The benefits to having a strong management performance system that provides employees with the performance appraisal system they deserve are extraordinary. In fact, “organizations with strong performance management systems are 51% more likely to outperform their competitors on financial measures and 41% more likely to outperform their competitors on non-financial measures (e.g., customer satisfaction, employee retention, quality of products or services)” (Cascio, 2006 Ch. 9, p. 329). So, why are these numbers so staggering? The answer is quite simple: performance appraisal monitors employees’ performance, improves company morale, and motivates personnel. When employees are aware that the organization he or she work for are attentive to his or her performance and that he or she could be rewarded with a promotion or merit increases, employees are motivated to be more productive and work harder. “To encourage performance, especially repeated good performance, it’s important to do three more things well: (1) provide a sufficient amount of rewards that employees really value, (2) in a timely, (3) fair manner” (Cascio, 2006 Ch. 9, p. 331). The morale of the organization is enhanced when employees receive reward for his or her work and recognition for accomplishment. The way this is accomplished is by setting performance standards of the organization and goals that can be achieved.
Performance Standards and Goals
“Performance management requires willingness and a commitment to focus on improving performance at the level of the individual or team everyday” (Cascio, 2006 Ch. 9, p. 329). Three things that management must focus on are:
- Define performance.
- Facilitate performance
- Encourage performance (Cascio, 2006).
The way that managers define performance is to ensure individual employees and teams have a clear understanding of want is expected out of them. They must also stay keep their center of attention on the effectiveness of the performance. All evaluation of performance and expectations of employees can only be set and expected if clear and sound goals are structured.
By setting goals for individuals and teams, performance will improve. The goals that are set and standardized must aligned and in direct attention to the specific performance in question. They must also be structured so theta higher level of performance can be accomplished and give persistence to accomplish the higher levels of performance. Risks with setting goals that must be considered include: excessive risk taking, fear of failure, increased stress, setting goals to high, ignoring areas where goals are not set, not thinking about long-term goals, and dishonesty or cheating to accomplish goals. Therefore, the implications of this work should be clear: “Set specific, challenging goals, for this clarifies precisely what is expected and leads to high levels of performance.” However, goals can not just be set. “Managers must also be able to measure the extent to which goals have been accomplished” (Cascio, 2006 Ch. 9, p. 330). The goals should not be so vague that they are not useful once implemented. Direct targets and numbers should be given. Even more important, attainable numbers that will not give the opposite result from wanting to motivate employees and improve productivity. Setting standards, goals, and evaluating the goals alone are not going to be enough in performance management. “To practice sound performance management, managers must do the same thing—provide timely feedback about performance, while constantly focusing everyone’s attention on the ultimate objective—the customer” (Cascio, 2006 Ch. 9, p. 329).
Feedback
Management must understand the critical impact feedback has when given in a timely manner. When feedback is only given once a year or once a quarter, employees is not going to benefit the effectiveness of having immediate feedback following the behavior in question. Many times, the employee may not even remember that behavior that went in a positive or negative direction when to much time lapses. Management must constantly communicate with employees on a day-to day basis about their performance in order to have a maximum impact. Training should also be provided when needed and evaluated once complete so that follow-up training can be afforded in areas that are still found to be weak.
Another important aspect when providing feedback to employees is to be judgmental on performance, not personality. Not all employee personality is going to be liked by management, just as not all employees are going to like management’s personality. Besides the legal implications of basing feedback and performance on personality, management is going to have a much more difficult time trying to change ones personality than he or she is going to an employee’s performance. In addition, future performance will most likely lead to lower productivity when judging personality. Another factor for providing feedback is to be an active listener, which requires one to take the time to listen, communicate verbally and nonverbally, do not interrupt the subordinate or disagree with him or her, watch for verbal and nonverbal agreement or disagreement from subordinate’s and summarize all that was discussed. Finally, management must avoid destructive criticism. This only will result in negative feeling among the recipient, reduce positive results from future disagreements, and give a negative effect on self-set goals and self-confidence (Cascio, 2006). One final thing that must be considered by management is the career development of employees.
Career Development
“No matter what happens, employees often blame top management or “the company” for their lack of career growth, and those who want to be top contributors at their current level often feel pressured to move up” (Cascio, 2006, Ch. 10, p. 373). The bottom line is that the employee must take responsibility to manage his or her own career. So, what can the company due today in order to alleviate this lose-lose mentality of the employee. The company should provide employees with the knowledge where it wants to go and how it plans to get there, provide the employee with all the information he or she needs about the business, and respond to an employee about career initiatives he or she in interested in accomplishing while working for the company with complete information (Cascio, 2006). The best way an organization can assist an employee with career development is by providing him or her with direct performance feedback on his or her current job performance. This will allow the employee to make adjustments, continue the same path, or enhance his or her skills to put him or her on the path he or she is trying to develop.
Conclusion
Performance management requires commitment and compliance from management to center on improving performance of the individual employee and the team-based structure of an organization. Timely feedback about the performance of these individuals and teams are critical if they are going to be a success. Performance management must define performance, facilitate performance and encourage performance. Performance appraisal will assist in accomplishing that by providing the job-relevant strengths and weaknesses of the individual employees and teams. This must be done on a day-to-day basis so that the behavior of employees can be reviewed with relevance to accomplishment of projects. Finally, the best way an organization can assist an employee with career development is by providing him or her with direct performance feedback on his or her current job performance (Cascio, 2006). Management should have a much more clear understanding of the performance and career management at InterClean in which performance standards and goals, feedback, performance appraisal, and career development are the focal point to increasing employee productivity.
Reference
Cascio, W. (2006). Managing human resources: Productivity, quality of work life, profits
(7th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill
