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Performance management and performance appraisal - Coggle Diagram
Performance management and performance appraisal
The nature of performance management
Features of performance management
Individual annual appraisal
Objective setting and review
Personal development plans
Career management and/or succession planning
Coaching and/or mentoring
Competence assessment
Performance related pay
Self-appraisal
Twice yearly/biannual appraisal
Continuous assessment
360-degree appraisal
Subordinate feedback
Rolling appraisal
Peer appraisal
Competence related pay
Team appraisal
Contribution related pay
Team pay
Reality
There is much debate and concern (disgusting/ deadly disease/ contentious)
Manager dislike (Theory X &Y) => judgemental and ultimately de-motivating approach (1957)
1990s: employees and managers offered favourable rather than unfavourable views
Performance appraisal
Performance appraisal
One of the most important aspects of enhancing performance is performance appraisal
"The process of evaluating the performance and assessing the development/training needs of an employee" – Heery and Noon (2001)
Appraisal is a process: Assessed overall capabilities and potential of an employee -> To improve their performance.
Appraisal has certain minimum requisites or parameters, including:
at least 20 full-time non-managerial employees
minimum of one layer of professional management
departmentalization (Individual departments have supervisors)
Appraisal in practice
Why should organizations appraise people at work?
Let individuals know what is expected of them
Improve current performance
Provide feedback: advise or direct others on how they should do things.
Increase motivation
Identify training and development needs.
Identify potential.
Focus on career development and succession planning.
Award salary increases/performance related pay.
Evaluate the effectiveness of the selection process.
Set objectives
In reality
Staff are being continually monitored and assessed by management in an informal manner
Much dependent on individual managers
Optimize the current management: Ensuring that managers and employees meet formally and regularly to discuss performance and potential
Training help managers to appreciate the importance of appraisal + develop coaching skills
Training address some problems:
• Prejudice, for example, sex or race discrimination.
• Subjectivity and bias, especially with regard to rater bias.
• Insufficient knowledge of the appraisee – so appraiser position is based on position in hierarchy, rather than any real knowledge of person’s job.
• The ‘halo’ and ‘horns’ effect where managers rate employees on the basis of their personal relationships rather than by objective measure of their competencies and abilities
• The problem of context – the difficulty of distinguishing the work of appraisees
• from the context in which they work, especially when there is a degree of comparison with other appraisees.
• What might be termed the ‘paradox of roles’ in terms of the conflation of judge and counsellor (mentor) role which can lead to confusion. For example, in the shift from an evaluative to a developmental approach managers have to manage such tensions.
• The paperwork – overly bureaucratic and simply about form filling.
• The formality – for both appraiser and appraisee it can be an uncomfortable experience.
• Outcomes are ignored.
• Everyone is ‘average or just above average’, for example, managers may find it difficult to give an employee a bad rating as they would not want to justify the criticisms in the performance review interview.
• Appraising the wrong features – too much stress on easily identifiable things like timekeeping, looking busy, being pleasant and so on.
‘Recency bias’ leading to a tendency to base appraisals on the recent past, regardless of how representative it is of performance over the course of the previous year
Bach (2005):
• orthodox critique: problems above could potentially be addressed by seeking to remedy the imperfections in the design and implementation of the appraisal system
• notes the emergence of more critical accounts of appraisal
• suggests that critical perspectives seek to highlight that it should not be assumed that clearer objectives and training of appraisers will necessarily yield satisfactory results.
• important to recognize how, ‘the contested nature of appraisal, the specific managerial objectives sought, and the nature of the context in which it is applied, all have an important bearing on the impact of the appraisal process’
Holdsworth (1991: 65):
‘Appraisal is a compulsively fascinating subject, full of paradoxes and love–hate relationships. And appraisal schemes are really controversial
Bratton and Gold (2003: 252):
• ‘making judgements about an employee’s contribution, value/worth, capability and potential has to be considered as a vital relationship with employees
Developmental approaches:
appraiser and appraisee aim to discuss the progress + a mutually supportive atmosphere + aim: building on employees strengths
Purpose of performance appraisal has tended to oscillate between short-term performance to a more developmental
Appraisal has also been used as a disciplinary tool with poor performance
Performance factors likely to be appraised:
● Knowledge, ability and skill on the job.
● Attitude to work, expressed as enthusiasm, commitment and motivation.
● Quality of work on a consistent basis and attention to detail.
● Volume of productive output.
● Interaction, as exemplified in communication skills and ability to relate to others in teams.
Managing poor performance
=> 5 basic steps
3, Decide and agree on the action required
4, Providing coaching, training and guidance => Ensure changes can be made
2, Establish the reason(s) for the shortfall (avoid being crudely blaming)
5, Monitor and provide feedback (include self-management)
1, Identify and agree the problem: analysing feedback and getting agreement from the employee
Self-appraisal
Establishing their own performance goals and for obtaining feedback on their performance
Being more critical
Approach employees are increasingly - a case of downwards
Peer appraisal
With whom an individual has been working provide the assessment of performance
Upward appraisal
Managers are appraised by their staff
Customer appraisal
setting employee performance standards based upon customer care indicators and appraising staff
Which in part reflects the emergence and development of TQM and customer care programmes
How it can be gathered by a variety of means
Range of surveillance techniques
Mystery’ or ‘phantom’ shopper
• Customer surveys: customer care cards, telephone surveys, interviews with customers and postal surveys
Multi-rater or 360-degree feedback
Performance data is generated from a variety of sources, which can include the person to whom the individual being assessed reports, people who report to them, peers
internal and external customers
self-assessment
felt to provide a more rounded view of people, with less bias
The practicalities: the appraisal form and interview
Final performance review, where an individual employee is assessed against their objectives (inputs and outputs)
Allow for a review of training and development needs
Appraisal forms should contain provision for
basic personal details, such as name, department, post, length of time in the job;
job title;
job description;
a detailed review of the individual’s performance against a set of job related criteria;
an overall performance rating;
general comments by a more senior manager;
comments by the employee;
a plan for development and action
Seeking a broadly evaluative or developmental approach