PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND METHODS OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

what performance management is and what are the methods of performance appraisal?

It is the integrated process that consolidates goal setting , employee development performance appraisal and rewarding performance nto a single common system. Performance management practices through which managers work with their employees to define the goals of company and develop employee capabilities through training measure and review employees performance in order to reward performance.

There is some difference between performance appraisal and performance management performance appraisal represents an isolated mechanistic and hr driven approach while performance management is a comprehensive integrated business driven system aimed at organizational and people development.

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Objective of performance management system

1 Human resource planning-

Performance appraisal information provides valuable input for skill inventories and human resource planning providing information about the human resource strength and weakness and this system helps determine the promotability and potential of all employees.

2- Recruitment and selection-performance appraisals can be used to validate or evaluate decision related to employee recruitment and selection it is possible to determine the effectiveness of recruitment and selection system.

3- Personnel decisions– performance data helps make rational personnel decisions. In the absence of information decisions become subjective.

 
Career planning and development – performance appraisal also helps in identifying employee potential and in planning future growth opportunities for the employee. Information about the strengths weaknesses and potential of employees can be used to counsel and assist them in developing and implementing realistic career plans.
Compensation and reward – for a fair reward policy performance appraisal should be there otherwise every employee will have same salary and same bonus so for distributing rewards according to their performance appraisal system is being done.

Problems in performance management

Ambivalence The manager is responsible for the performance of his subordinates. He must ensure that employees’ performance contributes to the achievements of the organizational goals and targets. So it the part of manager job to appraise subordinate performance provides feedback and make decision about the salary and promotion on basis of performance. Problem arises when subordinate performance is unsatisfactory and there may be negative motivation and nobody wants to be demoted. The subordinates are ambivalent all employees would like to get an objective feedback about their performance so that they can improve their performance and when performance feedback is negative employees find it difficult to accept it it leads to a sense of failure and lowering of self esteem

System design and implementation problem

Problems in conducting performance appraisal can be traced to poorly specified performance criteria us of inappropriate performance appraisal approaches, poorly constructed performance appraisal methods or lack of top management support to the process. A performance evaluation system may focus only on personality traits and this may result in dissatisfaction because when this performance appraisal data is used actual job performance gets ignored.

Rater biases and errors

  Even the most well designed system can fail if the people using the system are not well trained in it use. They may deliberately distort appraisal or hold negative attitude about the performance appraisal process.

How to make effective performance management system

Separate evaluation and development appraisal- there should be two separate formal performance appraisal in a year one that focuses on evaluation and the other that focuses on development. Decisions about pay increase rewards and promotions should be scheduled at a different time of the year rather than in the meeting that engages the subordinate in a dialogue for identifying performance problems and developing plans for performance improvement.

Use job related performance criteria

To ensure that the criteria used in appraising performance is job related it should be determined through job analysis. Even subjective criteria such as loyalty initiative should be used only when they can be clearly shown to be related to the job.

Specifying performance standards– it is important to specify performance standards for each criteria of performance. These performance standards or expectations must be mutually agreed upon by the managers and subordinates before the beginning of the appraisal period.

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Use appropriate performance data- Appraisal that use behavioral data result in greater acceptance on the part of the subordinate of his performance evaluation. There should be proper feed back from the employees and this feedback will help the subordinates in improving their performance.

Improving superior and subordinate relation-

The result and quality of appraisal process depends on the ongoing supervisor subordinate relationship. If the relationship is good the supervisor will provide feedback and coaching to the subordinates on an informal ongoing basis.

Provide ongoing feedback-

All employees like to know how well they are performing their jobs. Principles of learning suggest that immediate feedback is more effective than delayed feedback. When delayed the subordinate may not be able to associate the feedback with a specific behavior. Ongoing feedback is inherent to the MBO approach.

Upward appraisals

The superior has authority and controls rewards such as promotions. This results in submissive on the part of the subordinate in order to gain rewards. In order to manage unequal power distribution between the manager and their subordinates’ upward appraisal should be applied in organization

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