Appraising The Performance Of An Organizations Employees - Essay Example

Modern organizations passed by the guild structures and as organizations grew larger, skills become increasingly fragmented and specialized and positions become more functionally differentiated (Hardy & Clegg, 1996). As such organizations should stress on people approaches which includes alterations in attitudes, motivation and behavioral skills through new training programs, selection procedures, and performance appraisal schemes. Indeed, making a business successful in a particular setting demands crucial and detailed studies and examination of the factors that will generate the best results that will serve the aims and objectives of the company. In this light, owners of big business organizations operating in a competitive business environment should be in constant look out with its competitors and the overall status and events in the industry. Taking advantage of the opportunities and intensifying the strengths while minimizing the risks and weaknesses of a business firm greatly helps in predicting the success in business enterprise. Graphic rating scale can be used in appraising the performance of an organization's employees. Ranking employees from best to worst on a particular trait, choosing highest, then lowest, until all are ranked. Another method is the Alternation ranking method - An appraisal method that aims at combining the benefits of narrative and quantified ratings by anchoring a quantified scale with specific narrative examples of good and poor performance. (bars) . Paired comparison method - Keeping a record of uncommonly good or undesirable examples of an employees work-related behavior and reviewing it with the employee at predetermined times. (critical incident). While in forced distribution method, uses a scale that lists a number of traits and a range of performance for each. The employee is then rated by identifying the score that best describes his or her performance for each trait. Similar to grading on a curve; predetermined percentages of rates are placed in various performance categories. (forced distribution) Management by objectives (MBO) - Involves setting specific measurable objectives with each employee and then periodically reviewing the progress made. Management By Objectives (MBO), is a traditional management approach to directing the efforts of managers and the organizational units for which they are responsible. It is intended to motivate stronger performance on the part of managers and employees through goal setting, participative decision-making, and objective feedback (Rodgers and Hunter, 1992). In its broadest construction, it is seen as a planning and control system which is designed to encourage self-control over an individual's work while assuring that managers' efforts are aligned with the organization's overall goals and priorities. According to Swiss (1991), the heart of a full-fledged MBO process is the negotiation between a higher level manager and a subordinate manager of a performance contract that has the components such as major objectives to be accomplished by the subordinate manager within specified completion dates, resource commitments to support these objectives, action plans and milestones for accomplishing these objectives, periodic meetings of the manager and subordinate to review progress and make midcourse corrections if necessary, and an assessment at the end of the MBO cycle of the subordinate's performance, which should feed into both personnel appraisal processes and MBO planning for the next cycle. Swiss (1991) characterizes MBO as being particularly useful for providing direction and control over project oriented agencies where workloads shift and priorities tend to change frequently, as opposed to another major management approach, performance monitoring, which may be more appropriate for managing the continuing operations of organizations whose outputs are relatively stable. LearnInMotion.com: The Performance Appraisal Jennifer and Mel disagree over the importance of having performance appraisals. Mel says it's quite clear whether any particular LearnInMotion employee is doing his or her job. It's obvious, for instance, if the salespeople are selling, if the Web designer is designing, if the Web surfer is surfing, and if the content management people are managing to get the customers' content up on the Web site in a timely fashion. Mel's position, like that of many small-business managers, is that "we have 1,000 higher-priority things to attend to" such as boosting sales and creating the calendar. And in any case, he says, the employees already get plenty of day-to-day feedback from him or Jennifer regarding what they're doing right and what they're doing wrong. This informal feedback notwithstanding, Jennifer believes that a more formal appraisal approach is required. For on thing, they're approaching the end of the 90-day "introductory" period for many of these employees, and the owners need to make decisions about whether they should go or stay. And from a practical point of view, Jennifer just believes that sitting down and providing formal, written feedback is more likely to reinforce what employees are doing right, and to get them to modify what they might be doing wrong. "Maybe this is one reason we're not getting enough sales," she says. Before you can help solve Mel and Jennifer's problem, consider the following question. What is the purpose of a performance appraisal Answer: the purpose of a performance appraisal is to provide employees with feedback on how they are doing, as well as give them an opportunity to give feedback. There are 4 reasons for appraising performance: 1) appraisals provide information upon which promotion and salary decisions are made; 2) they provide an opportunity for you and your subordinate to review his or her work-related behavior; 3) it provides an opportunity to review the subordinate's career plans in light of his or her strengths and weaknesses; and 4) they help you better manage and improve your firm's importance. Several problems can occur during the appraisal process. Take a look at the following scenarios. Determine what type of appraisal problem is being described and indicate how this problem can be avoided. You are the HR Director of a medium-sized computer software company. You have received several complaints from employees about how they were rated by certain managers. This scenario is describing central tendency. Some supervisors stick to the middle when filling in rating scales. This may distort evaluations, making them less useful for promotion, salary, or counseling purposes. Ranking employees instead of using graphic rating scales can reduce this problem, since ranking means you can't rate them all average: Jennifer Barrett is arguing that she was evaluated poorly because she and her manager had different ideas about the definitions of performance. For instance, she said that her manager rated her "fair" at "quantity of work", while Jennifer rated herself "good". What is meant by "fair," "good," and "quantity of work" anyway This conflict occurred in more than one instance in the appraisal. What type of appraisal error could this be How can it be avoided in the future Answer: This scenario is describing unclear standards. The graphic rating scale may result in unfair appraisals because the traits and degrees of merit are ambiguous. For example, different supervisors would probably define "good" performance, "fair" performance, and so on, differently. To avoid this problem, develop and include descriptive phrases that define each trait. For example, "good = competent and dependable level of performance. Meets performance standards of the job." References Hardy, C & Clegg S (1996) Handbook of organization studies, Sage: London. Rodgers, Robert and John E. Hunter, (1992). "A Foundation of Good Management Practice in Government: Management by Objectives." Public Administration Review, vol. 52, pp. 27-39. Swiss, James E., (1991). Public Management Systems: Monitoring and Managing Government Performance. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Read More