PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT IN HUMAN RESOURCES

QUESTION

The assignment type: Essay
limits: 2500 words
Deadline: 1 may 2012
15 References and more, include the 2 textbooks:
• Macky, K. (Ed.) (2008). Managing human resources (1st ed.). Boston: McGraw Hill
• Stone, R. (2010). Managing human resources (3rd ed.). Wiley
• Please add 15 references.

Topic: Write a formal academic essay in response to the ‘letter’ below. Please justify your stance by
“citing relevant research in the area”.

3 main points should be clear through the discussion:
• Demonstrate a clear understanding of how the various HRM/Workplace Relations disciplines are
integrated into organisations.
• Critically discuss how HRM systems and employment relations operate effectively and efficiently
within the organisational environment.
• Reference all source materials used to prepare your essay, including internet sources, in the APA
style “very important”

The letter: (new performance appraisal system)

Dear Editor,

I have been reading reports that many organisations have been improving their performance
appraisal systems, and I am writing to argue that the newer systems have a long way to go if they
are to be effective. Personally, I have yet to see a performance appraisal system that can outsmart
those employees who make a genuine effort to outsmart the performance appraisal system. Here’s
how my colleagues and I ensure that we ‘smell like roses’ at every appraisal.

Firstly, we seek to have the performance appraisal session conducted within a day or two following
an important work ‘victory’. The victory may be a major sale or the development of a new product
or service. This ensures that the boss is in a positive frame of mind regarding our performance.

Second, we know that managers at all levels are time‐starved. Time‐starved managers are likely to
undertake appraisals superficially and seek to emphasize the positives, as identifying negatives
requires subsequent employee counseling and development. To assist our senior managers to avoid
time‐consuming tasks, we emphasize that our busy schedules only allow 20 or 30 minutes for
appraisals, and that even this amount of time is tough for us to find, as it takes us away from our
customers and our ‘real work’.

Third, we emphasize during our appraisals that the positive aspects of our performance were the
results of our individual brilliance, while those objectives not achieved were due to circumstances
beyond our control, and we request that our managers appraise us accordingly. That also provides
our managers with an excuse for their own failure to meet the department’s objectives! Of course,
we also indicate that our successes have much to do with their great management skills!

Finally, we avoid any type of conflict with our managers and appraisers in the period leading up to
the appraisal. Performance appraisals are primarily a ‘feel good’ exercise, and we try hard to make
sure everyone is feeling really good for the appraisal process. We do this by tidying our desks,
getting to work on time and staying late, and writing long overdue reports and memos full of
creative ideas for improving our organisation. Bringing fresh flowers into the office and buying
cakes for the tearoom also works a treat!
Yes, performance appraisals are nothing to be feared.
A contented sales rep              (from Stone, R. 2010)

SOLUTION

It could be appropriate saying that human resource management is not limited to be considered as a field of management but it has gained a lot of recognition in recent times as a genesis to organizational growth and development. Human resource management is linked with firm’s consistency, performance, lesser attrition and higher productivity and under such circumstance it would not be an injustice to say that HRM has become one of the basic factors for company’s long term sustainability in the market.  [Macky, 2008] HR department is meant to manage the personnel force effectively and appropriately with the recruitment, selection, training, performance management, separation of the employees so that the personnel force is highly motivated and properly managed in the organization if human resource department would not have been there, it would become very difficult for organizations to manage with the workforce and their grievances after becoming a large and well known firm where the number of employees is relatively high to small firms. the importance of human resource department lies in maximizing the productivity of the organization by means of higher employee engagement, more motivation due to proper management, grievance handling of the employees, reward and recognition management by HR department which helps the employees to put forward their issues to the management through means of liaison i.e. HR. HRM also focuses to increase the quality of work life of organization’s employees, many employees want quality of work and self actualization from work life, therefore it becomes need for organizations to have a HR department which will take care of policies and practices as per employees convenience and motivation. [Stone, 2010]

There are various workplace relationship disciplines that govern the peace and serenity in the organizational internal environment thereby affecting the organizational external environment as well. Those disciplines include work life balance of the employees affecting his performance on the job, employee engagement techniques that motivates the employees for effective working, workforce diversity that has become core reason for competitive widespread growth of any firm in global market, performance appraisal as a tool of motivation and not merely report generation of the employees, learning needs of employees that build a sense of awareness in employees about the market and the firm and similar disciplines that help any firm to become what it aspired to be on the time of its establishment. [Muhammad et al, 2009]

