Managing Employee Appraisals - Research Paper Example

?Managing Employee Appraisals Management of employee performance in any organization is more than just important since it has both direct and indirect effects on the business of the organization as well as the clients. Employee appraisal is considered as one of the most fundamental functions of the human resource management in any organization (Selvarajan and Cloninger, 2011, p. 2011). Unless there is a systematic method of helping the employees comprehend and obtain the goals of their performance appraisal, maintain their talents and competencies, and actively participate in the opportunities of learning, the organizations are at risk. These risks include but are not limited to high rate of employee turnover, and low quality of products or services that the organization offers to the clients. Management of performance appraisals is a fairly demanding task. The management in organizations is often too busy to consider such issues, and the amount of effort required to maintain a healthy, practicable, and fully functional performance management system makes it seem more of a hassle than a good practice, but the reality is otherwise. According to DeNisi and Pritchard (2006), the research surrounding the topic of performance appraisal has attracted a lot of criticism because of the overemphasis placed on the psychometric issues. It is equally important for the appraisal research to place emphasis on and explore the effective systems of performance appraisal that can inculcate the motivation in the employees to improve their performance. Some of the most important components of the effectiveness of employee appraisal include the perceived level of accuracy, fairness, and satisfaction on the part of the employees because these perceived reactions of the employees can serve as the motivational factors to help them improve their performance. Performance appraisal serves as a way for the management to provide the employees with their feedback to bring a positive change in their performance. A very important issue is to identify the factors that play a role in the systems of performance appraisal that can elicit positive reactions by the employees to the appraisal (Selvarajan and Cloninger, 2006, p. 2). Perceived level of accuracy of the employee appraisals is amongst the criteria that are employed most widely for the effectiveness in the research surrounding this topic (Cardy and Dobbins, 1994). It is linked with a range of outcomes of employee appraisal like motivation of the employees and their satisfaction with the appraisal. Achievement of their satisfaction is extremely important for the management because employees can only be motivated to improve their performance once they have the confidence that their past performance has been judged fairly. In all cases, the more transparent the system of employee appraisal, the better it can be understood by the employees and their perceived reactions to it are likely to be more positive. Considering the importance of a well-developed, organized, and transparent system of employee appraisal, use of software for performance management is fairly common in a lot of industries ranging from healthcare to construction and schools. One such software that is suitable for use in the healthcare industry is HealthcareSource Performance Manager. This software makes the process of healthcare performance management quite simplified with the automation of the content and workflow for competencies, performance reporting, training, and performance appraisals. The software provides the management with a structure and an efficient reminder system that places emphasis on the achievement of goals and makes the documentation, chasing, and communication quite convenient for the management. Improvements made to the employee appraisal with the use of the HealthcareSource Performance Manager include improved on-time completion ratio of employee appraisal, improved communication in the organization, consistence between the goals of the organization and those of the employees, and minimized time and cost incurred in the HR processes (HealthcareSource, 2012). A very innovative way of management of employee appraisals that is being increasingly used by the sophisticated organizations is the “cloud solution” for the performance appraisals and feedback of the employees. One of such solutions is the Halogen eAppraisal that does the simplification, automation, and streamlining of the complete process of performance evaluation of the employees (Halogen Software, n.d.). Halogen eAppraisal serves as a performance hub which is based on cloud and ensures that a thoughtfully integrated way is adopted for the management of talent all across the organization. Halogen eAppraisal can both be used as a standalone or together with other modules in the suite for the attainment of an entirely cloud-based and performance driven solution of employee appraisal. Halogen eAppraisal provides the management with the opportunity to make, streamline, and provide strategic initiatives across a wide range of programs of talent management that include but are not limited to onboarding, recruiting, competency assessment, learning and training, 360 degree feedback, performance appraisals, and compensation management. Effective management of employee appraisal is directed at inculcating knowledge about the fundamentals of business the organization is involved in in every employee. This includes telling the employees the goals of the organization, the individualistic and collective roles of the employees in helping the organization achieve its intended goals, the skills and competencies required by the employees to performed the tasks assigned to them completely and perfectly, the criteria against which the performance of the employees is evaluated, what are the employees doing presently, and the possible ways in which they can improve their performance and productivity. Employees need to be told what is expected of them by the management so that they can put their efforts in the right direction that would lead them to better reviews in the future. The importance of training to improve the employees’ performance cannot be