| Course | PSYCH 678 Consulting and Business Skills (PSYCH/678) |
|---|---|
| Week | 4 |
| Paper type | Consulting recommendations paper |
| Length | about 1,170 words, 4 double-spaced pages plus title page and references |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | University of Phoenix |
| Program | MS in Psychology |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for PSYCH 678 Week 4
Three Options for the Partners: Recommendations to Replace Forced Distribution With Guided Ratings and Quarterly Check-Ins
[Student Name]
University of Phoenix
PSYCH/678: Consulting and Business Skills
Week 4 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The engineering firm, its people and all figures are composites written for a model paper; research findings come from the sources listed.
The diagnosis showed that the engineering firm's problems stem from forced distribution applied through calibration meetings, feedback given once a year and a single rating carrying pay, promotion and development at once. The partners will make the decision, and they disagree. This paper develops three options and a recommendation for the feedback session.
Criteria
I will judge options on five criteria: how well each addresses the three diagnosed causes, what research suggests about it, cost in money and manager time, risk, including the risk of overcorrection, and fit with what the partners want. Ted, the managing partner, wants to distinguish strong from weak performers. Lauren, the operations chief, wants to stop losing experienced people. A good option must satisfy both.
What the Research Suggests
DeNisi and Murphy (2017) traced a hundred years of appraisal and performance management studies in the Journal of Applied Psychology. They found that decades of studies on rating formats and scales yielded little improvement in rating quality, that training raters to share a common frame of reference for performance standards showed more promise and that researchers have rarely asked the question managers care about most, whether the whole apparatus makes people or firms perform better. They also cautioned that the recent trend of eliminating ratings altogether rests on little evidence.
Pulakos et al. (2015) argued that performance management can be fixed by shifting attention from annual formal events to the everyday behaviors that drive performance: setting clear expectations, giving feedback in the moment and working through problems together. They described helping managers build these habits through practice on the job, with coaching, while simplifying the formal system so it supports rather than replaces those conversations.
Option One: A Better Form
Rewording competencies and rating anchors would cost about $4,000 and little manager time. It responds to Lauren's original request. But the century review suggests format changes rarely improve ratings, and the diagnosis found that few employees blamed the form. The quota, calibration and annual-only feedback would remain. This option is low in cost and low in expected benefit.
Option Two: Guided Ratings Without Quotas
This option ends the forced distribution rule. Managers would rate against written standards with examples of each level for each role, and calibration meetings would focus on consistency of standards across managers rather than on meeting percentages. All eleven managers would complete two half-day frame-of-reference training sessions. The partners would review the overall rating distribution each year and question unusual patterns, such as a team with every engineer rated at the top.
This addresses the first cause directly and draws on the research finding most favorable to rater training. It answers Ted's concern partly: ratings could inflate again, but guidelines and review make differences visible without forcing them. Cost: about $12,000 for training design and delivery plus sixteen hours per manager.
Option Three: Quarterly Check-Ins and Separated Decisions
This option adds a thirty-minute quarterly check-in in which each engineer and manager review progress on three to five specific goals and discuss development, with no rating attached. Bonus decisions would remain annual, based on the rating, but development and promotion readiness would be discussed separately in the check-ins.
Locke and Latham (2002) drew together decades of studies in which hard, precise targets beat fuzzy aims or a simple request to try one's best, because such targets focus attention, raise effort, extend persistence and prompt better strategies. The effect is strongest when people accept the goal as their own and can see how they are tracking. Quarterly check-ins provide exactly that feedback and address the second and third causes.
Cost: about $6,000 to design a short guide and template, plus two hours per engineer per year.
Option one answers the question the partners asked; options two and three answer the problem the data found.
Comparing the Options
On causes addressed, option one addresses none of the three, option two addresses the first and option three addresses the second and third. On evidence, option one has weak support, option two has moderate support and option three has strong support for goals and feedback. On cost, option one runs about $4,000, option two $12,000 and option three $6,000, plus manager time. On risk, option one risks further departures, option two risks rating inflation and option three risks check-ins becoming a formality.
The Business Case
Each senior project manager departure costs the firm an estimated $150,000, counting a recruiting fee, months of vacancy, lost billable hours and time for a replacement to learn the firm's clients. Three left last year. If options two and three together prevented even one such departure, they would more than repay their combined cost of about $18,000 plus manager time.
Recommendation
I recommend options two and three together, phased. In the first quarter, the firm would announce the end of forced distribution, write role standards with managers and deliver rater training. In the second quarter, quarterly check-ins would begin. The next annual review would use the new guided ratings.
Anticipating Objections
Ted will worry that ratings will inflate. The answer is annual partner review of distributions and standards with examples, which make inflation visible. He may also say that removing the quota admits a mistake. I will frame the change as an evolution: the quota succeeded in exposing inflated ratings, and the firm can now keep that discipline without the costs the data revealed. Managers may resist check-ins as extra work; starting with a brief template keeps them short.
