Ross Friedman - Mathew Hazlett/ The Towerlight

eam PROFessionals took their second consecutive win in The Associate competition, March 1.

This week, the teams were to propose a new performance management system for the engineering firm Johnson, Mirmiran and Thompson (JMT).

The recommended system must fit the culture and mission of JMT and create incentive for employee achievement of company goals.

Both teams’ proposals needed to include a performance appraisal system, a compensation system, an employee development process, a recruitment and employment process, as well as recommendations as to how these systems should be linked.

Team PROFessionals, led this week by Kathleen O’Riordan, focused on management by objectives in their proposal.

They suggested the use of a behavior observation scale as a rating process to complete evaluations.

“It was definitely a challenge at first because [many team members are] not HR [human resources] majors and had no idea what the terms I was throwing at them were,” O’Riordan said about beginning to work with her team on this task.

Team Rubicon, led this week by Marie Zoscak, created a three-step system under the slogan “Highway to Success”—performance, consistency and analysis.

They advocated for a frequent updating of evaluations to provide the best service to customers.

“The energy on our team was a lot better this week,” Zoscak said. “We did everything we could and I’m proud of our team’s work.”

Both teams will be treated to dinner as a prize.

It was decided that Ross Friedman of team Rubicon will not continue forward in the competition. He said he was very glad to have had this opportunity.

“We knew this wasn’t going to be any easy task. But every single week I learned so much. You are speaking with people you never will in a lifetime. It’s remarkable,” Friedman said.

After two eliminations on their team, Rubicon is down to two members. The remaining members of team Rubicon,

Kyle Harrer and Zoscak, got to select one of the members of Team PROFessionals to join them. Their choice: Stacey Ruddy.

Next week, the teams will work on a target communication case study in which they will design a sustainable gift card.