In recent years, many investments banks were charged under gender discrimination in their workplace. Morgan Stanley is one of the companies that have been accused by its former executive female employee. On November 1998, executive Allison Schieffelin at Morgan Stanley filed a complaint against the firm accusing of sexual discrimination. "Schieffelin alleged that she and other female workers had been denied equitable pay, promotions, and hiring terms, and had been excluded from the company functions because of their gender" (NY Times; March, 13, 2004). In addition, Schieffelin contended that her bosses kept her out of contact with clients, gave her poor performance assessments, and discharged her (Forbes; September 2001). Under civil rights act, it is illegal to deny any administrative rewards based on gender. .
One of the ways to determine whether Schieffelin was inadequately denied from fair compensation, promotion, and termination, we need to evaluate the performance appraisal procedures used in the company. Performance appraisal is a successful way of monitoring and evaluating employee performances. It measures behaviors that are vital to successful job operation. An appraisal analyst may use behavior-observation scale (BOS) to observe and rate an employee based on number of important functions s/he carries out. It can be used as a basis of making judgments on who gets promoted or discharged by distinguishing between a high performer and a low performer. For the result to be accurate, the rater must keep the record of appraisal and communicate the results to a worker. .
In addition, we need to seek what basis the company used to make its choice, whether the company used objective performance criteria or subjective performance criteria. Subjective performance criteria are based on one's judgment on others, often conducted by supervisor. It is important to make sure that an immediate supervisor rates the staffs since s/he is directly involved with the work employees perform.