Essay: Performance Management In Organizational Behaviour Synthesis.

The individual assignment is an Article Synthesis paper written in the form of a report. The purpose of the assignment is to develop your skills in critical thinking and integrating sources, while also developing in-depth knowledge on a topic from organisational behaviour (OB). You can choose any topic area in OB (refer to the topics listed in the subject learning guide or the Table of Contents for the prescribed text). See the Specific Instructions below for more details.

Select three journal articles on the same OB topic. You can choose any topic in OB (refer to the topics listed in the subject learning guide or the Table of Contents for the prescribed text). Your articles must meet the following conditions: 

Similarities in the Articles

One of the biggest challenges in today’s business world is to attract, hire and retain talented employees, a key to retaining them is to always give them constant chances for talent development. This paper would discuss the ‘performance management’ topic of organizational behaviour. The paper would analyse three article in the area of organizational behaviour. Performance management is a process whereby a strategic approach is adopted in a bid to improve the performance of human capital with a view to achieving organizational success. There are some steps that need to be considered when forming a performance management system such. These steps include developing job descriptions and job specifications, identifying performance standards, and formulating the types of rewards and recognition you offer for good performance.

The three articles that are analysed in this paper can be mentioned as:

1. Performance management and employee engagement
2. Human resource management and performance: still searching for some answers
3. Antecedents and effects on job performance

The similarities and the differences in these articles can be discussed as:

In all the three articles, authors have done extensive literature review. There is some difference in the research methodology of these articles. However, the focus on literature review is high in all the three articles. Another similarity among these three article is the way authors have associated performance management with the motivation level of employees. All the authors argued that employees that are highly motivated performs better than the employees that are not motivated.

One of the key differences in these article is research methodology. In the article, ‘Human resource management and performance: still searching for some answers’ authors used a mix method of research. The primary research in this article is based on a random sampling method. In the article, ‘Antecedents and effects on job performance’, authors have used a case study approach. In the article, ‘Antecedents and effects on job performance’, the focus of authors is on secondary research and literature review. There is also a difference in the way authors have presented their opinion. The article, ‘Antecedents and effects on job performance’ appears to be more opinionated than other two.

Gruman & Sacks, (2013) emphasized implementing of fair and transparency performance management that participate employee’s in appraisal process has many advantages, this including “Motivation to perform is increased” receiving a continuous feedback on performance can encourage employee’s motivation to enhance their performance. “Self-esteem is increased; receiving a feedback on the performance fulfills a basic human need to be recognized and valued at work.”  Establishing clear and specific principles of performances are crucial to establishing valid and reliable appraisal system (Gruman & Sacks, 2013). Developing standards to measure performances are essential, considering a “balance of process, results, individual, and group bases performance standards. The establishment of reliable, valid, fair, and useful performance principles is enhanced by employee’s contribution because employees have a necessary unique knowledge to set up the realistic standard. Having said that a motivated and fully participate employee in performance appraisal process has the leverage to empower in future performance.  

Gruman & Sacks (2013) argued that improving the performance of human capital involves the development of individual/team talents and abilities. One of the ways managers can improve performance appraisal is by adopting ‘employee self-appraisal’ – when employees engage in self-appraisal they automatically engage in the appraisal process and this is a form of empowerment in itself. According to Gruman & Sacks, (2013) organizations that are considered aswell managed have a common feature – they make conscious efforts to empower their workforce; empowerment should be seen as a means of enabling individuals accomplish their need for control.

Differences in the Articles

For any appraisal system to be considered effective there are some elements which must be in place, one of those elements is employee participation. According to Gruman & Sacks, (2013) “employee empowerment and participation has been suggested by many organizational development models for improved productivity and positive growth”. This speaks to the importance of having two-way discussions - between managers and their employees (participation) - and also buttresses point on the need for continuous dialogue between the appraiser and the appraisee.

Guest (2011) argued that the supervisors and employees of an organization have to participate actively in the process of managing performance by communicating openly and honestly about the performance of the employee in order to the process to be effective. The supervisors have to provide continuous feedback to their employees on their performance. The process of performance management to have at the four stages which include planning, mid-point discussion, the final evaluation of the performance and the rewards of good performance.

The planning includes the supervisors meeting with the employees to establish the work goals/ key performance indicators and work behaviors like punctuality that aid in achieving the goals of the organization. The key performance indicators have to be measurable and the behaviors have to be demonstrable. The employees and supervisors have to discuss developmental activities like the aspirations and career goal of the employee.

Mid-way through the assessment period the supervisors ought to meet with the employees to assess the progress they have made in achieving the set goals set, the feedback and make adjustments to the written plan where necessary (Guest, 2011). For example, in an organization where a person work was given a year-end target for debt recovery, employees meet with their superiors periodically to review the achievements employees made the previous week and the work-in-progress and the time frame of achieving it. That significantly motivated employees because they know that they have to be proactively in meeting our targets (Guest, 2011).

