Review about Performance Management

Performance management and performance measurement are closely connected.

Most people often mistake the two. Performance measurement is defined as a process of analyzing critically the progress of a company and it is aimed at ensuring the company has achieved its predetermined goals. On the other hand performance measurement the process of ensuring that the process is built, enhancing communication and taking action on the progress that has been achieved against the predetermined goals.Performance management is usually thought to be a cycle of events that consist of performance planning; this is carried out in order to establish objectives and goals of a company, performance coaching; this is where feedback is given by a manager for the purpose of adjusting the performance and finally performance appraisal; the performance of an individuals performance is delivered and documented. ( Agrawal, S.

P. , Z. Rezaee and H. S.

Pak. 2006: 20)The performance management consist of a process where the work to be carried out is planned and what is expected is set, the work performance is monitored, the ability of the staff to perform is also developed as well as enhanced, performance is measured and a summary of the performance is drawn and finally the best performance is appreciated by a reward. The purpose of performance management is to help a company to achieve goals that are strategic.Performance management harnesses data accessibility in the organization instead of discarding it for the purpose of ensuring that the data can be processed to provide some information that might be useful to the organization. The main purpose of performance management is to act as a link between the organizations objectives and the individual organization.

Performance management also helps individuals to develop skills in order to achieve the capability of satisfying their ambitions and this will ensure that profit of a company has increased. (Anderson, B. , C. E. Davis, E. B.

Davis and M. Twomey. 2004: 42)Introduction Allegro is a company that deals with telecommunication services and offers a variety of products to its clients. It was started in 1999 and since then the number of customers has increased tremendously due to the fact that they provide good services to them.

The company has also been able to stand its competitors. The company has five departments, which include finance, IT, customer care, delivery and finally marketing. It has a hundred employees who have been employed in the various departments of the company.Each department has a head and an assistant.

The company much focus on their clients creates a way to attract new customers and also retain old ones. The company has become big over the resent years and it has been ranked as one of the top 100 small companies in the country. The company recognizes the importance of performance management. The Executive Director of the company implemented the performance management strategy to improve the performance of the company as well as boost the performance of the employees.

Their performance management focused on strategies of the company; which were based on long term goals and integration; which is linked to business aspects, management of people and teams that exist in the company. It was focused on performance improvement of the employees throughout the organization, development of the teams and individuals that exist in the organization and for the management of the behavior of the employees The Executive Director first planned the performance management process. The work was planned and distributed to each of the employee.Planning was done to set the performance of the expected goals for each individual and using this strategy to help in the achievement of the company’s goals and objectives. He did not get the employees involved but picked the head of the departments to help him plan the work distribution.

This later was faced with the performance of the employees to drop by a greatly as work was not clearly defined to the employees. He later moved to monitoring of the work being done by the employees. He got feedback from the head of departments about the employees.This was done by the head of departments writing progress reports. When then progress reports were brought to him he only acted on a few and was thus biased on the employees. He went ahead and developed the employee needs that kept arising.

He did this by giving assignments to specific people of the organization and this cause the employees not motivated as they started to see as though they were being overworked. This saw the work force to go down and the implementation of the performance of the company to reduce in the sales of their products.Seeing this he was then advised to rate the performance of the employee’s based on the records that he received from the head of the department. He did not take time to monitor the performance of the head of department and this was one of the reasons why the performance management failed. (Antos, J.

1992:15) His final step was rewarding the employees that had done well. Since he was biased he ended up rewarding his favorite employee and that was not based on the performance but on the judgment that that his favorite employee was the best performing.By the end of the period the performance management practice did not work for him. The methodology he used to implement the performance management was using the balanced scorecard as it use by small scale activities that are operational in the company. The reason why he used the tool is also because it does not focus on the financial outcome but also the operational outcomes of the organization.

It was also for the purpose of translating the vision into operational goals, planning the business, feedback and communication of the vision and linking it with performance of the individuals.This approach has proved to work satisfactorily. On the other hand Galexon is a hotel that functions to provide accommodations, conference rooms and hotel services to their clients. The management also practices the performance management. The company was started in 2000 and it has grown since.

It has six departments, finance, kitchen, cleaning, IT, marketing and finally accommodation. Each of the department has a head and the company has 200 employees. They also provide services like outside catering for events like weddings and social events.The company has been able to stand against its competitors and also practices the performance management.

Unlike Allegro the Executive Director is the one who designed the performance management and it worked well in theory but failed in practice because there was low level employee engagement. He started by planning which is the first step in performance management. He got the employees involved in the process unlike Allegro Company and he did this so as to get them to understand the goals of the company, what they need to do, why the goals have to be accomplished and how it will be accomplished.He also established the elements and standards of how the performance will be achieved and it included measurement, understanding, verifiability, equity and achievability.

This is what the Executive Director for Allegro Company did not understand. This is to help the employees to be accountable for their work. The plans were also made flexible so that they can adjust to the changes that occur. Since the company experienced low employee engagement the plans were not beneficial as document were not able to be discussed. (Euske, K.

J. and A. Vercio. 2007:55) He then went to monitoring stage that is the second step to performance management.

He realized the importance of monitoring and did not encourage biasness in the work place unlike Allegro Company. This monitoring was done to measure the performance of the employees and includes conducting progress reviews. This did not work for Galexon Company because of low employee engagement. The Executive director for Galexon Company knew the importance of this monitoring but the implementation was hard. Monitoring is a task that should be done on a daily basis.

He then went ahead to develop the employee needs. This is the third stage of performance management stage.The company started to train the employees as a way to introduce new skills to them and also giving them assignments to test their capability unlike the Allegro Company. This was important in not only encouraging good performance, but also strengthening job skills and competencies of the employees. The importance of carrying out the process of performance management was to provide an opportunity to point out developmental needs of the employees as realized by the Executive Director of Galexon Company.

The areas that require improvement also stand out and action can be taken to encourage improvement.He also went to rating and this was difficult as he was not in a position to rate because of low engagement of the employees. It is a useful task to the company so as to compare performance and know those who perform best at their work. Rating is the process of evaluation of employee performance against the standards that are set for the employee and a record is drawn about the summary.

Rating is usually carried out at a certain period. What both Executives did not note is that performance is measured on individual persons and not a group. This is because other people rely on others to do things.The final step that the Director took is the rewarding.

Since he was not bias like the Allegro Executive director, he gives rewards to the people he feels have really worked hard. This is a way to motivate them and recognize their performance. The company uses the balanced scoreboard to implement the performance management. Both companies use the scoreboard to implement performance management. Both companies have realized the importance of using performance management and they have tried to implement in order to see the changes that it can have.

The theory of performance management is easy but the practice seems to be what is hard.Both companies need to realize what they have done wrong in order to make the practice of performance management easy. In this case the Executive Director of Allegro should stop being bias on the employees and involve them in the process of performance management. On the other hand the Executive Director of Galexon should find a way of motivating his employees to getting involved in the process of performance management.

These practices should see the running of the process of performance management be smooth. Conclusion For the performance management to be effective, managers and their employees have to practice good performance management.This means that it should be natural and the execution of key components should be done well. Goals should be set and the work should be planned accordingly. The progress should be measured and the Directors should ensure that the employees get feedback. When high standards are set, the management should come up with a way to develop skills for the employees to reach.

Reward should be given to the employees in order to recognize that they work well and act as a motivation factor. The five components in the performance management process of working together and giving support to one another is the most effective way of performance management.