Managing Employee Performance - Essay Example

Managing Performance Introduction Employee performance management is a complex task in majority of the organizations. Even though an organization may have many other resources, the interference of manpower is necessary to mobilize all those resources in a proper way. In other words, manpower is the most important resource of an organization and the success and failure of the organization depends on how well the organization is able to manage employee resources. Even good managers sometimes fail to manage the individual performances in an organization. “Managing performance well is like speaking prose. Many managers have been “speaking” and practicing effective performance management naturally all their supervisory lives, but don’t know it!”(A Handbook for Measuring Employee Performance, 2001, p.3). Manpower is the only active element in an organization whereas all the other organizational resources are passive in nature. Since human has emotions, intelligence, and the ability to think, his activities will be primarily motivated or controlled by these individual characteristics. No two individuals are alike and therefore a manager will struggle to implement a uniform management style in an organization. In short, individual differences have to be taken into the account while managers devise their strategies for managing employees. In other words, managing individual performance is a complex task. This paper analyses why the management of individual performance in an organization is a complex issue. Complexities in the management of individual performances Team work is encouraged in majority of the current organizations because of the advantages of team work over individual work. However, it should be noted that individuals constitute a team and therefore individual characteristics can affect team work also. Majority of the decisions in a team is taken after a team meeting. Frisch (2008) mentioned that “reaching collective decisions based on individual preferences is an imperfect science” (Frisch, 2008). Team meetings usually give more importance to the majority’s opinion while taking decisions. It is not necessary that majority’s decisions may always be the right ones. Members of a team may have some common interests and they will vote for safeguarding their interest. It is not necessary that such interests may suit to the interests of the organization. For example, majority of the team members may show reluctance in working overtime for the completion of a project. If the team leader accepts the majority’s opinion, the completion of the project could be delayed. Majority’s opinion need not be the right one for an organization always. In short, even team work may cause problems in managing the individuals. Supporters of teamwork argue that the “creation of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, because synergy pools individual talents and efforts to create extraordinary results” (Judeh, 2011, p.203). Petrov (2010) also supported the ideas of Judeh. In his opinion, “The main characteristic feature of the team is synergy through which team members act together and achieve better results than if they perform alone or in other organizational forms”(Petrov, 2010, p.91). It is true that the productivity and efficiency of a team could be more than that of the sum of the productivities and efficiencies of the individuals in the team. 1+1=2 in mathematics, but in team works, 1+1>2. At the same time, it should be noted that the organization may fail to monitor the individual works properly when employees work as part of teams. Individuals can deliberately stay idle and still escape from any punishments since the organization may assess only the final outcomes of the team project. In other words, hardworking professionals in a team can safeguard underperforming team members. Thus the organization may not notice the underperformances of the individuals. “According to a 2006 Employee Review by Randstad, one of the world’s largest staffing organizations, 86 percent of surveyed workers said they needed to feel valued by their boss to stay happy—but only 37 percent report receiving positive feedback”(Marconi, 2011). One of the major problems in employee management is the effective use of reward and punishment. Both rewards and punishments are necessary to motivate the employees and to improve their productivities. However, untimely rewards and punishments can create more damage than good. Before rewarding or punishing an employee, the manager should make sure that the employee and his colleagues are equally convinced by that action. Biasing and prejudices should not rule the manager while dispersing rewards and punishments. In short, managers are facing severe difficulties while rewarding or punishing an employee since such actions can not only affect the individual but also his colleagues. “Performance management is the systematic process by which an agency involves its employees, as individuals and members of a group, in improving organizational effectiveness in the accomplishment of agency mission and goals”(US office of personnel management, n.d.). As mentioned earlier, no two individuals are alike. Therefore individuals may have different intelligence, different opinion, different ways of functioning etc. Some of the employees could be hard working whereas some others could be lazy. Some of the employees may require less supervision whereas others need more supervision. Some of them could be skilled whereas others may require more training and development. Some of the employees could be Christians whereas others could be from Muslim or Hindu community. Sundays are sacred day for Christians whereas Muslims consider Friday as their sacred day in