Human Resource Management in China. Performance Appraisal - Dissertation Example

? Dissertation Background Background Leif Edvinsson designates the human resource to be the vital function of an organization in his book. He emphasizes on the essential interdependency of an enterprise and its work force whose experience, innovativeness, insights and skills are tremendously important for an organization (Edvinsson, 2002). Edvinsson’s explication of intellectual capital in his book signifies the importance of human resource management to an elevated extent. Human resource is one of the most fundamental and important function for the development of an organization. The workforce of an enterprise plays the most crucial role for the firm to thrive in the market in a successful and appropriate manner. The goals and objectives of an organization are intrinsically dependent upon the efficiency of its employed individuals. This task comes under the shadow of the human resource management which is required to operate in the most appropriate manner for the corporation in any industry (Price, 2011). The most successful business corporations in the west tend to put immense attention upon the operating workforce to remain the best in business. The dependency of an organization in order to attain the aims is the most upon human resource management because the efficiency or deficiency of the employees directly affects the finance of organization. Human resource management as being an essential and vital element of any business corporation fundamentally deals with the employment of individuals that is recruitment and selection of candidates to be added into the workforce in the most suitable manner (Sims, 2006). In addition to enlarging or replacing the work team, it also deals with the training and development of recruited employees by which the organizational development is directly associated. With all of the other responsibilities of human resource management, there is critically a significant task which human resource management is responsible for. This task is related to the performance of employed individuals in concordance with the aims, objectives and regulations of the organization. The reason for this task being critical for any organization and its human resource management is the fact that the performance of employees directly affects the performance of the organization in the market (Price, 2011). Human resource management is one of the most authoritative departments in the organizational management because it deals with the hiring and firing of employees on the basis of their performance in the work force (Sims, 2006). The most visible and clear way to deal with a low performing employee is to fire that individual from the workforce and recruit the better individual in the team on the basis of his skills and capabilities. The performance of employee is directly associated to the revenue that is generated by any organization. If the human resource of a company works efficiently and appropriately then the revenues of certain company is necessarily going to be increased and vice versa. In industry from aviation to food industry, the human resource management plays a vital role regarding the graph of performance of the work force on individual as well as on the group level. The firing and hiring of employees is strictly dependent upon the performance of individuals which is assured by the human resource department to any firm (Price, 2011). Employees’ Performance and Corporations Corporations are formed with certain business objectives underlying every official activity of that corporation. The most important and certain objective which each business firm decides is the maximum generation of revenue and making the maximum profit out of its capital and resources. From production to service providence and from apparel to food chains, every business organizational dealings are fundamentally dependent upon these two objectives. In all of the resources of a company in any industry, the human resource is considered to be an intrinsically crucial resource and its management is the vital function which significantly helps an organization to achieve its targeted business goals (Cardy & Leonard, 2011). Employee’s performance has certain impacts on the overall progress of organization. These effects are not only visible in the market or industry but the in house happenings are also being affected due to the performance of the workforce. Despite of the fact that employees’ performance affects the capacity of revenue generation for a company in both, negative and positive, sense however another important effect of employees’ performance is on the stature of organization by which the public image or market image of the organization can become better or worst. Another important impact of the performance of workforce is that the organizational behavior and organizational culture is directly associated with the human resource of specific organization (Varma et al., 2008). This direct association of employee performance with organizational culture results into the manipulation in the built in culture which, sometimes, does not concord with the code of organization. This generates a significant gap between management and employees which is a responsibility of human resource management to be maintained in balance. This gap between the management and employees on the basis of performance often results into a significant decline in the performance of the whole work force. To tackle these factors, human resource management incorporates several strategies in which the most extreme and well known is the dismissal of underperforming. Labor market is a prominent correspondence of this phenomenon which will be discussed in the following paragraph (Cardy & Leonard, 2011). Labor Market The labor market is a depiction of the fundamental function of human resource management, which is recruitments and dismissals of underperforming individuals in the workforce of a company, that is completely based on the performance of employees and this concept can easily be observed in the labor market where employers and employees strive to find the best match in a competitive ground. Labor market is a nominal term which corresponds to such market where labors tends to find paying jobs and employers aims to put their focus on acquiring the most appropriate and efficient workers which they will to employ (Sims, 2006). The most important feature of a labor market is that the wages for certain jobs are predetermined. For instance if an employer is seeking for an efficient salesman for a company and there are multiple candidates present in the labor market for this job then the wages which the employer will propose to the candidates would be fixed which has been determined in the market for certain work. This generates a significantly more competitive environment with comparatively less efficient workers in the labor market (Cai & Du, 2009). The predetermined nature of wages to recruit employees out of many candidates generates an emphatic gap between the management and the