Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports beginning a thorough performance appraisal of the Foothill locations by reassessing performance criteria?

A) Corporate practice has always been to reassess performance criteria on an annual basis.
B) The performance goals used by Foothill are quite different from those used by Cashcorp.
C) The Cashcorp CEO would like to see the new Foothill locations increase their assets by at least 15 percent.
D) The two best performers among the Foothill branches are the most recently opened, and their employees have the fewest years of service with the firm.
E) Employees at Foothill have been with the firm an average of 12 years.

Answer: D
Explanation: D) If Cashcorp's goal is to improve performance among the new branches, then clearly it needs to see if the existing criteria, in fact, correlate with success. So Choice D is correct: if seniority were an effective way to determine which personnel deserved rewards, one would expect the oldest branches to be the most productive ones, but this is not true. Choice B also supports the need for reassessing criteria, but less strongly, as it is possible that Foothill's reward system is different from Cashcorp's and equally effective. Likewise, Choice C creates a specific goal for performance, but the performance criteria that Foothill has used to encourage employees to meet such goals might already be adequate. Choice A simply states a business standard that needs to be considered in light of this particular situation. Choice E is not relevant to the issue.