Performance appraisal should be highly transparent tools and should be seriously considered in organizations where not only the performance is measured but their loopholes are scrutinized and counseling sessions are done so as to make the employees comfortable for discussing their hurdles. Brand organizations are well known for high retention which becomes possible due to company’s nicely build policies and timely growth to its employees so that they remain loyal and motivated to stay in the firm for long time. Apart from working on highly responsive HR team in organizations they also consider highly strict rules in terms of their grievance and discipline management. [Kok and Uhlanere, 2001] The policies of the company should be very transparent, highly communicated and grievance of employees are very strictly heard irrespective of the rank which the employee is holding i.e. HR team flow within the organization. Performance management system is a way of appraising the employees at regular intervals in order to accelerate their productivity and evaluate the level of growth and development in the employee as well as the organization. The system is not merely limited to evaluating the yearend report of the total performance but also a measure of implementing strategic human resource planning with regard to the employee force so as to bring high productivity and efficiency. [Hutchison et al, 2012] The points of consideration in this essay is effectiveness of the performance management program, performance management program must be actualized on ground level and should not merely be a source of giving points on employee’s performance, training needs of an employee and their loopholes after performance appraisal, transparency regarding job responsibilities and most importantly key responsibility areas and basic responsibility areas must be made clear enough to be demarcated easily in time of performance appraisal thereby defining the purpose of appraisal, performance appraisal and its evaluation must account for motivation in employees regarding achievement and feedback and this can be achieved when performance evaluation is properly conveyed to the employees through training sessions and learning programmes. [Macmillan, 2012] The issues of concern in performance management are implementation hurdles which basically happen because of less concentration on the effectiveness of the performance management program. The programs are not well knitted with the depth of employee force and there is an acute need for realizing the psychology of employees on whom this management technique is being practiced. The program must be followed for the complete year and not merely at the yearend time; this decreases the enthusiasm in the employees towards performing well in the organization.  The program should be well elaborated beforehand only with identified training sessions so that employees are aware of their loopholes, training needs, rewards and recognitions after performing. [Miller, 2002] Performance management program must be actualized on ground level and should not merely be a source of giving points on your performance. Another important loophole in performance management has been seen to be training needs and their lacking behind after performance appraisals. When the performance is evaluated then the loopholes must be and rectified after that which can be possible with the help of training and developmental sessions in organizations which are not implemented in most of organizations who are renowned companies thereby decreasing the scope of performance appraisal. If the employee is not being able to attain the desired goal another very good platform is counseling session of employees with the company HR which is practiced in several private banks of the world where low performing employees are called up for one to one counseling where they are asked for their problems, complaints and drawbacks in management which is withholding them from good performance, that session is free of any particular aspect to be talked about, as the conversation is with HR department , employee can ask for any kind of problem he or she is facing whether it be salary, other incentives, hurdles relating to task assignment or may be his or her relation with their immediate seniors. [www.leoncountyfl.gov] One of the most important aspects is defining the purpose of the job to the employee which means that employee must be transparent about his job responsibilities and rewards for good work. Any employee will be motivated towards work when his work recognition is done on monetary and non monetary grounds through rewards and recognitions. For that what is extremely important is transparency regarding job responsibilities and most importantly key responsibility areas and basic responsibility areas must be clear enough to be demarcated easily in time of performance appraisal. Employees must have healthy competition and for that assigning of jobs has to be done with utmost care and fare distribution must be promoted. Another very important technique of decreasing job favoritism and bias is by adopting job rotation, this will give equal opportunity to all people at equal rank and employees will have lesser complaints regarding area of high expertise and performance being assigned to any specific individual. This will also minimize the chances of employee shortfall as everyone will be equally trained on various profiles thereby increasing work efficiency