Supervisors have to provide a written feedback/evaluation of the performance, successes and work behavior of the employee during the final performance appraisal stage (Guest, 2011). The performance review has to be based on the agreed goals and behaviors to be measured. After the final evaluation is done, an organization has grant rewards. The rewards should vary among employees due to the performance levels. The reward system should make distinctions based on the distinguishable performance levels. Managing

Rich, Lepine & Crawford (2010) argued that every organization has strategies and policies around performance management and talent management. It is critical that these policies should be communicated to all the employees in the organization (Rich, Lepine & Crawford, 2010). The leaders should have the responsibility to have frequent connect with the mid-level management and low level employees to explain the objectives of performance management and talent management.

Another integrated key learning from the above articles about performance management system is the use of documentation. Documentation is very important in the performance management process as it provides historical facts about employee performance and behaviors and allow organizational adjustment of the performance management system.

Integration of Information

According to Rich, Lepine & Crawford (2010) during the execution stage supervisors should observe and document employee´s performance on a regular basis by keeping track of both good and poor performance; these will be the basis of discussion on the feedback sections so that employees can improve their poor performance and positive acts can also be recognized.

Documentation also plays an important role in the case of grievance handling and employee punishment. I experience an event were my line manager reported a poor performance from my colleague and request a dismissal. HR department advice state that could not implement the line manager recommendation because there were no records of any poor performance and line managers were not completing the biannual performance appraisal as per procedure Rich, Lepine & Crawford, 2010). The employee also argued that he was never advised by his supervisor about poor performance.

The learning about the performance management could be applied at workplaces. I will discuss the transformation of performance management system from traditional form to modern form. Traditional Appraisal for me was really restricted to how good you did your work within your area of work and responsibility. There was very little to no attention given to the impact that your performance had upon that of the company and of your other colleagues, up and downstream. Reviews were not a regular occurrence, maybe once or twice each year. The feedback is just from your line manager towards the reporting staff – and was typically just a monologue from your manager telling you his perspective. Hauck (2014) found that in traditional appraisal systems low performing staff tended to fall through the cracks so to say and that they would just get their bad review year after year without any real attention given to them until they are eventually dismissed. We should consider how many people could have been managed to performance if more developed strategies and practices had been in place.  Morse (2010) places an interesting perspective upon modern performance management as a dynamic process with incremental improvements to boost employee performance which is linked to corporate performance. In other words, we are saying that the strategies to manage the performance of staff should align with the strategic goals of the organization itself. Chen & Fen (2008).

One area however in which one has to be cautious is to try and use compensation to induce a solution towards a problem. The use of compensation linked to clear and direct performance requirements are powerful and useful tools that can even lead to a competitive advantage – that is only when and if these strategies align with the corporate goals and strategies. It is really important that these strategies are aligned; the reason why they are so important to be aligned is that the performance of various departments cannot be seen in isolation as already stated above. If one was to see these points in isolation then the various efforts of staff will also occur in isolation without consideration for other departments and functions. But when they are combined into aligned strategies then these efforts to achieve results for compensation they result in total organizational performance Chen & Fu (2008).

I think documentation is an essential for performance review as well as for many other aspects of the management practices. Documenting the performance review allows the organization to save the rights of all stakeholders that involved in the performance management process. Documentation also allows the organization to keep a historical record of the performance reviews and the performance assessments.

I also experienced one example in this regard. In my previous organization, there were one of the staff who also supposed to be terminated due to his poor performance, frequent absence and some other behavioral and ethical issues. The line manager and the General Manager already provide him with dismissal letter, but he didn’t accept and took the case to the court and Ministry of Manpower. Ultimately, the court rejected the dismissal decision due to the lack of documentation in regards to the warning letter, and performance reports and notification.

Conclusion

The above paper discusses the performance management area of organizational behavior. The paper discusses the three articles on the topic of performance management. The discussion also includes the similarities and differences across these articles. With the above discussion, it can be said that performance management is an evolving field and it is important that organizations must have a dynamic performance management and talent management system in place. 

References

Chen, H.M. & Fu, P.C. (2008) ‘A systematic framework for performance appraisal and compensation strategy.’ Human Systems Management. 2008, Vol. 27 Issue 2, pp.161-175.

Gruman, J.A. and Saks, A.M., 2011. Performance management and employee engagement. Human Resource Management Review, 21(2), pp.123-136.

Guest, D.E., 2011. Human resource management and performance: still searching for some answers. Human resource management journal, 21(1), pp.3-13.

Hauck, W. (2014) ‘Fearless Feedback Boosts Trust While Replacing Traditional Performance Appraisal at Independent Living, Inc.’  Global Business & Organizational Excellence. May/Jun2014, Vol. 33 Issue 4, pp.50-62.

Morse, S. (2010) ‘Utilising a virtual world to teach performance appraisal – An exploratory study’ Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 34 Issue 8/9 pp.852 – 868.

Rich, B.L., Lepine, J.A. and Crawford, E.R., 2010. Job engagement: Antecedents and effects on job performance. Academy of management journal, 53(3), pp.617-635.