Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 11, 1992                   TAG: 9203110035
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

AT&T BOSSES GET THEIR VERY OWN RATING SERVICE: WORKERS

"You get negative feedback when you screw up and nothing when you do a good job," said the assembly worker at AT&T Microelectronics. "People should be told when they are doing a good job."

Jackson and other employees at the circuit board plant now can tell management how they feel by evaluating supervisors in a newly implemented "upward appraisal" process.

"It's been a long time coming," Jackson said. "A lot of times people may have an opinion and may not want to verbalize it. So writing it down gives people a chance to express their opinion on how things are done and how things can change."

The program is being phased in as part of an attempt to improve quality and teamwork at the 2,000-employee plant, a unit of New York-based AT&T. The appraisals also are intended to increase worker participation in decision-making.

In addition to the Richmond plant, the company's headquarters operations division in Basking Ridge, N.J., and four of AT&T's 24 units are using upward appraisals.

Officials say AT&T plans to expand the process throughout the company by 1995.

"We needed to do something different and needed more open communication," said Steve Kunnmann, who is in charge of the voluntary appraisal process at the suburban Richmond plant. "The program should improve productivity and morale. Some bosses don't ask how they're doing. We think they should.

"If I ask my people how they perceive I am performing, I will react to it," Kunnmann said. "Then I will be a better leader, and then they'll perform better."

The appraisal form asks workers to evaluate their bosses anonymously, using 25 multiple-choice questions, and leaves a space for extra comments.

The supervisors analyze the feedback and are encouraged to share results with their work teams.

"For the bosses receiving feedback, it gives them light on how they're viewed by their subordinates," said Cameron Hardison, Jackson's supervisor.

The Richmond plant will perform upward evaluations twice a year, Kunnmann said.

Company officials say they don't think the appraisals will be used to bash supervisors, nor will the supervisors try to punish workers for giving them less-than-positive performance reports.

"One of the things we've done is go through leadership-skills training," Kunnmann said. "How do you accept feedback and use it as an opportunity to grow and not as a way to throw rocks?"

"There's no question that [upward appraisal] is beneficial to working people," said Communications Workers of America representative Doug Thompson of the Richmond plant's Local 2260.

"The problem, though, is when you don't have a true relationship with your supervisors, people are still intimidated by giving appraisals," he said. Although the appraisal forms are anonymous, "the fact of the matter is that they can be identified."

Burke Stinson, an AT&T spokesman in New Jersey, said insecure, mediocre managers might view upward appraisal as a threat.

"But in the hands of a bright manager who seeks improvement, it should be a boon," he said.