overemphasized. Training and development is the most fundamental tool that the management can use to help the employees achieve all the tasks assigned to them successfully and come up to the expectations of the management. Training develops the competencies not only of the poor performing employees but also of the employees whose performance is already outstanding. Training helps the latter take their competencies and skills to the next level so that they are able to encounter even bigger challenges within the organization. The management has a vast range of options to choose the training programs as well as the trainers from. A very effective as well as cost-effective way especially suitable for the training of the poor performing employees is to use the services of the outstanding performing employees. It is widely known and believed that employees happen to be the biggest and the most precious asset of an organization. The management can make the outstanding performing employees train the poor performing employees so that the organization does not have to waste time and incur cost in hiring the trainers from outside. Besides, since the trainers are located in-house, their level of competency and quality of service is already known by the management. Management can achieve this by dividing the employees into groups of poor performing employees and outstanding performing employees. Since the performance of employees is judged by the extent to which they have been able to achieve their goals in the past, and that is already known by the employees, so there is little room, if any, of demotivation on the part of the employees to be placed in the poor performing group. Management should assign specific roles to the outstanding performing employees who thus serve as the trainers for the poor performing group. The roles should be assigned keeping in view the individualistic talents and expertise of the outstanding performing employees e.g. software expertise, conflict resolution, time management, and conduct in the organization. Management should visualize these and other areas like subjects that are supposed to be taught to the group of poor performing employees by the trainers. This activity should be conducted routinely for some time. This is not only beneficial and educative for the poor performing employees, but is also entertaining for the outstanding performing employees because for one, they are honored to be placed in the group of outstanding performing employees, and secondly, it lets them have a break from the busy routine work in the office. Management should place equal emphasis on the development of the skills of the outstanding performing employees as they place on the training of the poor performing employees. The outstanding performing employees should be provided with the opportunities to advance their academic career with the help of the sponsorship and funding of the organization. This not only helps the outstanding performing employees further their academic career along with their professional development, but also helps build a very strong bond between them and the organization that is mutual beneficial for both in the long run. On the other hand, the organization would benefit from the increased and enhanced talents and competencies of the employees whose performance was already outstanding. Concluding, the fundamental objective of management of employee appraisals is to continuously improve their performance and productivity so that the profitability of business can be increased. Employee appraisal imparts the need for the management to ensure that the employees’ performance is consistent with and contributes to the teams’ goals and the goals of the organization as a whole. The aim of management of employee appraisal is to help the employees use it as a source of learning to bring positive changes in their performance, review their future goals, and make themselves ready for the challenges lying ahead in their careers within the organization. These days, use of software for employee appraisal management is very common in organizations belonging to all sorts of industries. Since employee appraisal is fundamentally about improving the performance of the employees, management should make the arrangements for the training and development of skills of the employees to help them optimize on their potential to show best performance in the organization. For this, management can adopt the very effective and cost-effective training method of using in-house talent, by making the outstanding performing employees train the poor performing employees. In addition to training the poor performing employees to help them improve their performance, it is equally important for the organization to give due credit to the outstanding performing employees by providing them with opportunities of advancement of their academic careers. Drawing a balance between the employees of all kinds is one of the most fundamental requirements of an effective system of employee appraisal. Management of employee appraisal has to be fair for all personnel of the organization. Management should make the decisions on the basis of merit and there must be no discrimination against the employees because of their performance. References: Cardy, R. L., and Dobbins, G. H. (1994), Performance Appraisal: A Consideration of Alternative Perspectives, Cincinnati, OH: South-Western. DeNisi, A., and Pritchard, R. (2006). Performance Appraisal, Performance Management and Improving Individual Performance: A Motivational Framework. Management and Organization Review. 2(2), 253– 277. Halogen Software. (n.d.). Halogen eAppraisal: employee performance made easy. Retrieved from http://www.halogensoftware.com/products/halogen-eappraisal/. HealthcareSource. (2012). Healthcare Performance Management Software. Retrieved from http://www.healthcaresource.com/solutions/performance-management.html. Selvarajan, T. T., and Cloninger, P. A. (2011). Can performance appraisals motivate employees to improve performance? A Mexican study. The International Journal of Human Resource Management. pp. 1-22. Retrieved from http://www2.uhv.edu/cloningerp/Publications/A%20PUBLISHED%20COPY%20PERF%20APP%20IN%20MEXICO%20IJHRM.pdf. Read More