Performance appraisal: one company's experience

In many corporations the installation of a performance appraisal program is a necessary step to opening the door to other key human resource development activities. Implementing a performance appraisal program that works and convincing managers to use the program are essential if other human resource development programs are to succeed. This article describes the characteristics of the performance appraisal process used at Glendale Federal Savings and Loan Association, Glendale, California, and how data generated by the program was used to facilitate other employee development programs.     

Strikes: strategy and tactics for managers

The threat of a strike is a powerful weapon in the union's arsenal. Management, caught off-guard when a strike hits, can be faced with insurmountable problems regarding maintenance of business operations and may be put in a position of capitulating to labor's demands. To avert these problems and to be able to effectively cope with the impact of a walkout, management must have a plan of action well in advance of the strike. In the following article, the authors provide a detailed strategy for strike preparation and discuss the issues management must address in dealing with a potential strike.     

Health care in Canada: patterns of funding and regulation

During the 1970s the share of health care expenditure in Canadian GNP remained roughly stable, in the range of 7-71/2 percent of GNP, in marked contrast to its escalation in most other countries (the U.S. in particular) and to previous Canadian experience. The shift to a stable pattern coincided with the completion of the Canadian system of universal comprehensive public hospital and medical care insurance. This paper explores how and why the public insurance system served to contain cost escalation. It then discusses the inadequacy of expenditure experience per se as a basis for health system evaluation--the same data will support claims of both "underfunding" and "spiralling costs." More serious questions involve the influence of alternative patterns of health care funding and delivery on the effectiveness and efficiency of care provision, and the resulting distributional patterns of care and income. A brief sketch is given of the present situation and future possibilities of Canadian health care under these heads.