Performance Management

The role of HR in the present scenario has undergone a sea change and its focus is on evolving such functional strategies which enable successful implementation of the major corporate strategies. In a way, HR and corporate strategies function in alignment. Today, HR works towards facilitating and improving the performance of the employees by building a conducive work environment and providing maximum opportunities to the employees for participating in organizational planning and decision making process.

Today, all the major activities of HR are driven towards development of high performance leaders and fostering employee motivation. So, it can be interpreted that the role of HR has evolved from merely an appraiser to a facilitator and an enabler.

Performance management is the current buzzword and is the need in the current times of cut throat competition and the organizational battle for leadership. Performance management is a much broader and a complicated function of HR, as it encompasses activities such as joint goal setting, continuous progress review and frequent communication, feedback and coaching for improved performance, implementation of employee development programmes and rewarding achievements.

The process of performance management starts with the joining of a new incumbent in a system and ends when an employee quits the organization.

Performance management can be regarded as a systematic process by which the overall performance of an organization can be improved by improving the performance of individuals within a team framework. It is a means for promoting superior performance by communicating expectations, defining roles within a required competence framework and establishing achievable benchmarks.

According to Armstrong and Baron (1998), Performance Management is both a strategic and an integrated approach to delivering successful results in organizations by improving the performance and developing the capabilities of teams and individuals.

The term performance management gained its popularity in early 1980’s when total quality management programs received utmost importance for achievement of superior standards and quality performance. Tools such as job design, leadership development, training and reward system received an equal impetus along with the traditional performance appraisal process in the new comprehensive and a much wider framework. Performance management is an ongoing communication process which is carried between the supervisors and the employees through out the year. The process is very much cyclical and continuous in nature. A performance management system includes the following actions.

• Developing clear job descriptions and employee performance plans which includes the key result areas (KRA’) and performance indicators.
• Selection of right set of people by implementing an appropriate selection process.
• Negotiating requirements and performance standards for measuring the outcome and overall productivity against the predefined benchmarks.
• Providing continuous coaching and feedback during the period of delivery of performance.
• Identifying the training and development needs by measuring the outcomes achieved against the set standards and implementing effective development programs for improvement.
• Holding quarterly performance development discussions and evaluating employee performance on the basis of performance plans.
• Designing effective compensation and reward systems for recognizing those employees who excel in their jobs by achieving the set standards in accordance with the performance plans or rather exceed the performance benchmarks.
• Providing promotional/career development support and guidance to the employees.
• Performing exit interviews for understanding the cause of employee discontentment and thereafter exit from an organization.

A performance management process sets the platform for rewarding excellence by aligning individual employee accomplishments with the organization’s mission and objectives and making the employee and the organization understand the importance of a specific job in realizing outcomes. By establishing clear performance expectations which includes results, actions and behaviors, it helps the employees in understanding what exactly is expected out of their jobs and setting of standards help in eliminating those jobs which are of no use any longer. Through regular feedback and coaching, it provides an advantage of diagnosing the problems at an early stage and taking corrective actions.

According to Lockett (1992), performance management aims at developing individuals with the required commitment and competencies for working towards the shared meaningful objectives within an organizational framework.

Performance management frameworks are designed with the objective of improving both individual and organizational performance by identifying performance requirements, providing regular feedback and assisting the employees in their career development.

Performance management aims at building a high performance culture for both the individuals and the teams so that they jointly take the responsibility of improving the business processes on a continuous basis and at the same time raise the competence bar by upgrading their own skills within a leadership framework. Its focus is on enabling goal clarity for making people do the right things in the right time. It may be said that the main objective of a performance management system is to achieve the capacity of the employees to the full potential in favor of both the employee and the organization, by defining the expectations in terms of roles, responsibilities and accountabilities, required competencies and the expected behaviors.

The main goal of performance management is to ensure that the organization as a system and its subsystems work together in an integrated fashion for accomplishing optimum results or outcomes.

