Performance Management : Employee Performance And Engagement Management

An appraisal is one of the most commonly used methods of formal assessment and is used to evaluate and assess the performance of an employee against agreed targets and objectives, with the aim of improving employee performance. Where an employee has been able to achieve their targets, the appraisal can be used to recognise successes. This often helps to increase an employee’s confidence and motivation and can lead to better organisational performance. Many organisations will use the outcomes of an appraisal to identify potential candidates for promotions or even an increase in pay. At the same time, an appraisal meeting may include discussions on underperformance, identifying why this has occurred and how this can be avoided in the future.

Performance appraisal is a method which is increasingly used to evaluate employees to determine the degree to which they are performing effectively and encourage them to direct their energies towards organizational performance. Although the appraisal is being practiced, there are criticisms made against the system which generally arise from within the Orthodox and radical management frame work.

As stated by Peter F. Drucker, “Management is about human beings. Its task is to make people capable of joint performance, to make their strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant.” Performance management is essential to achieving an organization 's mission statement and business goals, and also in attracting, retaining, and motivating qualified employees. There are many benefits and reasons why an organization should execute a performance management system. Performance appraisals establish the basis for qualifying, recognizing, and rewarding employee contributions. In this paper, I will discuss what performance management is, the problems with the current performance management system at my organization, how other organizations have succeeded in their performance management system and how I would advise management at my current organization to improve our performance management system.

CIPD (2012) ‘While performance appraisal is an important part of performance management, in itself it is not performance management: rather, it is one of the range of tools that can be used to manage performance. However, it is a common mistake to assume that if organizations implement performance appraisals, they have performance management. Performance management is a holistic process bringing together many activities that collectively contribute to the effective management of individuals and teams in order to achieve high levels of organizational performance. The process is strategic, in that it is about broader issues and long-term goals, and integrated in that

Performance Management Within the Workplace The basis of the mainstream of performance appraisals within the modern workplace is one person (a manager or executive) rating one more, an intrinsically individual process. There are distinction such as 360 degree appraisals that include the judgment of others such as clientele and peers/colleagues in the process but it is the action of one person transitory judgment upon another that is subjective in nature and the root cause of many of the problems encountered in the research associated with performance appraisals. Performance appraisals are of importance to the organisation, as they often provide the only measure of an individual's contribution and

“Performance appraisals can enhance employee performance as well as advance the mission and goals of an organization. There are many advantages of performance appraisals if they are applied fairly, consistently and objectively. Performance appraisals not applied fairly can be counterproductive and even destructive to

The definition of the term ‘performance management’ varies in different literatures. As Hutchinson(2013) summed up, combined with Den Harton’s theory(2004), it is a continuous process which links individual and team objectives with organizational goals by measure and improve employee’s skill and performance. According to Armstrong (2012), human resource management aims at making sure the organization has the most talented, skilled and engaged people in order to attain its goals. In this context, performance management is one staple practice helping managers identifying and retaining most competent employees as well as correcting poor performance.

One of the most important resources of any organization is its employees, the human resource. This makes it very important that these resources are properly managed; so that they thrive and grow along with the organization. People stream defines performance management as “A process for establishing a shared workforce understanding about what is to be achieved at an organizational level. It is about aligning the organizational objectives with the employees’ agreed skills, competency requirements, development plans and the delivery of results. The emphasis is on improvement, learning and development in order to achieve the overall business strategy and to create a high performance work force”. The performance

The terms ‘performance management’ and ‘performance appraisal’ are often used together, but they are in fact different. Performance management is an all-inclusive, nonstop and flexible approach to the management of companies, teams and individuals which involves the maximum amount of dialogue between those concerned. Performance appraisal is a more limited approach that entails managers making top-down assessments and rating the performance of their lower ranks at an annual performance appraisal meeting. The main operational differences are as follows:

Annual performance reviews are not an effective form of performance management system to measure the employee’s performance because they can be biased, waste of managerial time, too sporadic to make a lasting impact, and can affect the employee’s behavior. All companies strive to be successful at meeting their company goals in a time efficient manner. As time goes on, companies are realizing the key to a successful business is happy employees. Companies must experiment with new methods to find the right process of evaluating employee performance and ensuring that success continues. Many companies use performance appraisals to relay information to the employees about their performance level within the company. Annual performance appraisals are so prevalent that 72% of companies use them to measure employee performance (Fawcett). Though the success of the review to motivate and improve employee performance, greatly depends on how well the manager executes the appraisal. Performance appraisals are important to companies but, the question of at what cost to the employee should it continue still continues to linger.

Performance appraisals should serve as a motivational tool through non-biased evaluations of employees, a person’s efficiency can be determined if the targets are achieved. This very well serves as motivation for stronger and consistent job performance and helps him/her to improve on their performance in the future.

Performance appraisal process if made clear and transparent can help a lot to avert low morale in employees. Fair, trustworthy, and transparent processes for performances management and resource allocation help to meet people’s drive to defend.

Leaders also try to achieve the same quality for their own status, which allows them to pursue greater strength, achieve personal goals and future endeavours. According to a recent study conducted by Psychometrics Canada a pioneer in research assessment, has mentioned in one of its report that employee engagement in the organisation plays a major role in the success of any organisation. Accordingly it says that the best way to increase the relation is by working out a strategy that builds positive environment and culture relations between the workers and ensuring a good leader to fit for the purpose. Leaders in the organisation can try to achieve a better employee engagement by listening to followers opinions, communicating his vision with a clarity, providing and developing strategies and solution for the success, and finally recognising the ability of the followers and praising their contributions. Thisaspect of leadership is displayed by general feedback, generating ideas and possess enthusiastic in requesting for help (Bradley P. Owens, 2013). One example of this leadership quality is described by DAVID J. BOBB(David J B, 2013) in his book saying following servant leadership is very difficult as it is not a natural talent to anyone. He takes the example of George Washington, though considered to be a man of high temper and showing excess pride in his capabilities and qualities during his period as a freedom fighter. As he has foreseen the global position he is getting

Performance management has been used for over 100 years and can be tracked back to the post industrial revolution because businesses had expanded meaning there was a demand for a larger workforce (Beardwell and Thompson 2014). Due to this businesses need to have measure in place to control and direct workers to get the best possible performance. With this we have seen many mechanisms brought in by management based on theories.

Trying to fix all the issues regarding performance appraisals is a difficult task. All of the proposed systems profess to be able to fix some of the problems, but none seems to cover them all. Therefore, the best solution is not the one that fixes all of the issues, but rather the one that addresses as many as possible, while also enhancing the workplace and performance. By these standards the most efficacious solution would be constant feedback and coaching, which improves morale and employee retention, while at the same time reducing recency bias.