Performance Management System Griffith University - Assignment Example

Performance Management System Griffith University Contents 1.0 Introduction 2 1.1 Purpose of Report 2 1.2 Scope of Report 2 2.0 Background and Description 2 2.1 History and strategic goals 2 2.2 HR approach 3 3.0 Performance Management Policies and Procedures 3 3.1 PMS Policies and strategy 3 3.2 PMS procedures and tools 5 4.0 Evaluation of PMS 6 4.1 Validity 6 4.2 Reliability 7 4.3 Cost effectiveness 7 4.4 Fairness 8 5.0 Recommendations 8 6.0 Conclusions 9 References 11 1.0 Introduction 1.1 Purpose of Report The purpose of this report is to explore the performance management system of Griffith University. The report begins by providing a short history of the university and is followed by the system of performance management policies and procedures that has been put in place to improve the members of the academic staff. The present performance management system (PMS) of the University is evaluated on the basis of validity, reliability, cost effectiveness and fairness and finally recommendations are provided on the basis of assessment. 1.2 Scope of Report This report is prepared on the basis of secondary data that is available on the web based platforms and relevant work of other research scholars. In order to improve the quality of the research, the report has limited itself only to the performance of the academic staff. Additionally, employees are assessed on the basis of three criteria namely teaching, research and service. 2.0 Background and Description 2.1 History and strategic goals Griffith University is an Australian University that was founded in 1971 and it is a public university. The Dawkins revolution of 1988 acted as a major catalyst for the growth of the university. A series of successful mergers with other colleges like Queensland Art College and Gold Coast College of Advanced Education to name a few had greatly enhanced the size of Griffith University (Griffith University, 2013). After forty years from its establishment, the University had grown from a small university that had a singular campus to one of the largest universities of Australia with multiple campuses across the continent. Presently, the university employs professors and academic staff from more than 130 countries. It has greatly increased the number of courses that are offered in it and has strategically positioned it among the top 5% research universities (Griffith University, 2013). The University has strategic goals of influencing communities through teaching and scholarly programs, valuing diversity and creating an environmentally sustainable society to name a few. It also strives to promote individual rights and ethical standards. 2.2 HR approach The Human Resource (HR) management of Griffith University is an organized one which integrates the long-term strategic planning of the organization with the human resource planning. The HR staff service centre of the university is responsible for providing assistance and support for activities like recruitment and selection, staff benefits, payroll measures and training and development programs. The main agenda is to ensure that the long-term organizational goals are supported by the HR programs to improve organizational performance. The University has also appointed HR business partners who are in charge of providing consulting service to the senior management of the company about the strategic priorities of the institution. The main aim is to provide support to the organizational plans and processes. 3.0 Performance Management Policies and Procedures 3.1 PMS Policies and strategy The PMS system of Griffith University is an elaborate one that comprises a number of policies to improve staff performance. The PMS policies of the organization aim to improve the performance of the staff by supporting them and providing prospects for career development. The goals and targets for the employees are set in the beginning of the year to motivate the employees. Review meetings are conducted on staff performance and support is provided for further development in future (Griffith University, 2014b). The performance management of the academic managers can be presented by the following schematic diagram. Figure 1: PMS of Griffith (Source: Griffith University, 2014b) The performance management policies of Griffith University can be associated with majority of the PMS adopted by institutions engaged in higher education. According to the research conducted by Talbot (2010), public sector organizations have a tendency to follow the “input-output” model of PMS. The primary prediction of this model is that, there is a closed loop of performance measurement, taking corrective actions and improving the overall outcomes of the organization. According to the research conducted by Cave, Hanney & Henkel (1995) it has been found that education is the process of transforming inputs (namely, the time of the researchers and students) to outcomes which are in the form of research and services provided to the society. This model perfectly fits Griffith that wants to develop a sustainable well-educated society. Researchers have pointed out that an ideal performance system is one which provides relevant information about every aspect like accountability and control, behavior, intervention and learning. In this regard it can be argued that the performance management system of Griffith has been structured along the ideal line. According to Radnor and Barnes (2007), in case of academic institutions reporting, measurement and improvement of performance forms the basic framework that can motivate employees. The performance management systems of academic institutions are built on the principles of economy to guarantee resources are obtained at the lowest possible cost; efficiency to ensure that minimum inputs that can cover maximum output; and effectiveness to ensure maximum return. 