John Smith's Probation Summary
As the supervisor of BPG Consulting, it is my responsibility to conduct and assess an accurate performance evaluation on the employee John smith during his three-month probationary period. This document explains the methods and procedures that were used while evaluating our employee, as both are very essential in determining if John Smith should continue working here at BPG Consulting. The first things that will be discussed in this document are two situations that our employee's behaviour was misinterpreted in a negative way. Secondly this document will review the few cases where there was a judgment error made about our employee. And lastly it will describe the how the self-serving bias will positively and negatively impact John Smith's behaviour after the interview. I will also add in a list of recommendations for John Smith that must be followed if you wish to further his employment after viewing this document.
"The theory of attribution analyzes how we explain people's behaviours. Frits Heider (1958), widely regarded as attribution theory's originator, concluded that people tend to attribute someone's behaviour either to internal causes or external causes."(Myers, D. and Smith, D. 2012, p. 63)
There were two situations where our employee's behaviour was misinterpreted in a negative way during the course of the last three months. The first situation happened during the first week of John Smiths employment. John missed a full workday, however he had phoned in with a reasoning that his vehicle broke down. I was not impressed with John considering it was his first week of work here at BPG Consulting. This first impression impacted my view on him however, John quickly proved me wrong. He was then biking into work the three days prior to his vehicle breaking down and he hasn't missed a shift since.
The second situation occurred after a two-week evaluation on John, I had noticed he wasn't performing as well in comparison to other employees after their two-week evaluation. After taking in consideration it was his first professional job and an individual needs time to adjust to a new workplace, we gave him a chance and he has continued to excel as an employee of BPG Consulting.
"To reduce 'planning fallacy' overconfidence, people can be asked to "unpack" a task-to break it down into its subcomponents-and estimate the time required for each. Justin Kruger and Matt Evans (2004) report that by doing so leads to more realistic estimates of completion time." (Myers, D. and Smith, D. 2012, p. 84). John Smith experienced this error in judgment during the recent few weeks of employment. He had promised me a specific deadline for an important project that I needed completed. At the same time, John had taken on another assignment covering for another employee. With John's lack of experience he had taken on too much work for the little time frame given and was late on his project.
"Illusory correlation is the perception of a relationship where none exists, or perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists." (Myers, D. and Smith, D. 2012, p. 79) When John first started he had informed us that he had ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and he was taking a medication called Ritalin. The disorder he suffered from and the medication he was on gave negative judgments about John's behaviour. However, there have never been any related incidents as John has proven he can handle his situation responsibly.
Self serving bias