LDE 1 : Flat Panel Display Corporation

The group had considered using information from Employee Evaluation

System (EES) as well as other data points from the Performance Assessment
as well as qualitative assessment from the group. Upon review of the EES
from the case exhibit C, it appears to be a well-defined objective rating
system based on various dimensions including helping employees learn their
purpose in the organization, help develop a developmental plan performance
questionnaire as well as performance and compensation report. Each of
these components were rated based on an exhaustive list of questions to
help determine employee performance and evaluate potential.

The Group, however, chose not to place enough emphasis on EES, quoting
the 29% firm-wide adoption of the system, even though the SPACENET
division had a 100% adoption and the data would be well suited to make
comparisons and evaluation within the division. They instead chose to rely
on Performance Assessment data, which was conducted by Nathan Kim
himself, and in case of a disagreement theyd rely on Nathans judgement
based on his previous interactions.

The group, in my opinion faced issues due to confirmation bias, wherein they
sought only the data which confirmed what they already believed. They
chose to use the 29% firm-wide adoption statistic as its possible that EES
statistics didnt support the groups feeling on who should be let go. The
exhibit talks about the inherent conflict of interest in the Performance
Assessment process due to Nathan Kim serving the role of both the
evaluation and the counselling role. Furthermore, employees dont have
access (or are made explicitly aware of) the developmental plan which
Nathan prepared with the employees manager.

The case also suggests that some of the group members had pre-conceived
notions about who should be fired without getting a round-table feedback.
The team largely, faced a sense of false security in that they had thought
of various ways to counteract an indecision and that they could do no
wrong. This possibly led to layoffs of employees who were effective in their
roles as was anecdotally confirmed by some of them getting offers after
being let-go at higher salaries.