees based on the type of mistake they make.  It is time for evaluations and merit raise recommendations. Suggest an approach (you do not have to show any computations) to decide who to reward and who to penalize? Assume that the total number of transactions performed by each employee are the same during the year.

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The Answer is You should construct appropriate control limits based on the data available. For example, with this data, assuming Poisson distribution of errors, mean = variance = 12.55. So control limits are: 12.55 + 3 Sqrt (12.55) = (1.92, 23.18) Employees with error rates above the upper control limit or below the lower control limit would be asked for abnormal causes of variation. Effort should be made to eliminate assignable errors above the UCL and replicate assignable errors below the LCL. All employees with error rates within control limits should be treated equally. In this case, all employees seem to display normal variability, so take no action.In the long run, you should try to reduce the mean of 12.55 through better training, and mistake-proofing the process.

You Are a Manager with Nine Employees Reporting Directly to You