A performance management system is a set of integrated management practices or activities for assessing the performance of an organization. Every organization needs a performance management system in order to monitor the progress of employees ensuring that they reach their targeted goals. It also eases the running of the organization and ensures that employees give their best by involving them in key decision making and encouraging them to work as a team, hence leading to job satisfaction.
The strategic importance of a performance system is to identify the need for training and development, ensure that the organizations’ and employees goals are in accord and assessing the strengths of people for growth of the business. My manager has used a number of management practices to ensure that I work effectively. These include stating clearly what is expected of me, making work plans that increase performance, recognizing good performance and motivating me to be better and providing training to improve my efficiency.
My organization has used performance reviews time and time again for the purpose of development and measuring the performance and progress of the employees and the organization at large. The two are linked in how they work since when the performance is measured, the manager is able to know what areas need to be improved.
As much as this system his helpful, it proves to be unpleasant at times because most of the time it feels like the HR manager is spying on you especially if you only get negative remarks. There is poor communication between the employees and manager regarding the performance results. This keeps employees in the dark since they do not know what is expected of them. It also lessens the employee productivity because those who constantly perform poorly are laid off without any attempt to help them improve their skills. Also, lack of rewards when someone does a good job has contributed to the constant failing of the performance assessment system.
Managers should make sure that they state clearly the objectives that a person is expected to accomplish. They ought to set measurable goals and make a plan that will enable the employees to accomplish them. In addition, they should provide regular training to help employees be on toes and keep up with the ever changing working environment and give adequate feedback to the employees concerning their performance in a review interview. Lastly, they should give rewards to those who perform well at work to boost their motivation.
Raters have been bias in their rating over time due to the way rater feels about a person, the fact that they do not want to be too good or bad thus they rate employees as average. Some raters are always too harsh or too lenient during the review. Delayering of management levels has led to inaccurate appraisal performance in that, one is either rated by their peers, team mates, subordinates or customers. This makes it hard for one to know the real performance since all the above will give different feedback depending on their relationship with a person or preferences. This kind of supervision is a good way to get different perspectives. This appraisal has both pros and cons. The pros include response from different perspectives, less bias since the feedback comes from many people, and feedback from peers causes the employee to develop and also puts an emphasis on the teams and customers.
The cons are complexity in the system since responses are combined, resentment among employees especially if one feels that the others have ganged up against them, rigorous training to ensure the system works efficiently and insufficient feedback since employees can decide to give invalid information about one another. Performance interviews have been a success because they make employees put their best foot forward, and challenge each other to be better. On the other hand, they have failed due to the lack of feedback, the presence of bias and lack of training to help improve employee efficiency. If the three are worked upon, it will improve how well employees work for theirs and the organizations’ good.
References
MacIntyre, E. (2010). Essentials of Business Law. New York: Pearson Education.
Vonderembse, M. A., & White, G. P. (2013). Operations Management. San Diego: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
