Performance Management Research Paper Sample

- Analysis of Different Approaches to Performance Evaluation
- Management by Objective (MBO) Approach
Management by objective (MBO) is an approach to performance management that helps plan personal and organizational goals. Also, MBO offers effective means of performance monitoring and compliance of the results with the goals set. MBO provides the tools of planning, managing, and monitoring the goals. Also, MBO helps set measurable goals and track their performance according to a schedule. Thus, using MBO, organizations can increase their efficiency, improve morale, and save resources. However, MBO has certain disadvantages as well, namely: not all tasks involve goal setting, it does not work for simple tasks, and the application of MBO does not involve the concerted efforts. This approach pays little attention to feedback on the contrary to the 360-degree feedback approach. The main focus of MBO is planning and compliance of individual and organizational goals.
1.2 The Review, Agree, Implement, and Demonstrate (RAID) Approach
The review, agree, implement, and demonstrate (RAID) change model requires engagement from all participants of change process including personnel, managers, and customers. RAID change model allows implement maximum control over the change process and monitor the change process in details. This approach helps significantly improve the quality standards and increase cohesiveness of the team. The main disadvantage is that some projects do not require participation of all employees, customers, and managers. RAID model is relevant for big projects. RAID deals with feedback in the review part of the model. Thus, RAID complies with control theory in this part of the model.
- The 360-Degree Feedback Approach
The advantages of 360-degree feedback approach to performance assessment prevents from subjective assessment of employees by senior managers. Also, this approach allows evaluating employees using unprejudiced feedback from their peers and customers. Besides, this approach helps evaluate performance in the most important area of the operational process – customer service.
One of the most serious issues of the 360-degree feedback approach is that the mechanisms of planning and implementation are ill-conceived. Usually, the details of the implementation process of changes are not discussed. Also, the assessor can provide irrelevant feedback. For example, if a rater rarely deals with clients, the information obtained from the results of the assessment can be subjective. Besides, senior managers can focus on one or several separated pieces (for example, the last months or two) of feedback thus making assessment process persecutory. The 360-degree feedback approach emphasizes feedback as the aspect playing crucial role in the performance of the organization from the perspective of control theory.
- Compare and Contrast Strengths and Weaknesses of Cohesive versus Non-Cohesive Teams and the Application to High Performance Organizations
2.1 Advantages and Disadvantages of Team Cohesiveness
The most important advantage of team cohesiveness in high-performance organizations is that these teams succeed to develop team loyalty and shared values. The communication in cohesive teams is more effective. Also, team members in a cohesive team exchange their knowledge and skills thus contributing to a success of the project. They can fill in the lack of knowledge and substitute each other during operational process.
Team cohesiveness has certain disadvantages as well. One of the disadvantages of team cohesiveness is group-think and team conformity. Group conformity means adoption of similar behaviors in a team aiming to reduce disagreements. Team conformity and group-think presents potential hazards for the project success causing low productivity and hampering innovation and creativity. Group-think is the process of losing the ability to think independently and rely on the team opinion when making decisions.
2.2 Advantages and Disadvantages of Non-Cohesiveness
The main advantage of non-cohesive teams is that the members of the team cannot influence the opinion of each other. Thus, team conformity and group-think is impossible. It means that in this case low group cohesiveness makes a positive impact on the project success.
The members of non-cohesive teams do not understand the vision developed by their leaders. The team members do not ideally match each other and do not derive satisfaction from being a member of a team. Communication in the non-cohesive teams is not as open as in the cohesive teams. Therefore, the team members are not encouraged to discuss the problems openly. Also, conflicts arise more often in the non-cohesive teams in comparison to the cohesive teams. A sense of pride for the team is unknown to the members of the non-cohesive teams.