What Option Two Does Not Solve
Ending the quota will not by itself make managers better at judging performance. Some managers are lenient, others harsh, and without forced percentages those differences will show up in ratings. That is why the training and the annual partner review matter: the training gives managers shared standards, and the review catches patterns, such as one office rating far higher than another, that need discussion. The firm should also expect a short period of confusion as managers adjust, and should not judge the change by the first cycle alone.
Why Not Drop Ratings Entirely?
Some companies have abandoned annual ratings altogether. I am not recommending that here. The firm's bonuses depend on ratings, the partners value the ability to distinguish performance and the review of research found little evidence that eliminating ratings improves results. A guided rating, used less often for development and more carefully for pay, is a better fit for this firm.
Measures
Success will be measured by voluntary turnover among engineers rated in the top two categories, survey agreement that ratings reflect contribution, the share of engineers reporting quarterly feedback and the rating distribution, monitored for inflation. Baselines come from this engagement's data, with review after one year.
Conclusion
Three options give the partners a real choice. The evidence and the diagnosis point to ending forced distribution, training managers to rate against shared standards and adding quarterly goal check-ins, a combination that serves both partners' goals at modest cost.
References
DeNisi, A. S., & Murphy, K. R. (2017). Performance appraisal and performance management: 100 years of progress? Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 421-433. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000085
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705-717. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.57.9.705
Pulakos, E. D., Hanson, R. M., Arad, S., & Moye, N. (2015). Performance management can be fixed: An on-the-job experiential learning approach for complex behavior change. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 8(1), 51-76. https://doi.org/10.1017/iop.2014.2
What the PSYCH 678 Week 4 instructions ask
The fourth week of PSYCH 678 commonly focuses on developing recommendations from a diagnosis. Students are usually asked to generate options, evaluate them against criteria such as evidence, cost, feasibility, risk and fit with the client's culture, recommend a course of action and explain how success would be measured. Some versions ask students to anticipate objections from decision makers. Present more than one option, including the client's original idea if relevant, show how each addresses the diagnosed causes, compare costs and benefits in business terms, recommend one option or combination with clear reasons and propose measures and a timeline. Write so a busy executive could act on the summary alone, and cite sources in APA style.
How this PSYCH 678 Week 4 example is built
With the diagnosis complete, Caleb Rhodes develops options for the partners of the Chandler engineering firm. Option one, a reworded form, is cheap but leaves every diagnosed cause in place. Option two drops forced distribution and replaces quotas with rating guidelines and rater training. Option three adds quarterly goal check-ins and separates bonus decisions from development conversations. A hundred-year look at appraisal research shows that changing rating formats rarely helps, while rater training can. An argument for fixing performance management through everyday manager behavior supports check-ins. Goal-setting theory supports specific quarterly goals. Caleb recommends options two and three together, phased over two quarters, and proposes measures to review after a year.
PSYCH 678 Week 4 grading rubric: where the points go
Recommendation papers earn credit for options tied to the diagnosis, fair comparison against explicit criteria and a recommendation a client can act on. Instructors look for each option to address specific causes, for evidence, costs, risks and feasibility to be compared, for the recommended course to be justified clearly and for measures and a timeline to be included. Credit goes to taking the client's original idea seriously and to anticipating objections from decision makers. A single recommendation presented without alternatives loses points, as do recommendations without costs or measures. Follow APA style, and keep the comparison table readable for a busy partner.
PSYCH 678 Week 4 help: mistakes to avoid
Recommendation papers often present one solution as obvious without showing alternatives, which leaves the client no real choice and invites resistance. Another frequent weakness is failing to connect each recommendation to a diagnosed cause, so the plan looks like a list of good practices. Some students ignore cost or the effort managers will need. Others dismiss the client's original request instead of explaining why it would fall short. Offer options, compare them on stated criteria, link each to causes, estimate costs and benefits, address likely objections and say how success will be measured. Working with a tutor, you can lay out options in a grid a busy client can read and act on in a minute.
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PSYCH 678 Week 4 questions, answered
What does PSYCH 678 Week 4 usually cover?
Developing consulting recommendations, including generating options, comparing them on criteria and recommending a course of action.
Where can I find a free PSYCH 678 Week 4 sample paper?
The PSYCH 678 Week 4 recommendations for redesigning an engineering firm's ratings are above, free in full.
Should I give a client more than one option?
Usually yes; options let decision makers weigh tradeoffs and increase ownership of the choice.
Does changing the rating form improve performance appraisal?
Research over many decades suggests format changes alone rarely improve rating quality much.
What is rater training?
Training that helps managers share a common understanding of performance standards and apply them consistently.
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