Performance Management is a method for creating a collective understanding regarding what is to be accomplished and how it is to be accomplished. It is an approach to supervising people that raise the likelihood of reaching success. The performance management process helps the managers and supervisors to provide feedback to the employees regarding their current performance at job and expected level of performance. It provides clear direction to the employees about management expectations regarding their performance. The compensation and rewarding system is also established based on the performance of the employees over the period of time. It also assists the organizational leadership to identify the training needs of the organization and resolve the performance related issues. It provides opportunity to the managers to set the performance expectations and keep proper tracking of the employee’s performance. The supervisors and managers can measure the performance outcomes by comparing it with the performance expectation and performance appraisal can be done on the basis of this exercise. However, it is important that management should adopt the performance management practices that are consistent with the business operation requirements and objectives of the organization.
An effective performance management process starts with defining the performance objectives which includes tasks and results which needs to be accomplished. It is important for the management to communicate the objectives to the employees in order to get the desired results. Planning is also an important part of the performance management process. Planning includes making clear to the employee how they assist the organization to accomplish its objectives. Work together with the employees to clarify the performance standards and make sure that there is accountability at every stage. Employees should be made to comprehend the accountabilities and expectations regarding their job. Clarify the behaviors which are required from them and why. Explain them that they are accountable for taking an active role in running and judging their performance all through the year.
Effective communication methods could be adopted for this purpose because if the objectives and tasks have not been communicated to the employees, they will not be able to perform according to the expectations. Once the tasks has been communicated and employees have started putting efforts in order to achieve those tasks then continuous performance reviews are very essential to advise employees about their ongoing performance and management expectations. Feedback is considered to be the most critical step in performance management process. Give frequent informal coaching. It involves acknowledging the good work that the employee is doing and helping out the employee to perform up to the mark. Discover ways through which the employee can grow and improve, and work together to generate development plans. Rapidly communicate novel opportunities and adjustments that affect the employee’s job. Name clear actions that the employee can implement so that suggestions offered are concrete. Formulate informal observation notes (perhaps on a calendar) whenever the employee performs a good job, make and implement development plan. These observations will assist supervisor while reviewing the performance of employee and filling the performance appraisal form. The supervisor can also note down praise or complaints from consumers concerning an employee’s work. The manager and supervisor can use all saved notes regarding the employee’s performance and evaluate their performance on accountabilities and behaviors. The supervisor can invite the employee for feedback with reference to how they performed throughout the year. They may perhaps remind the supervisor of particular occasions of good performance or troubles outside their control that harm their capability to do their job well. After completion of the performance appraisal forms talk to employee about ratings and remarks.
The most important step in this process is to recognize and reward the employees for their good performance because it will not only motivate employees to go extra mile to meet the goals but also increases the loyalty of the employees. In the modern business worlds loyalty of internal customers has been an important concern for the HR managers because if employees don’t feel ownership of the work they will never put their 100% efforts for the success of the business. Therefore, it is important for the organizational leadership to recognize the employees for their efforts and compensations should be made on the basis of employee’s performance and efforts because if employees are compensated and rewarded on performance basis then it will create an atmosphere of healthy competition within the organization essential for individual and organizational growth.
Training and development of people is also an important step in performance management process which helps to improve the skills of the employees according to the job requirements. The value of employees and their progress all the way through training and education are key features in shaping long-term profitability of a business. If you appoint good quality employees, it is likely to spend in the development of their skills as they can enhance the productivity. Training is mostly thought to be for new employees only which is a wrong perception because continuing training for existing employees facilitates them to adjust according to the varying job and business requirements because external environment is changing on continuous basis and it is essential to develop and train the employees according to the latest system and processes in order to increase the efficiency of the business and maintain the market share.
An important step in performance management process is to link the individual objectives with the business objectives and directing the efforts of the employees towards the achievement of those objectives. Here comes the role of the immediate supervisor of an employee who can direct the employee’s efforts towards accomplishment of specific objective and make the employee feel that his efforts are important for the growth and success of the business. At the end of the process it is important to ensure that individual efforts should be directed towards meeting the organizational goals. It needs to be determined the contributions of each team towards tasks achievement. This is also helpful in defining the future human resource policies and strategies.
These approaches may help to improve organizational performance depending on if they are put into practice at length and stay alert on managerial outcomes. Some of the following, e.g., organizational learning and knowledge management, might be interpreted more as movements than organization performance strategies because there are wide interpretations of the concepts, not all of which include focusing on achieving top-level organizational results. Nevertheless, if these two notions are instilled from corner to corner of the organization and focus on organizational outcomes, they can add strongly to managerial performance. On the other hand, the Balanced Scorecard, which is purposely intended to be inclusive and focused on organizational results, will not develop performance if not applied from a strong design.