Performance Management Process and Evaluation of Performance - Essay Example

Performance Management

Background

The companies operating these days are getting tough competitions from the peer companies in the industry and especially after such companies are getting globalised. Therefore, in order to stay in the competition as well as to thrive in the same, the companies need to become highly productive. Such productivity totally relies on the relation of the management with its employees. The employees are the one who actually work to achieve the goal that is set by the organisation. The concept of performance management is to ensure that the productivity of the firm should remain stable and rise accordingly. Therefore, it includes the activities that are performed in order to encourage as well as inspire the employees to perform in an efficient manner (Otley, 1999).

The relationship between the management as well as the staff is the most important subject matter in the concept of performance management. This is so because, the better the relation and understand ability among them, the better is the work quality as well as the productivity. It is more of a participative work rather than autocratic where the managers only give order. If the employees are provided with an opportunity to provide their opinions then they might feel their importance in the firm and would be encouraged to work. The manager’s communication is another thing which is important for higher productivity and the employees might feel encourages if the managers initiates and motivate the employees to work effectively (Armstrong and Baron, 2000).

The process management in other term could also be defined as a process where the managers as well as the employees collaborate together in order to enhance the results as well as satisfaction from the work. The activity of performance management is mostly effective when both the employees as well as the manager take an active role in the same (Van Dooren, Bouckaert and Halligan, 2015).

The performance of the employees is highly dependent on the activity of the managers where they have to plan, supervise as well as implement the plant as well as take the feedback. Therefore, for the managers it is a strategic approach in order to increase the efficiency and capability of a team or even an individual (Seuring and Gold, 2013).

To implement the plans in the company it is the imperative task of the managers to view it himself. The plans made and the objectives as well as goals set needs to be realistic so as the employees could follow the same. Setting unrealistic goals could highly effect the motivation of the employees and even their productivity (De Waal, 2013). Therefore, the managers are the one who need to plan as well as prepare the activities in such a way which would motivate the employees to work for the firm by getting inspired by the manager. The managers need to treat them as they deserve to be and taking their opinions as well as listening to their grievances, provide that person a satisfaction which also affects his performance in the company. High performance leads to high and efficient productivity which in turn increases the profitability of the company and could make it a market leader in near future (Ates et al., 2013).

Performance Management Process and Evaluation of Performance

The performance management process takes into consideration, the various activities taken by the managers such planning the work as well as setting the realistic expectation, monitoring the performance on an regular basis, continuously developing the performance skill, rating the performance of the employees in both teams and individuals and finally encouraging the good performance by rewarding that team or individual (Rolstadas, 2012).

Planning is the first and foremost step of performance management process. In this step the managers are the supposed to meet with the employees in order to create their performance plans. Such goals are meant to align with the overall business objective and along with the same, the individuals goals are meant to be set for the employees. This is the part which totally depends on the communication style of the manager where he can explain the importance of the objectives set. It provides the managers with an opportunity to talk to the managers to consult the plans with them and the ways in which their performance impact the firm and their welfare (Mone and London, 2014).

Monitoring is again an important part where the where the supervisor should see the progress of the employees and their performance. The review should be on a regular basis in order to keep the plan and performance intact. This is the prime process where any correction could be made if necessary or it may negatively affect the company later. The process of monitoring also rectifies the problem detection the progress of the work. Thus while monitoring, the efficiency of the worker can also be detected and so will the prediction of productivity will also be realised (Buckingham and Goodall, 2015).

The process of monitoring is then can also help in providing the underperforming employees the development skills needed. Te employee development skill should be taken seriously as the employees generally need motivation in order to perform well. The employee development is the main agenda as the skilled labour will be more efficient performer and this is only possible through employee development scheme. There are many types of development such as formal training, informal training, coaching, new work assignments etc (Poister, Pasha and Edwards, 2013).

Rating is the process which the managers could do only after analysing and monitoring the performance of the employees. It is done to compare the performance of the employees against their target performance. This is the final rating generally does not come as a surprise to the employees as there would have been many discussion among the employees and the supervisor regarding the same during monitoring (Brunnert et al., 2014).