a week. In short, the workforce of an organization is highly diverse not only in their capabilities but also in their culture and beliefs. Thus, a manager’s job may become extremely complicated as far as employee management is concerned. “Simply put, performance management includes activities to ensure that goals are consistently being met in an effective and efficient manner. Performance management can focus on performance of the organization, a department, processes to build a product or service, employees, etc” (Performance Management -- Basic Concepts, n. d.). A typical employee performance management of an organization is illustrated in the diagram given below. (US office of personnel management, n.d.) Planning is an important organizational function and employee management is an area in which planning plays a vital role. A wrong employee at a particular place may create more harm to the organization. Right person at the right place at the right time will always bring dividends to the organization. Allocation of jobs should be done after the assessment of the capabilities of the employee. Two MBA graduates coming out from a particular organization need not be the same in capabilities. One of them may have good sales skills whereas the other one may have good employee management skills. An organization which appoints these two graduates should first study the abilities of these two individuals before posting them in any departments. Monitoring is another major activity necessary to assess the abilities of the employees. Consistent monitoring will force the employees to work hard to deliver the goods. On the other hand, employees may stay idle or become lazy if nobody monitors their performance. At the same time it should be noted that over monitoring may bring more harm than good. No employee would like to see a supervisor monitoring his performance continuously throughout a particular shift. Such monitoring may increase the stress levels of the employee and he may not be able to concentrate fully on his job. Monitoring may leads towards reviews of employee performances. Reviews are a critical component of the system. Reviews give timely feedback to the individual. It is important to schedule formal reviews during the course of the year. These can be half-yearly or quarterly depending on the need. Structured mid-term reviews enable the organization to take stock of the performance during the given period. It gives the individual an opportunity to discuss his/her achievements during the given period and to look at areas of improvement. In a dynamic environment, it is important to keep abreast of market situations. Reviews can be utilized to make midcourse correction (Does performance appraisal benefit anyone?, n.d.) Rewarding is another aspect of employee management. The motivation for continuing a good work is obtained from rewarding. There are many employees who value the appreciations of the manager more than a financial reward. In other words, employees have physical as well as emotional needs. A word of appreciation may cater their emotional needs whereas an incentive may cater their physical needs. Judicious usages of praising words, and incentives or promotions may keep an employee motivated always. Some managers have the belief that providing incentives is the only way of rewarding an employee. However, in some cases, a good word may serve far better than an incentive as far as an employee is concerned. Developing of employee skills is another major challenge employee management. The knowledge and skills of the employees should be kept updated always in order to make them useful to the organization. Training and development is the only way of accomplishing the above objective. “A number of studies have shown that results of education training affect overall performance of an organization such as productivity, turnover rate, absence rate and organization commitment, etc” (Lin et al. 2011, p.927). According to Marchington & Wilkinson (2005), “Training and education are not only seen as the way of helping individual to become more adaptive in their work, but also of providing more knowledge and skills” (Marchington & Wilkinson, 2005, p.52). Torrington et al also supported the ideas of Lin et al and Marchington & Wilkinson. In their opinion, “Training and development has a role to play as do reward systems to maximize effort” (Torrington et al, 2004, p.7). In short, different studies have concluded training and development as the major organizational function in employee management. It is not necessary that all the employees may have similar skills and intelligence and therefore managers may struggle to empower all the employees equally well through on the job or off the job training methods. Rating is another important strategy in employee management or performance management. Kathy (2009) has pointed out that “If a manager does not keep notes and accurate records of employee behavior, they may not be successful in sending a consistent message to the employee” (Kathy, 2009).An employee should get consistent messages from the managers about his performances. Periodical recording of employee behavior and performances will help the managers while dispersing rewards, incentives and complements to the employees. Managers can convince the employees with the help of these records while dispersing rewards. In the absence of such managerial records, employees may feel that some of them got rewards more or less than what they deserve. “Motivation is literally the desire to do things” (Psychology today, 2011one which is driven by inherent characteristics whereas extrinsic motivation is one driven by external factors. An employee requires both for performing his responsibilities successfully in an