Employee engagement is a similarly known concept of HRM which is gaining recognition day by day in global market; it is directly linked with performance of employees on the job. Employee engagement does not mean just to entertain the employees in the mean time of their work but it stands for providing a proper engagement and motivational tool for the employees so that they are highly motivated on the job and find no reasons for changing their present job. Employee engagement must be added in key disciplinary concepts of human resource so that employees who are concerned about their real worth on the job also get highly motivated about their self actualization needs. Engagement activities like group discussions, management games or strategic disclosure with the employees are some key pillars which enhances the employees loyalty and belongingness towards their firm. It can also be said that when employees are highly engaged on the job, they could bring highly positive results as their level of enjoying their work is relatively high to firms where such HR practices are not followed. When individuals are in flow state little conscious control is necessary for their actions. Empirical research on employee engagement has put into focus the link of this concept with customer satisfaction and organizational financial success. Employee engagement can bring higher willingness to contribute to company’s success, performance management and sense of belongingness towards the firm. Higher performance helps to contribute in organization’s success and creating a sense of identity of an individual in the firm. [Saks, 2006] Furthermore employee engagement can bring unbelievable results for any firm. It is a tool to keep employees engaged on the job so that higher productivity and highly retained employees could be reached. Furthermore it can also be said that employee engagement is a method of building employee branding as employee branding is a very effective concept which could be related with employee engagement programs. Actually employee branding stands for creating the employee as a brand in themselves who could have their own customer base and client interaction to such high level that it could be more powerful that the product brand also. [Wellins, et al, 2012]  Employee engagement is a well known concept in developed countries where human resource is considered as a powerful tool to success and long term growth of the firm. On the same time it can also be said that in some developed countries where outsourcing is a growing weed, it has weekend the stems of employee engagement as with growth of such concept focus is highly shifted on time maximization of employee’s productivity rather than their being motivated and long term associated with the firm. When employees are merely considered for high production and long working hours so that maximum could be yielded out of them, this concept cannot work in long run and give profits for the firm. Instead what firms can practice is that certain employee groups should only be categorized for outsourcing as seen in some big organizations or multinational companies but the key staff members could be motivated with high level of employee engagement and motivation. Human resource management has to reach beyond the complexity of the employer employee bounding and create such pioneers that organizational all goals are easily met.

Company’s need for competitive advantage over their competitors has also called for emergence of workforce diversity management as a key concept so that relation between all people at work could be enhanced and the critic says that workplace diversity management is a way of reaching customers globally and increasing growth and sustained development so that people of every type could be employed in the firm and there should not be any dominance of any kind of people or race or minority or majority so that everybody feel free to work in any organization and talent management could be done to the fullest. Diversity can be of racial nature, gender based dominance of men employees over women employees, dominance of majorities in a particular firm thereby binding the minorities from joining the firm or may be of such other nature that creates uniformity of any kind in the organization which may be highly negative for the firm’s growth and development as lack of diversity means lack of wide coverage in the market, lack of strategic implication of HRM and also lack of employer dominance over employees individually as group and community dominance persists in such cases. [www.ag.gov.au, 2008] Men and women differ in their managerial application of duties and responsibilities, men can be consider as more aggressive and productive whereas women employees are more managed and subtle in their work, sometimes question also arises that for any organization to succeed with female employee base, they have to abide with highly sensitive legislations and they should also work on safety management and proper grievance handling so that women exploitation and bullying is not seen in the firms. [Kelli et al] Managing diversity is an excellent method of creating a workplace that includes everyone. It can be through considering flexible HR practices, strategic recruitment, long term perspectives and researches regarding workplace diversity management so that firm is aware about the current market percentage and level of diversity in external environment. Workplace relations have to be bounded and integrated to be one so that all kind of diversities could be easily managed, that will only take place if the employee base is competent and race or gender favoritism free. Lack of workplace diversity can harm the integrity of the firm as it is a powerful tool which manages the level of uncertainty within the firm. Actually employment relations within an organization should be flexible and elastic enough to sustain all market changes in the competitive world where people, market trends, competitions, global recognition and all such phenomenon related to privatization, globalization and liberalization are complying with. With management of all such threats and weaknesses, workforce can be made highly responsive and adaptive to all situations thereby increasing organizations efficiency and effectiveness in the competitive market like ours.[Lien, 2004]

