Performance Appraisal Improvement in Organizations - Essay Example

Performance appraisal improvement in organizations Name Lecturer Introduction Organizations all over the world like to know how different workers are performing at their work place. One of the widely used methods is the performance appraisal, which tends to use ratios in determining how far a certain employee has achieved the goals set. The appraisal is supposed to improve on the profitability of the organization by trying to distinguish between performances of the different workers. Timely delivery and accurate performance appraisal information might contribute positively to the organizations growth path. The appraisal is sometime used to determine who is supposed to be promoted, get a pay rise, reprimanded or even lose their job. Performance appraisal differs with different organizations with each of them setting its own standards and the way it should be carried out. Although performance appraisal has been widely used worldwide it has some flaws that make it unattractive to workers. One of the challenges is the evaluators’ impartiality during the appraisal process. Different evaluators may rate different situations in different ways leading to lack of uniformity within the performance appraisal conducted. Another challenge that exists is the assumption that there is a uniformed interpretation of standards among all the raters conducting the appraisal. Different interpretations of standards lead to different rating of the different workers being appraised which might be unfavorable to some workers. The assumptions made in the performance appraisal and weaknesses that exist may reflect positively on a certain employee performance while it is the opposite in real sense. Proposal of the different ways that performance appraisal can be improved to allow for growth within organization are discussed below. Discuss appraisal before hiring Organizations that conduct performance appraisal should always alert the workers before being hired, on when appraisal is performed. The new employee is supposed to be made to understand how the appraisal will be applied in relation with the job description given to them. The need of discussing the appraisal with workers before hiring ensures that workers do not see the performance appraisal as a way of victimizing or discriminating them within the organization. Workers who got the knowledge of when appraisal will be performed and how it is performed have a better chance of performing well. Discussing appraisal before hiring allows employees to understand the culture of the organization before joining, thus avoiding a situation where they might resist appraisal after being hired (Goodson et.al 2005, pp. 234). During the discussion the employee should be encouraged to seek confirmation on any issue immediately or any time after getting hired. Seeking clarification improves on the under stability of the employee on the drafted document on appraisal. Train manager Appraisal is mostly seen as a tool used by managers to evaluate the performance of their juniors whether they are meeting their intended goals. Leaving this role to managers requires them being trained on how to carry out the appraisal. Untrained managers will not deliver correct information on performance. Training should be directed towards trying to convince them on the need of performing the appraisal. If the management does not understand the need, employees will go for years without any appraisal being performed. In some situations managers will perform appraisal for formality purposes without following the laid down procedures. The manager should be able to generate a review report after completing an appraisal on workers. The review report should show where the employee is not performing well and what improvement should be carried (Bowen et.al 2001, pp.110). Carry out job description for each role Performance appraisal involves trying to see if an individual is meeting the descriptions that fit his job. Organizations that do not have job descriptions have it hard to measure performance of individuals. Every position should have deliverables defined and milestones should be reached at a certain time. After defining deliverables the need of developing metrics that measure performance are to be developed. Some of the metrics might be the numbers of sales that a certain sales person should have made. The metrics should have a defined time when the performance appraisal should be carried out. The period can be two weeks, monthly, annually or quarter annually. The appraisal should be carried out regularly to ensure that corrective measures are implemented anytime before trouble comes. Management should ensure that in the job descriptions the milestones set are realistic. Unrealistic milestones tend to make workers have a negative report on their performance which might not be true (Folger et.al 2003, pp. 103). Other employees, after realizing they cannot meet their milestones might start using some unethical means to try and meet the goals or evade the appraisal. Some of the unethical means would be trying to bribe their supervisors who will give incorrect figures about their performance which eventually leads to falsification of reports. The falsified report might lead in the end a company