3.2 PMS procedures and tools The PMS procedures of Griffith are multi-layered and each of the layers is created for the purpose of enhancing the monitoring purpose. In the first stage there is an appointment of a review committee who supervises the performance of the staff. This step is followed by appointment of supervisors, self-review of academic staff and finally assessment of performance based on a number of internal standards and regulations of the University. Disciplinary actions are taken on the basis of unacceptable performance, and rewards are provided to employees on the basis of excellence. The senior management and designated committees takes these decisions (Griffith University, 2014a). Most of the research works that have focused on PMS have given heavy emphasis on the ideas of measurement of the performance. According to the research conducted by Thorpe and Holloway (2008 cited in Holloway, 2009), it has been suggested that management of performance in any type of organizations including academic institutions should put greater emphasis on the measurement of the performance for providing the employees with a sense of direction and allowing them to improve their status quo. The case of Griffith can be considered as a classic case which heavily emphasizes on measurement of performance by elaborate review process. Many researchers have pointed out that the PMS procedures and tools are more successful only when the feedback provided to the employees are descriptive, clear and specific rather than based on evaluative outcome. According to the research, conducted by Locke and Latham (1990 cited in Locke & Latham, 2002) it has been found out that feedback sessions in employee performance management should help in the self-management of employees to achieve personal and organizational goals. Involvement of employees in the career development process is one of the most useful ways to promote their job satisfaction. The PMS tools of Griffith University follows these guidelines. The PMS procedure makes sure that the role of the supervisors is supportive for the employees. The system of self-review is to guarantee that the staff is involved in their own career development procedure to enhance their job motivation. It has also been observed that including employees in the appraisal system enhances their trust on the supervisors. Researches like London, Larsen and Thisted (1999), had established that review meetings including supervisors is an effective way to provide information to employees about their career development objective. Griffith University has been doing exactly the same thing by including supervisors and staff in the feedback meetings to provide potential development objectives to the employees. Additional support is provided in the field of research performance to help employees with their career goals. 4.0 Evaluation of PMS 4.1 Validity Validity refers whether the performance measures in the PMS are solely related to the performance of staff. Inclusion of irrelevant performance aspects makes the PMS system invalid. Validity must cover three important factors namely parameters are relevant, not-contaminated and not deficient (Aguinis, 2005). The validity of the PMS system of Griffith system measured in three dimensions of teaching, scholarship and service can be considered as high. Multiple factors are included in each of these three dimensions to ensure all the key parameters of performance are measured. According to the research that has been conducted by Theurer (1998 cited in Berman & Wang, 2000), it has been found that PMS system is useful only if it data and information provided by participants are valid. One of the most accepted ways to find whether a PMS is valid or not is to check whether it is able to produce improvements in performance of employees (Samson & Terziovski, 1999). Comprehensive system of teaching, research and service are used to measure the knowledge performance of faculty in Griffith. In this regard it can be said that the PMS of Griffith is valid not only because it embraces multiple facets of performance management but also it has been able to improve performance of the staff. 4.2 Reliability Reliability in the performance management system ensures that the parameters that are included are all consistent and free from errors. This implies if there are multiple raters then their ratings should be consistent (Aguinis, 2005). Researchers have found that in case of academic institutions, a common measure of reliability is to see the number of publications of the professors in academic journals. Based on the subjective bias of the researcher, this method is often criticized and citation indices have been used to measure the reliability (Ramsden, 1991). Analysis of the existing literature reveals that the use of SEC in teaching evaluation is debated because, there are certain external factors like class size, age which can produce biasness in the results. The use of faculty members in the evaluation of colleagues has been found to be an useful method to measure reliability of PMS (Ramsden, 1991). According to the research conducted by Ackerman, Gross and Vigernon (2009), it has been established that, combining SEC with faculty performance enhances the reliability of PMS. In case of Griffith University, it has been found that both of these processes are used to measure the validity and reliability of PMS. 4.3 Cost effectiveness Cost effectiveness in the performance management system can relate to either reducing per unit cost of measuring performance or reducing the time that is required to produce service. It can also relate to the concept of reducing waste. The works of previous researchers have pointed out that there are two main costs of PMS in case of higher education institutions namely time cost and money cost. It has been found that the educational institutions which have long-term and highly complex goals benefits from stewardship theory of PMS. Stewardship mechanism is closely related to maximization of staff and student satisfaction. Based on this view, it can be argued that Griffith University has detailed information system for payment and increment and training and development of employees which are highly time consuming (Franco-Santos, Rivera and Bourne, 2014). The multiple feedback session of employee performance and performance reviews are cumbersome processes that require considerable time. 4.4 Fairness Fairness relates to the fact that the