Managers are repeatedly confronted by the need to decide whether aproposed non-technical program purporting to improve their operations should be accepted or not. This book will put involved personnel on surerfooting in reaching decisions on proposed programs. It updates major information concerning pre-appraisal procedure, brings it together, and focuses on the purpose of preappraisal programs. In its review of research and experiential indications, the volume can provide a better understanding of what influences employee productivity and satisfaction.

Managers are repeatedly confronted by the need to decide whether a proposed nontechnical program purporting to improve their operations should be accepted or not. In my own company this issue had been referred to me as training manager on numerous occasions over the years. I had responded with as critical an appraisal as I could then contrive.

However, the means of making a really adequate pre-evaluation were hard to come by. Of course, if the program were accepted I could draw up an ongoing evaluative design, using operational indexes as the touchstones. The managers, though, wanted answers to the earlier questions: Should they accept the program? If yes, why? If no, why not? I could not in good conscience recommend that they accept testimonials or conclusions from evaluations, often inadequate, made in a different setting. It was not enough to assure the managers that we could evaluate the program's effectiveness after its adoption. At that point the commitment would have been made, with significant economic and perhaps structural consequences to the company.

Although the bases--at least some of them--for an adequate pre-appraisal existed, they were not organized for use in an appraisal procedure. These bases were the experimental and experiential indications of effectiveness of industrial relations approaches to employee productivity and satisfaction. In the case of many approaches, however, the research investigations had not gone very far; and the indications were scattered. Even when an effort was made to collect them, the collection was not aimed at the pre-appraisal of programs and did not give rise to a format and procedure of practical use in making pre-appraisals.

My effort has been to update the major indications, bring them together, and focus them on the purpose of pre-appraising programs. The idea of my undertaking is simple. If a program uses approaches (techniques, arrangements, procedures) that have given research and experiential indications of effectiveness, then the program has a good chance of working. If its approaches run counter . . .