giving reports of making profits or having substantial cash flows which do not exist in reality (Manasa & Reddy, 2009). Developing a feedback mechanism Every appraisal has results and it is supposed to elicit some reactions from the management, and workers. Workers who have not met their targets would like to hear from the management the go ahead. After evaluation of the performance appraisal each individual would like to get a report on their performance. Feedback should be timely like after two days when the appraisal have been performed. Some organizations have tendencies of keeping records on performance in cabinets. Once these reports are kept away workers are allowed to go on with their activities without any report. The reports that are kept away are a waste of the organization resources because of the time and money spent trying to get such reports (DeNisi et.al 2010, pp. 85). If it is noted that workers are not meeting their goals the organization should collect feedbacks on what the organization should do. The questions on what the organization should do to ensure that workers opinion is taken into consideration should be put in place. Once their opinions are taken the organization can establish why a certain group of employees is not meeting targets. Feedback from workers tends to improve performance in future jobs carried by the same workers. Workers will improve their performance upon seeing the organization is trying to adapt to their own needs. Inclusiveness of the workers in appraisal feed will also determine organization future goals and where opportunities exist. An organization might be losing expatriates upon retraining them to the competitors. During the appraisal the expatriate are asked to rate their satisfaction on the basis of their salary and job description. If the management analysis this details very well they will tend to get an answer to the later problem. Having a just appraisal method The appraisal process can create chaos within the organization where it starts to create discrimination within the organization. To ensure the fairness in an appraisal process it should be applied to all individual and at all time. The process should be tight to ensure correct information about an individual is corrected (Alexander et.al 2010, pp.200). The correctness of information can be assured by putting in place a mechanism through which the reports can be corrected if wrong. Correcting of wrong information makes workers have more trust in the process. To ensure justice in the process an organization should develop a mechanism of collecting opinions from different parties affected by the appraisal process. The need of collecting opinions improves on the acceptability of the process by all people. Where opinions from different organizations differ, an arbitration mechanism should be developed to ensure opinions from all people are included. The control theory states that individuals of an organization like to be among the decision makers but not receivers of information (Hofstede 2001, pp. 350). The theory tries to advise organization on the need of involving their workers in every decision making activities. Appraisal on objective matters Organizations tend to carry out appraisal on subjective matters which do not reflect well on performance in their job. The subjective nature of the appraisal mostly includes asking workers to define their job roles or some grammatical words. Some workers might have good subjective judgment which will give them a chance to pass the appraisal without any trouble while those who might be good in their job failing. A sales person being appraised on grammatical words might pass while he or she is not making any sale. An objective appraisal for a sales person would be questions like how many prospect clients he or she had for a certain period, how many sales were made out of those numbers of prospects and how much amount of money was spent in on making follow ups on those clients. The appraisal will show if the sales person are meeting their sales target or the sales department is operating under losses. After the questions the appraisal is supposed to try and elicitate opinions from workers on what the organization should do to improve their performance. The follow up on the business made and cash spent will even show discrepancies in spending between different workers in the same job group in completing a certain job. One worker might be spending 200$ before making a sale while the other might be spending half the amount in making the same sale. Objective appraisal will always reflect on companies’ performance and where corrective measures are supposed to be implemented (Tyler & Bies, 2010). Use reviews as a way to pull those below An appraisal should not be used to try and evict or discriminate those workers that have been performing poorly. The reviews on appraisal should show weaknesses that exist in different workers while carrying out their duties. The reviews will show strong points by other workers in performing their duties. Those workers with weaknesses should be encouraged to adapt to the process the performing workers use to achieve their goals. Workers who realize that the appraisal will be used to better their performance will not employ methods like bribing bosses for the appraisal