Thus it can be concluded that bringing together HR focus and organizational other disciplines is not a very difficult state to obtain but it can be easily obtained with few but above mentioned employment relation and its effectively implemented policies and practices. What is of utmost importance is the implementation of employment relation in HR through effective strategies and not just making those strategies and not implementing it fully. There should be timely monitoring and feedback of all performance achieved by the employees so that they are aware of their progress as the year moves ahead as well as the employees must be given all those rewards and recognitions which were practiced to have been given. This will accelerate the motivation in employees to work and perform well in a promising and well organized organization. [Delecta, 2011] Apart from this organization must consider employees an equal important asset as they think customers to be and for that employee engagement and motivation programmes as mentioned above can fetch unimaginable results. All these things may be very small initiatives from organizational point of view but are highly motivating and accelerating employee’s productivity i.e. merging of retention needs of the firm and employee motivation so that employer is having employee who have sense of belongingness to the firm. [Ployhart, 2011] Planning for the future concept must be followed by HR practitioners with well accepted approaches known worldwide. Organizational environment if will adopt the above mentioned approaches to HR practices and will work towards achievement of the goals, surely organizational strength and development can be attained very easily.

References:

1. Macky, K., 2008, managing human resource, 1^st edition, MC Graw Hill
2. Stone, 2010. Managing human resources, 3^rd edition. Wiley
3. Hafiz muhammed Ishaq, Muhammed Zahid Iqbal and Arshad Zaheer, 2009, effectiveness of performance appraisal, European journal of social sciences, vol-10, no-3, page-479-500, retrieved 29-may, 2012 from http://col.aiou.edu.pk/articleandguideline/ejss_10_3_15.pdf
4. Mostafa Jafari, Atieh Borouni, Roozbeh Hasam Amiri, 2009, a new framework of selection for best performance appraisal methods, European journal of social sciences, vol-7, no-3, page-92-100, retrieved 29-may, 2012 from http://www.eurojournals.com/ejss_7_3_09.pdf
5. Jan M.P. De Kok, Loranne M. Uhlanere, 2001, organization context and human resource management in small firms, page-10-13, retrieved 29-may, 2012 from http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6871/2001-0383.pdf
6. Dave Hutchison, Oracle, Orlando Hansleman, 2012, journal of performance management, vol-24, no-1, retrieved 29-may, 2012 from http://www.amifs.org/Publications/journal.pdf
7. Macmillan, 2012. Training needs analysis, doi:10.1038/sj.bdj.4801023. Retrieved from http://www.nature.com/bdj/journal/v190/n10/full/4801023a.html
8. Janice A. Miller, SPHR and Diana M. Osinski, 2002. Traning needs analysis, Retrieved from  http://www.ispi.org/pdf/suggestedReading/Miller_Osinski.pdf
9. http://www.leoncountyfl.gov, Retrieved from  http://www.leoncountyfl.gov/hr/pdf/Policies/Evaluati.pdf
10. Allan M. Saks, 2006. Employee engagement. Journal of managerial psychology, Vol. 21, Iss 7, pp-600-619, Retrieved from  http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1575563&show=abstract
11. Richard S. Wellins, Paul Bernthal, Mark Phelps. Employee engagement. Key to realizing competitive advantage. Retrieved from  http://www.ddiworld.com/DDIWorld/media/monographs/employeeengagement_mg_ddi.pdf?ext=.pdf
12. Www.ag.gov.au. what is workplace diversity, 2008. Retrieved from  http://www.ag.gov.au/Documents/Workplace%20Diversity%20Program%202008-2010.PDF
13. Kelli A. Green, Mayra López, Allen Wysocki, and Karl Kepner. Diversity in the workplace, Retrieved from  http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/HR/HR02200.pdf
    1. Marsha lien, 2004. Managing diversity. Retrieved from  http://www.bls.gov/opub/ooq/2004/summer/art02.pdf
    2. Delecta, P., 2011. Work life balance. International journals of current research, vol-3, issue-4, pp-186-189. Retrieved from http://www.journalcra.com/sites/default/files/Download_361.pdf
    3. Robert E. Ploy hart, 2011. Staffing in the 21^st century. Journal of management, Doi- 10.1177. Retrieved from http://www.uk.sagepub.com/wilton/Online%20readings/Chapter%206/Ployhart%20article.pdf

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