recruited, even the most efficient and skilled, employee. If the wages are fixed then the employee does not need to work efficiently by putting all of his efforts into the designated job. The employee is going to collect the same reward for performing either efficiently or less efficiently. The example of a salesman can again incorporated that if an employer recruits even an immensely skilled salesman for his company on a fixed wage then it does not assure that the salesman will work to the level which he is capable to work efficiently because he will get the determined amount of salary for working hundred percent or less or even more. The human resource management seems to be failed despite of utilizing its most extreme method which is hiring and firing (Price, 2011). On this stage of the problem where there is a general problem hatched from the labor market affecting the performance of every labor in a negative way, the critical and a more important responsibility and task of human resource management becomes initiated. It is the performance appraisal of the employed labors to increase the efficiency and performance of each worker that directly affects the capacity to generate revenue of any corporation (Cai & Du, 2009). Performance Appraisal Performance appraisal is one of the most crucial and challenging task which human resource management deals with, especially in the societies in which labor market exists in its original form that has been described in the previous heading. Employers of successful organizations commonly aim to improve its workforce by applying several methods and techniques of performance appraisal which are being formulated on the basis of strong ideological theories such as Marxist ideology. A significant reason for this is that the working team of labors is trained and well aware of the organizational culture, organizational behavior and the code on the basis of which all of the official happening in an organization takes place. However the work force which is settled in an organization needs to be motivated to work more efficiently with an elevated performance level. This is the most fundamental task which is known as performance appraisal which is crucial for the societies containing labor market such as China (Williams, 2002). The fundamental explication of performance appraisal which has been stated in the previous paragraph does not portray the critical aspect performance appraisal which makes it difficult for the human resource management to deliver successfully in any firm. Employee motivation is largely dependent upon rewards, especially in the form of money or increased wages, on the basis of which an employee becomes motivated to perform better and work more efficiently which helps the organization to achieve its desired business goals. Except for money there are several other ways which can work as the motivational force for employees by which their performances can be appraised. These ways include medical facilities and other forms of incentives like free car fuel or pick and drop services etc. (Sims, 2006). Employee motivation is considerably a western technique to improve the performance of the work force within any organization. However this technique of performance appraisal to increase the efficiency of the employees by increasing the wages or providing other facilities require resources which contributes to the increase in company’s total cost by which the margin of profitability significantly decreases. This is the most critical problem associated with the performance appraisal which human resources management is responsible to tackle (Williams, 2002). The performance appraisal for the human resource management is one of the most considered topics in the organizational structure of China because of the problem aroused of low performance due to labor market (Cai & Du, 2009). Human Resource Management in China China contains a labor market system in which the wages are predetermined and fixed for a certain job and this applies to every employer and employee within the labor market. The problem in the system of China is similar to what has been described in the previous headings in details. The conventional human resource management which incorporates the extreme method of hiring and firing the employees on the basis of performance has proven to be useless in the domain of improved performances in companies due to the problems which are produced by the labor market of China (Cai & Du, 2009). The human resource management in China have congealed there focus from conventional practices and they are analyzing the factors which are affecting the performance of employees on a general ground by which the work force is suffering to more severe problems like more trainings for new employees and in the adoption of organizational culture. In the contemporary times, the human resource management in China is aiming to adopt western techniques of performance appraisal and employee motivation in order to improve the problem of low employees’ performance which is hazardous for the organization and its success in the market (Cooke, 2012). The performance appraisal has proven to be significantly affective in the western societies; however its effectiveness in China is not yet being tested due to the conventional human resource management practices in the labor market society (Cooke, 2012). The fundamental objective of the present study is exploring the effectiveness of performance appraisal and employee motivation. This objective has been explicated in the light of the analysis of a case study of a food company in China which is one of those societies which are significantly progressing and contain labor market with fixed wages (Cai & Du, 2009). The employee motivation and performance appraisal are two of the most crucial functions in the contemporary world due to higher competitiveness in the global market. China is aiming to adopt these crucial functions over its conventional practices. The effectiveness of performance appraisal in China will be discussed in the following sections with data and case analyses. Reference List Cai, F. & Du, Y., 2009. The China Population and Labor Yearbook, Volume 1: The Approaching Lewis Turning Point and Its Policy Implications. Danvers: BRILL. Cardy, R.L. & Leonard, B., 2011. Performance Management: Concepts, Skills, and Exercises. New York: M.E. Sharpe. Cooke, F.L., 2012. Human Rescource Management in China: New Trends and Practices. London: Routledge. Edvinsson, L., 2002. Corporate Longitude: What You Need to Know to Navigate the Knowledge Economy. Upper Saddle River: Financial Times Prentice Hall. Price, A., 2011. Human Resource Management. Hampshire: Cengage Learning. Sims, R.R., 2006. Human Resource Management: Contemporary Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities. Chicago: IAP. Varma, A., Budhwar, P.S. & DeNisi, A.S., 2008. Performance Management Systems: A Global Perspective. London: Taylor & Francis. Williams, R.S., 2002. Managing Employee Performance: Design and Implementation in Organizations. London: Cengage Learning EMEA. Read More