organization. One of the major motivation theory; theory X and theory Y talks about the different attitudes of people towards work. Theory X says about the inherent dislike of human towards work whereas theory Y says about people who have positive attitudes towards work. “Because of this inherent dislike of work, most people must be coerced, controlled, directed, or threatened so as to induce them to put forth enough effort so as to meet their goals and get their work done” (Furst, 2009). In other words, managers should identify which employee belongs to the X category and which one is belonging to the Y category before formulating management strategies for each of the employees. It is not an easy task to segregate employees based on their attitude towards work and then formulate individual management strategies for each of them. Macky, (2008) has argued that “in situations where pressures to work longer hours are higher, employees feel overloaded and likely to experience greater dissatisfaction with their jobs which may result in higher stress and fatigue, and greater work—life imbalance (Macky, 2008). Work life balancing is one of the major demands of the current workers. In a rapidly moving organizational environment, employees are not getting enough time to spend with their families and friends. Many of the employees value their personal life more than their professional life. However, because of the circumstantial pressure, they forced to work long hours in organizations in order to make the employer happy. However, the failure to meet work-life balancing may create lot of physical as well as emotional problems to the employee and his performances may come down drastically as time goes on. It is the duty of the manager to monitor such things and take necessary actions to prevent it. Again, allowing the employees to reach a balancing between their life and work may not be an easy task for the managers since they wanted to give priority to the interests of the organization over the interests of the employees. Conclusions Performance management of employees is a complex task irrespective of whether the employees working individually or as part of a team. Employees of an organization may have different skills, intellectual levels and cultural backgrounds. Moreover, their attitude towards work could be entirely different. Some of them may have positive attitudes while others may have negative attitudes toward their work. The manager’s job is to manage all the types of employees with the help of suitable strategies so that the organizational goals are met on a consistent basis. Organization’s interests and the employee’s interests may not travel in parallel direction always. It is the duty of the manager to streamline the interests of the employees in line with the interests of the organization which is a difficult task. Planning, monitoring, rewarding, developing and rating are some of the management strategies required to manage the employees successfully in an organization. References 1. A Handbook for Measuring Employee Performance (2001). [Online] Available at: http://www.opm.gov/perform/wppdf/handbook.pdf [Accessed on 12 November 2011] 2. Does Performance Appraisal Benefit Anyone?(n.d.). [Online] Available at: http://www.itpeopleindia.com/20030310/management1.shtml [Accessed on 12 November 2011] 3. Frisch B (2008), When Teams Can’t Decide, Harvard Business Review, [Online] Available at: http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2008/11/when-teams-cant-decide/ar/1 [Accessed on 12 November 2011] 4. Furst P. G (2009), Supervisor’s role in employee performances [Online] Available at: http://www.irmi.com/expert/articles/2009/furst11-construction-risk-management.aspx [Accessed on 12 November 2011] 5. Judeh M (2011). An Examination of the Effect of Employee Involvement on Teamwork Effectiveness: An Empirical Study. International Journal of Business and Management Vol. 6, No. 9; September 2011 6. Kathy (2009). “What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Performance Management?”. [Online] Available at: http://thethrivingsmallbusiness.com/articles/what-are-the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-performance-management/ [Accessed on 12 November 2011] 7. Lin Y., Chen S., & Chuang H (2011). The Effect of Organizational Commitment on Employee Reactions to Educational Training: An Evaluation using the Kirkpatrick Four-level Model. International Journal of Management Vol. 28 No. 3 Part 2 Sept 2011. 8. Macky K. (2008), High-involvement work processes, work intensification and employee well-being: A study of New Zealand worker experiences, [Online], Available at: http://apj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/46/1 [Accessed on 12 November 2011] 9. Marchington, M. & Wilkinson A. (2005). Human resource management at work CIPD Publishing, 2005. 10. Marconi (2011). Starting the Performance Management Cycle. [Online] Available at:http://www.perfmanhr.com/blog/recruiting-people/starting-the-performance-management-cycle/ [Accessed on 12 November 2011] 11. Petrov S PhD. (2010). The model selection in the process of teambuilding for the Management of the organization. Perspectives of Innovations, Economics & Business, Volume 6, Issue 3, 2010. EBSCOhost. 12. Performance Management -- Basic Concepts (n.d.). [Online] Available at: http://managementhelp.org/perf_mng/perf_mng.htm [Accessed on 12 November 2011] 13. Psychology today. (2011). Motivation Ambition, Goals. [Online] Available at: http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/motivation [Accessed on 12 November 2011] 14. US office of personnel management (n. d.) Performance Management. [Online] Available at: http://www.opm.gov/perform/overview.asp [Accessed on 12 November 2011] Read More