SBenegaL

Category: Performance Management

  • Performance Management: Actual & Measured

    In the last byte, we looked at performance appraisal and what the objective would be when one attempts to have a performance appraisal. In today’s byte, we begin understanding performance measurement in greater detail.

    Measuring Performance of individuals is not an easy task. As an evaluator it is always possible to overlook certain features, while considering only a few! Yes, part of this problem could be due to the timing of the measurement and the other part could be the nature of the work itself! Whatever the reason – it is always possible that we overlook parts of the performance. If we are to consider this piece of measuring using circles like shown below, we through overlooking would have shifted the 2 circles – actual and measured performance away from each other.


    The overlap between what is actual and what is measure is what is truly assessed by the evaluator. This would definitely put you to think – What about the area which in the measured circle which is not the true assessment? We shall deal about this in the next byte.

  • Performance Management: Appraisal

    In the last byte, we looked at the importance of defining performance before any performance management could be got in place. In today’s byte, we attempt to understand performance appraisal in a greater detail.

    Performance Appraisal essentially means the evaluation of an individual’s performance.

    As supervisors/first level managers in an organization, one could look at his/her role as dual fold – a mentors/coach and an evaluator. As a mentor/coach, the supervisor would be responsible for encouraging the employee (- individual contributor at the entry level). As an evaluator, the supervisor is responsible for making judgments that influence employee’s roles in the organization.

    The major purpose of performance appraisal is to give the employee:

    • feedback on performance,
    • identify employee’s development needs,
    • to make demotion and termination decisions,
    • to develop information about the organization’s selection and placement decision.
    It is important next to really understand how one measures performance, we shall continue the discussion in the next byte.

  • Performance: Organizational Citizenship Behavior

    In the last byte, we began our discussion on performance management and identified the various stages in it. In today’s byte, we look at how do we define performance and set the stage for other stages in performance management.

    It is very clear from the discussion thus far that employees need to understand their performance expectations very clearly to perform well at work. This process of getting the expectations understood falls under the performance definition stage. Expectations about an individual’s performance will not be on any single dimension, but would be on multi-dimensions – these could include not just the task specific skill but others like interpersonal skills, administrative and finance skills etc depending on the stage at which one is in the career growth.

    Let’s take for example – an individual doctor working in a hospital. In addition to knowing the necessary diagnostic and treatment skills, he/she would be expected to have good interpersonal skills (presented as bed-side manners) to enhance the healing process of a patient. Extending this to other professions, we can clearly see that each specific job in an organization requires its own definition of skills and behaviors essential for excellent performance.

    It would be interesting to remind the readers here of the discussion we had on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). OCB is a sought after dimension of individual performance that pans across jobs. It involves individual discretionary behavior that promotes the organization and is not explicitly rewarded! This is an important dimension of expectations that organizations look for and hence worth mentioning here.

  • Performance Management

    In the last byte, we looked at how goal setting is related to performance. In today’s byte, we begin our discussion on performance management and shall continue the same over the next few bytes.

    Performance management deals with the attempt of an organization to achieve the best performance from its employees. Given this challenge, performance management could be thought of as having the following phases:

    1. Defining
    2. Measuring
    3. Appraising
    4. Providing Feedback
    5. Improving performance.
    The above order is extremely important to be kept in mind. Only if the definition of performance in behavioral terms is gone well can the next few stages be really built on. Once defined, we could use the definition to make performance more measurable and then perform an assessment on the same. This information of the measurement and assessment could be fed back to the individual and used as basis for goal setting and establishing plans for performance improvement.

    Coupling this with the way we can reinforce learning through rewards, poor performance can be corrected. We shall discuss some of these stages performance management as we move ahead.