to reflect positive results. After making the reviews the management should organize a meeting with the workers to try and discuss the results with them. Emphasize on the need of meeting goals laid down within the organization to the workers and organization. Telling workers the benefits that accrue from meeting goals they might change their attitude on working conditions leading to an improvement in the next report. Drafting reviews to reflect organizational goals Organizations tend to generate reviews that might not test on their goals. These reviews are misleading in that workers will be tested for things that have no effect on the way business is carried on (Cardy et.al 2011, pp. 243). The goals of the organization might be to improve sales on a certain brand of product that seems to be profitable. Another organization might have a goal of shifting their power production by a certain percentage, on usage of diesel to increasing production on usage of other eco friendly means. The manager might increase energy production but use diesel as a means of production which might be against the goals of the organization. On carrying the performance appraisal, if production is looked in without taking into consideration the form of production it will reflect a positive trend. The appraisal should be structured to display which form of power production was used to produce the increase in power production. Once such goals are reflected the manager will be seen to be performing but against the goals of the organization which would like to move to eco friendly forms of power production. The goals of the organization should be developed before the appraisal document is developed to ensure that the goals are not compromised to fit into the appraisal. The appraisal document should be updated every time organizations goals are changed to ensure the two documents will tally. Lack of updating the appraisal document might lead appraising employees on goals or objectives that are not relevant. Situations like where an appraisal would require employees are required to make reports on production of certain products which production seized from long time ago. Such review would be ridiculed by workers because of the lack of correct information on it. Increase on frequency of the reviews Organizations that carry out appraisal should not wait for a year before an appraisal is carried out. The longer the time taken before an appraisal is carried the more possibilities exist of non performing workers pulling down the organization’s performance. Most organizations have been seen to take a year before carrying out an appraisal on the performance of their workers. The annual method should be done way with by taking a quarterly form of appraisal. This appraisal would translate to reviewing performance of workers after every three months. The three months would give time to do away with non performing workers before losses starts reflecting the organizations book of accounts. The company can even take time to retrain workers on ways to improve on their performance. Once they are trained, in the next quarter of the year their performance should be seen if there is positive trend of growth. In situations like this, if the organization was waiting for a period of a year after retraining the workers this would have been counterproductive. Short appraisal periods ensure businesses have the latest feedbacks from workers on the way their working environment should change. Changing the working environment of workers might be necessitated by change in legislations and economy. Businesses might also need to change their goals out of the feedbacks that come from the performance appraisal. The organization goals might be increase sale of a certain product by conquering new markets where they send sales team (Brown et.al 2004, pp.50). The sale of this product might be launched without performing a conclusive feasibility study and culture of the people of the people in the new market location. Upon collection of feedbacks from the sale people during the appraisal period, it is noted the culture of the inhabitants of the new market prohibits use of that product. The business might change its goals about this market by introducing an acceptable product. Supervisor filing report on workers regularly The performance appraisal should be backed up with historical data from when the last appraisal was carried out to the current appraisal. Supervisors should have individual’s files that contain details about performance on their day to day activities. The file will give clear reports on whether workers have been consistent in carrying out their activities. The files will reflect on the discipline of the workers on carrying out their duties which might not be reflected in the appraisal report (Safrit, et al., 2003). The purpose of the file will give a true picture because some workers try to behave different while they know the appraisal period is nearing. This change of behavior will reflect a positive image on the workers rating which might not be true. The file will seem like it is trying to maintain a continuous appraisal process although it is not being rated (Shore & Tashchian, 2002). To improve on the filed report supervisors should be trained on different methods of and efficient ways of