Discussion Question five Physical Areas

Assignment 1: Discussion By Saturday, June 8, 2013, respond to the assigned Discussion Question. Submit your responses to the appropriate Discussion Area. Start reviewing and responding to your classmates as early in the module as possible.   For assistance with any problems you may have when completing this assignment—OR—to offer your assistance to classmates, please use the Problems and Solutions Discussion area located through the left side navigation link.

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What five physical areas between people does differential psychology focus on identifying? Is it important for managers to understand their employees' differences? Why or why not? Explain your viewpoint by giving a minimum of two specific examples.

Leslie Snow manages a team of five help desk operators. The cubicles of the operators are located a floor below Leslie's office. Each operator is required to log help desk calls into a team database. This database tracks the nature of a problem, the length of the call, and whether the problem was fixed or sent to the engineering department for further investigation.

Leslie has a busy schedule, and it is not possible for her to monitor the performance of her team members sitting on a different floor. Therefore she decides to assess their performance solely on the basis of reports queried from the database.

Based on what you have learned about criterion deficiency and contamination, analyze Leslie's performance measurement strategy. Suggest three ways for better performance measurement for Leslie's help desk team.  Also discuss whether it is important for managers to understand their employees’ differences.  Why or why not?