participants involved in the PMS thinks that the system is fair and free from biases. It is a subjective concept and the only method to find whether the PMS is fair, is to ask the participants about it. Distributive justice and procedural justice are some of the ways to find whether the PMS system is fair or not (Colquitt, LePine & Noe, 2000). According to the research conducted by Martin, Bartol & Kehoe (2000), it has been found that the fairness of PMS systems in an organization improves by clarifying expectations of goals by employees, involving them in the evaluation process and including multiple evaluators in the process. Additionally, the quality of the PMS also impacts the fairness of the system. If employees do not have trust in the system of fairness of PMS then it is believed that the whole system turns inefficient causing huge loss in terms of money and time. Leventhal (1980) had found that there are six different criteria of fairness namely consistency, accuracy, ethicality, correct ability, represent ability and bias suppression. The PMS of Griffith University have been found to be fulfilling all the criteria that are mentioned by Leventhal. Furthermore, involvement of employees in the PMS and use of multiple raters like supervisor and faculty members enhances the fairness of the PMS. 5.0 Recommendations The PMS of Griffith University is indeed an organized one which has been quite successful in improving the performance of the employees. However, the PMS in Griffith University can still be improved by following a few recommendations. Firstly, it has been observed that the system of PMS in Griffith is a lengthy process that is subjected to cross-references and multiple feedbacks. It requires certain commitment on the part of the employees for completing the process efficiently. Therefore, it can be recommended that the PMS can be improved by conducting training sessions for both the faculty members and students to allow them to comprehend the system and methods in PMS for successful inputs. It has been found in many universities department heads are not fully trained to facilitate the performance evaluation process leading to low motivation (Delaney & Huselid, 1996). Training sessions and workshops can be conducted for improving motivation of staff to conduct performance reviews. The existing literature points out that there is a strong correlation between training of employees and improving their motivation in the performance appraisal systems (Colquitt, LePine & Noe, 2000). Training of employees helps to improve the self-efficacy of individuals which in turn provides them motivation to do their work effectively. The second recommendation for improving the PMS in Griffith can be done by linking the system of rewards with performance appraisal system with rewards. It has been found that rewards offered by the employers in PMS are one of the building blocks to align the goals of individuals with that of the organization. Linking performance with rewards helps in improving motivation and commitment of employees in the appraisal systems. It has been found that in case of academic staff it is important to link the rewards like salary and promotions to the career development objectives by providing intrinsic rewards like recognition and acknowledgment (Thomas, 2009). In a research that has been conducted by Mottaz (1985), it has been found that, employees who work in higher position have a greater tendency to be motivated by intrinsic rewards. Based on this argument it can be stated that MNS of Griffith University can improve by enhancing the system of intrinsic rewards of the university. 6.0 Conclusions The SHRM of Griffith University has shown that the human resource management of the University is integrated with the long-term strategic goal of the institution. The PMS of the University involves the employees in the rating process. This helps in creating an unbiased process of PMS. The extensive feedback provided by the supervisors and faculty members provides an atmosphere of continuous learning for the academic staff which in turn improves their performance. It has also been observed that the system of PMS is valid, reliable and fair but it is time intensive. In short, it can be said that the PMS system of Griffith is similar to most other higher educational institutions that has the long-term strategic goal of creating a well-educated society. The goal of continuous improvement of the University reinforces the HRM practices and vice-versa. References Ackerman, D., Gross, B. L., & Vigneron, F. (2009). Peer observation reports and student evaluations of teaching: who are the experts? Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 55(1), 1-27. Aguinis, H., 2005. Performance Management. Retrieved from http://www.ebsglobal.net/documents/course-tasters/english/pdf/h17pe-bk-taster.pdf. Berman, E. & Wang, X. (2000). Performance measurement in US counties: Capacity for reform. Public Administration Review, 60(5), 409-420. Cave, M., Hanney, S. & Henkel, M. (1995). Performance measurement in higher education—revisited. Public Money & Management, 15(4), 17-23. Colquitt, J. A., LePine, J. A., & Noe, R. A. (2000). Toward an integrative theory of training motivation: a meta-analytic path analysis of 20 years of research. Journal of applied psychology, 85(5), 678-707. Delaney, J. T. & Huselid, M. A. (1996). The impact of human resource management practices on perceptions of organizational performance. Academy of Management journal, 39(4), 949-969. Franco-Santos, M., Rivera, P. and Bourne, M. (2014). Performance Management in UK Higher Education Institutions: The need for a hybrid approach. Retrieved from http://www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/dinamic-content/news/documents/PerformanceManagementinUKHigherEducationInstitutions.pdf. Griffith University, 2014a. 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Theories of performance: Organizational and service improvement in the public domain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thomas, K. W. (2009). Intrinsic motivation at work, what really drives employee engagement. San Francisco: Berrett - Koehler Publishers Inc. Read More