keeping record. The training of the supervisor will eliminate a situation where supervisors might be recording unnecessary reports. Uniformity in recording of performance will give the organization a common footing in rating the different workers without any biasness (Gomez-Mejia et al., 2000). Actively involving workers in appraisal Some organizations perform appraisal as one sided activity where the evaluator asks questions where the employee answers. The employees are not given a chance to ask question or give their views. Such appraisal has a problem of making workers view that their contribution is not required. Involvement of employees in the appraisal ensures everyone in the organization to feel they were part of the appraisal process. Involvement will ensure workers give their feedback and feel that they were part o the submitted report (Muchinsky, 2006). References Alexander, S., Sinclair, & Tetrick, 2010, "The Role of Organizational Justice in Defining and Maintaining the Employment Relationship", In Tetrick, L.E. and Barling, J. (eds) Changing Employment Relations: Behavioral and Social Perspectives. Brown, S. P., & Peterson, R, 2004, "The effect of effort on sales performance and job satisfaction", Journal of Marketing. Bowen, D., Gilliland, S. & Folger, R.,2001 , "HRM and Service Fairness: How Being Fair with Employees Spills over to Customers", Organizational Dynamics: no. 27 vol. 3 pp 7-23. Cardy, R, & Dobbins, G, 2011, Performance appraisal: Alternative perspectives, Cincinnati: South-Western. DeNisi, 2000, Performance appraisal and performance management: A multilevel analysis, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. DeNisi, A., & Kluger, A.,2010, "Feedback effectiveness: Can appraisals be improved?", Academy of Management Executive, no. 14. Folger, R. & Cropanzano, R,2003, "Organizational Justice and Human Resource Management", Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hofstede, G., 2001, Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations, Thousand Oaks: Sage. Goodson, & McGee, 2005, "Enhancing individual perceptions of objectivity in performance appraisal", Journal of Business Research, no.22 :pp. 293-303. Gomez-Mejia, L. R., Balkin, D. B., & Cardy, R. L., 2000, Managing human resources, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey. Muchinsky, P, 2006, Psychology applied to work, Belmont: Thomson Wadsworth. Manasa, K. & Reddy, 2009, “Role of Training in Improving Performance”, The IUP Journal of Soft Skills, 3, 72-80 Richard B, Peterson, Beth A, Martin, & Daniel A,2010, “Supervisor and Subordinate Reactions to Performance Appraisal Sessions.” Organizational Behavior and Human Performance. Safrit, R., Schmiesing, R. & Gliem, J. (2003). Factors Affecting OSU Extension Agents’ Perceptions of Organizational Justice and Job Satisfaction. Journal of International Agricultural and Extension Education 10 (2): 25-34. Shore. T, Adams, & Tashchian, 2002, " Effects of self-appraisal information, appraisal purpose, and feedback target on performance appraisal ratings", Journal of Business and Psychology, no. 12. Pp 283-298. Tyler, T.R, & Bies, R, 2010, "Beyond Formal Procedures: The Interpersonal Context of Procedural Justice", Applied Social Psychology and Organizational Settings. Hillsdale, Lawrence Erlbaum. Appendix General Appraisal Personal Details Name: Department Age: Tenure Sex: Email Phone Goal Setting 1. My supervisor has clearly communicates goals and duties to me 1 2 3 Disagree Agree absolutely agree 2. My duties correlate with the goals of the organization 1 2 3 Disagree Agree absolutely agree 3. I fully agree to the goals and jobs assigned to me 1 2 3 Disagree Agree absolutely agree 4. Do I fully meet the goals set to me by the supervisor 1 2 3 Disagree Agree absolutely agree 5. Retraining would help in improving performance 1 2 3 Disagree Agree absolutely agree Performance feedback 1. The performance feedback is received on timely basis 1 2 3 Disagree Agree absolutely agree 2. The information given on the performance feedback helps me in improving on performance 1 2 3 Disagree Agree absolutely agree 3. The performance feedback is received on timely basis 1 2 3 Disagree Agree absolutely agree 4. I am satisfied with the feedback of my performance 1 2 3 Disagree Agree absolutely agree Participation of all stakeholders 1. I would like to be involved in future formulation of the performance appraisal 1 2 3 Disagree Agree absolutely agree 2. The previous appraisals have been involving all stakeholders in the organization 1 2 3 Disagree Agree absolutely agree Justice in process 1. My supervisor performs the appraisal objectively to try and rate my performance 1 2 3 Disagree Agree absolutely agree 2. My supervisor possess the latest knowledge on appraisal 1 2 3 Disagree Agree absolutely agree 3. My supervisor observes all the ethical standards in performing the performance appraisal 1 2 3 Disagree Agree absolutely agree 4. There is fair treatment during the performance appraisal 1 2 3 Disagree Agree absolutely agree 5. The process of performance appraisal is efficient enough 1 2 3 Disagree Agree absolutely agree Open Questions 1. Any suggestion on way of improving the performance appraisal. 2. Any suggestion on what the organization should do improve on the performance of employees Read More