Team problem-solving and decision-making processes are underdeveloped in the non-cohesive teams. On the contrary, common decision making and problem solving is widely practiced in the cohesive teams. Both the members of cohesive and non-cohesive teams are encouraged to cooperate with each other. However, the members of cohesive teams are willing to cooperate while the members of non-cohesive teams tend to avoid excessive communication inside the group. The members of the cohesive teams tend to work in a relaxed manner while tension presents in non-cohesive teams. It is more difficult to work in a non-cohesive team. The members of a cohesive team respect and appraise each other while recognition can be rarely met in the non-cohesive teams. There was a lack of understanding organizational mission and objectives observed in the non-cohesive teams in comparison to the cohesive teams. The members of the ohesive team better understand the organizational goals and are ready to share them with the rest of the team.
- Performance Management from a Control Theory Perspective
The main objective of the control theory is a system the output of which follows a control signal (reference). A controller monitored output and compared it with the control signal (reference). The difference in output is called error signal is feedback of the system. The aim of applying feedback is to bring the output received to the reference. As a whole, control theory can be useful in the fields where feedback is used.
According to the control theory, performance does not directly depend on feedback. However, feedback can influence motivation for good performance. Thus, performance depends on feedback indirectly through positive or negative motivation.
Also, performers need to make discrepancy adjustments indicated by the control theory obtaining feedback whit the help of their feedback loops. Performance management from the perspective of the control theory is presented as an ongoing process of comparison aiming to reduce the behavioral discrepancy standards and the effects of behaviors.
Interestingly, many studies noted that control theory is not applied in practice in a proper manner. For example, there was not an effective feedback system observed in support of highly goal-oriented organizations. A serious attention should be paid to the perception of performance management by the performers. The main outcomes of control theory with regard to performance management are as follows: organizational performance management system should be studied and understood by the managers and performers, performance management should comply with organizational culture, motivation is an important aspect of performance management, and the self-directed performance management is the way to save costs.
The most important conclusion of control theory is that the managers should distinguish between controlling the outcomes of employees’ activities and the behavior of the performer.
Control of behavior refers to the activities exercised by the performer while the performance refers to the outcomes of the activities exercised by the performer. Performance management requires focusing on the results instead of targeting control of the performer’s behavior. Human nature is to control – this is a mechanism to reach the goals set.
The following strategies were outlined in the framework of control theory aiming to effectively exercise the contributions of this theory: distinguish between performance and behavior, focus on commitment to the objective state, ensure timely and accurate perception of the current state of the company, distinguish between configured and prefigured actions, think about interventions, management of side influence, and support performance rather that exercise controlling behavior.
- The Balanced Scorecard Approach
The balanced scorecard approach is an effective measure of organizational and individual performance that is focused on internal performance including FTE (full-time equivalents), the programs controlled by an organization, and the budget size. Usually, performance is measured using financial indicators such as ROI (return on investment), EPS (earnings per share) and market share. There were four key perspectives on performance developed in the framework of the balanced scorecard approach: the customers’ perspective, the perspective of internal business, the innovation perspective, and the financial perspective. The most important perspective within the framework of the balanced scorecard approach is satisfaction of the needs of the customers. Each organization can develop own balanced scorecard system to monitor this aspect of the operational activity. The internal business perspective involves focus on critical operations enabling the organization to satisfy customer needs. The ability of the organization to use innovative approaches depends on the values of this organization. The financial perspective focuses on market share and profit.
The balanced scorecard approach is commonly used for evaluation of organizational performance. However, it could be also applied for employees’ performance evaluation to get a complete look of work performance. Usually, employees’ performance is planned taking into account actions, behaviors, and processes without measuring the actual results of work. As a result, the employees are appraised at the level that does not reflect the actual performance while the performance of the organization could be extremely low. If the organization uses the balanced scorecard approach to performance management, the supervisors are aware of the results of employees’ work. The performance plans of employees are aligned to the organizational goals. The balanced scorecard approach can be used together with control theory to account for variation of performance, its acceptable and unacceptable level. The majority of management and operational control systems are based on financial measures and goals while having little relation to achievement of long-term objectives. As the managers of the companies tend to focus on short-term financial indicators, there is a gap in the strategy development and implementation of this strategy. Therefore, managers that use the balanced scorecard approach to performance management should not rely on the short-term financial indicators.