The major objectives of performance management are discussed below:

• To enable the employees towards achievement of superior standards of work performance.
• To help the employees in identifying the knowledge and skills required for performing the job efficiently as this would drive their focus towards performing the right task in the right way.
• Boosting the performance of the employees by encouraging employee empowerment, motivation and implementation of an effective reward mechanism.
• Promoting a two way system of communication between the supervisors and the employees for clarifying expectations about the roles and accountabilities, communicating the functional and organizational goals, providing a regular and a transparent feedback for improving employee performance and continuous coaching.
• Identifying the barriers to effective performance and resolving those barriers through constant monitoring, coaching and development interventions.
• Creating a basis for several administrative decisions strategic planning, succession planning, promotions and performance based payment.
• Promoting personal growth and advancement in the career of the employees by helping them in acquiring the desired knowledge and skills.

Some of the key concerns of a performance management system in an organization are:

• Concerned with the output (the results achieved), outcomes, processes required for reaching the results and also the inputs (knowledge, skills and attitudes).
• Concerned with measurement of results and review of progress in the achievement of set targets.
• Concerned with defining business plans in advance for shaping a successful future.
• Striving for continuous improvement and continuous development by creating a learning culture and an open system.
• Concerned with establishing a culture of trust and mutual understanding that fosters free flow of communication at all levels in matters such as clarification of expectations and sharing of information on the core values of an organization which binds the team together.
• Concerned with the provision of procedural fairness and transparency in the process of decision making.

Any effective performance management system includes the following components:

1. Performance Planning: Performance planning is the first crucial component of any performance management process which forms the basis of performance appraisals. Performance planning is jointly done by the appraisee and also the reviewee in the beginning of a performance session. During this period, the employees decide upon the targets and the key performance areas which can be performed over a year within the performance budget., which is finalized after a mutual agreement between the reporting officer and the employee.
2. Performance Appraisal and Reviewing: The appraisals are normally performed twice in a year in an organization in the form of mid reviews and annual reviews which is held in the end of the financial year. In this process, the appraisee first offers the self filled up ratings in the self appraisal form and also describes his/her achievements over a period of time in quantifiable terms. After the self appraisal, the final ratings are provided by the appraiser for the quantifiable and measurable achievements of the employee being appraised. The entire process of review seeks an active participation of both the employee and the appraiser for analyzing the causes of loopholes in the performance and how it can be overcome. This has been discussed in the performance feedback section.
3. Feedback on the Performance followed by personal counseling and performance facilitation: Feedback and counseling is given a lot of importance in the performance management process. This is the stage in which the employee acquires awareness from the appraiser about the areas of improvements and also information on whether the employee is contributing the expected levels of performance or not. The employee receives an open and a very transparent feedback and along with this the training and development needs of the employee is also identified. The appraiser adopts all the possible steps to ensure that the employee meets the expected outcomes for an organization through effective personal counseling and guidance, mentoring and representing the employee in training programmes which develop the competencies and improve the overall productivity.
4. Rewarding good performance: This is a very vital component as it will determine the work motivation of an employee. During this stage, an employee is publicly recognized for good performance and is rewarded. This stage is very sensitive for an employee as this may have a direct influence on the self esteem and achievement orientation. Any contributions duly recognized by an organization helps an employee in coping up with the failures successfully and satisfies the need for affection.
5. Performance Improvement Plans: In this stage, fresh set of goals are established for an employee and new deadline is provided for accomplishing those objectives. The employee is clearly communicated about the areas in which the employee is expected to improve and a stipulated deadline is also assigned within which the employee must show this improvement. This plan is jointly developed by the appraisee and the appraiser and is mutually approved.
6. Potential Appraisal: Potential appraisal forms a basis for both lateral and vertical movement of employees. By implementing competency mapping and various assessment techniques, potential appraisal is performed. Potential appraisal provides crucial inputs for succession planning and job rotation.