Rewarding is the final process where the supervisor distinct the performer and the nonperformers and rewards that individual or the team. This actually motivates the winning team or individual and inspires the other to perform well in the coming time (Pulakos et al., 2015).

Such process is very important for the firm where the manager has the responsibility of training and developing the other in order to inspire them to work and perform to their optimum level. However, there are also some limitations of the same where the managers have to follow the company policies even if there is some loophole in it. The managers are bound to follow the company norms and even might suggest them to change the same but cannot force. It may even happen that the training that is being provided to the employees is very new to them and they find difficulty to understand the same. There are many new models are introduced these days to make the work more easy but understanding the same could be difficult for the employees who are in habit to use the old process. Therefore, the manager could help the employees with the same and also interpret their problem to the company and make them understand those which are needed to be rectified in the policies (de Waal and Kourtit, 2013).

Managing poor performance

The process of performance management is the most important part of a manager’s job role and it also covers the area where some employees are not able to perform like others. This is the case of poor performance which is also needed to deal with and this is the task of the managers. Managers often deal with this problem and it is the most undesirable part of their task which leads to various emotional changes such as anger, disappointment or even denial (Schläfke, Silvi, and Möller, 2012).

In general terms, performance is the product of ability and the motivation. Therefore, the manager would have to motivate the employees in order to awake their ability to do the task allocated to them. This only does not depend on the manager because the employee with low performance ability may also not perform irrespective of his motivational level (Hunter and Nielsen, 2013).

However, there could be various methods for the managing the poor performance of the employees. The main reason for the lower ability of the employees is unrealistic target and setting over-difficult job. Such jobs are generally tough and so they are not achieved, this thing lowers the motivational level of the employees. This makes them believe that they are underperformers and so their ability to work also decreases. This is a psychological factor which acts as a barrier. As discussed previously, it is also possible that the individual himself have low attitude, knowledge and skill which act as a barrier to his ability to perform. Attitude is work is also not present in some of the employees in spite of their poor performance, they are never inspire by the performance of the other staff. This leads to lack of improvement over time and also that employee adds no value to the company (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).

However, the managers need to go through some of the challenges to rectify it. The best way to confront the same is through counselling. In this process, the manager in a very polite tone should talk to the employees about the reasons of poor performance. This could be regarding many things such as unrealistic expectations, some financial shenanigans or even some personal problem. The task of manager in this process is to listen to the grievances of the employee and solve the same efficiently. It may even happen that a performing employee could become unable to perform due to some reasons as humans acts as per their emotions. In such a case the manager should provide that person with suitable sets of solution (Goetsch and Davis, 2014).

There are some ways to confront the non-performance which prefer not to deal such cases in anger. However, this case should be addressed with immediate actions to be taken for the same. If such this is let alone then it may cause problem in the future date. Therefore, this thing should be done before it grows out of control. The next thing is the most important while dealing with this poor performance. Maintaining confidentiality is considered to be supreme as it may hurt the sentiment of the person. The manager should maintain privacy while counselling with the employee regarding his poor performance. Therefore, turning it in a big even is not recommended. Being specific about the problem is the main thing without talking useless. Using evidence and factual information is much better while speaking about the poor performance (Shields et al., 2015).

Performance action plan is an important factor where the low performers are given an opportunity to succeed but are still held responsible for their past performance this is a process where manager researches all the aspect the person and tries to figure out the reasons for the low performance of the employee. There once this reason is sorted out, it is the responsibility of the manager to provide the employee with all the tools and resources needed to enhance his performance. There are several advantages to the same where the poor performance could improve in case of the employee and even the managers could recognise a new type of training process which might help these kinds of people present in the organisation (Hill, Jones and Schilling, 2014). Such action plan could be developed by the collaboration of the manager and employees which could figure out the areas of misunderstanding and confusion. The action plan should be made in such terms which could be measured by the managers. Such a process could benefit the employees to understand the improvement in the performance. Once such plan is implemented, and then the performance is meant to be reviewed by the managers on a regular basis. There could also be an involvement of the third party in the same. Therefore, this could be referred as the best way to tackle the problem of low performance in an organisation (Rummler and Brache, 2012).