Performance Appraisal and Performance Management - Essay Example

Performance management is conducted on employee behavior and an organization's aims and objectives. There are various other ways in which performance appraisals and performance management are differentiated from each other.

Performance appraisals are conducted once, every particular year, and these are conducted at the request of the HR department (Koontz 243). On the contrary, performance management is conducted on a very frequent basis and is conducted at the request of supervisors and subordinates. The performance appraisal process for an organization is created by the HR department and then it is forwarded to the managers so managers can utilize them while evaluating performance. In the case of creating a performance management process, both the employees and their managers are involved.

Feedback derived through performance appraisals takes place only once a year when performance is appraised, while feedback from performance management takes place each time the managers and the supervisors conduct performance management and they hold discussions about performance targets and the achievement of those targets. When a performance appraisal is conducted for an employee, the appraiser must reach an agreement with the appraised employee about how well he has performed and in what areas he needs training and development.

In the case of performance management, the appraiser has to understand the criteria of performance and has to explain to employees how their behaviors have matched the criteria. In performance management, the supervisors and subordinates identify expectations and how these expectations will help achieve organizational goals and objectives. In performance appraisal, the appraisee has to either accept or reject the performance appraisal conducted by managers and have to accept the sectors where improvement is required. In performance management, the appraisee has to understand the fit between expectations and the organization's goals and objectives.

A comparison of performance management and performance appraisal shows that there are different components of performance management as compared to performance appraisal. Three different components include the definition of performance management which concentrates on an organization's strategy, the process of managing performance itself, and the interaction between subordinates and their supervisors who try to identify expectations of organizations and the behavior of employees that are fit for these expectations.

Performance appraisal is only related to the second component of performance management, which is the component of measurement. This component is very different from performance appraisal because,e in this component, the appraisee is completely involved in the development of the appraisal process, whereas in the case of performance appraisal, the appraisee is not involved. This shows that in a multidimensional environment, performance appraisal is onlyone-dimensionall. Read More