“There is something that is much scarce, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognise ability.” – Robert Half
Performance Management leads to enhanced employee performance in any organisation. An effective Performance Management model can improve employees’ interest and performance, leading to the completion of specific targets geared towards attaining corporate goals. The process whereby the manager formally recognises employee performance leads to more excellent work, and motivation to achieving such is spread healthily across the team. When employee performance is observed and rewarded, the chances of a repeat performance increase.
Effective performance is the key to employee productivity. It is crucial to emphasise adequate feedback; this builds accountability as employees and supervisors develop goals, identify competencies, and discuss career development. Effective performance management practices allow employees to express their ideas and expectations for meeting their strategic goals. The use of a reward system has been an essential factor in any company’s ability to meet its goals.
Performance reviews should focus on the contributions of the employees to meet the organisational objectives. Managers should also formally recognise reasonable employee efforts for enhanced work performance. Effective performance management practices that edify Performance Management, reward and feedback should achieve organisation goals and enhance employee productivity.
“The process of identifying, observing, measuring, and developing employee performance in the organisation is known as performance Management.” (Carrol & Scheider, 2012).
Performance management has moved beyond an instrument for measuring employees to the one used to emphasise the employees’ desired behaviour and competent performance. It is the most potent tool for marshalling employees in a sophisticated and well-managed organisation to achieve individual strategic goals, leading to employee productivity and overall organisational performance. Performance Management forms the basis of evaluating the employee’s performance and their contribution towards the corporate goal. It necessitates the desired outputs expected of employees. Performance method should be in line with objectives, applicable to given roles, specific and assessable, under employees control and understood and accepted by both employees and supervisors.
The Performance Management process must be a discussion, not a speech. After the Performance Management process, an organisation must assess the system itself to see whether the process is helping to achieve designated organisational aims. For example, performance management is often linked to incentives such as raises and promotion for an employee whose output and performance appraisal is viewed as high and sanctions for a worker whose performance is below. Unfortunately, employees are rated more on their ability to get along with supervisors than on actual performance in many instances.
Rewarding employee productivity based on performance happens at the close of the performance period. The effectiveness of any establishment is contingent on the excellence of its personnel. The best-suited people must be selected initially into the workforce, motivated to work, and rewarded with promotion, increments and training.
Implementing Performance Management Framework
Performance Management is a valuable tool to increase employee’s passion for their work leading to employee productivity. Rewards represent essential mechanisms by which employee behaviours can align with the organisation’s interests. Mainly, pay-for-performance is a rewarding practice that associates one’s pay increment to one’s performance and could be used to direct, sustain, and motivate desirable behaviours, such as knowledge sharing, creativity, quality and customer satisfaction.
This visible link between pay and performance motivates employees to attain a specific level of accomplishment, nurturing favourable work attitudes, such as contentment and commitment.
Implementing a structured Performance Management process is no easy task, especially since it creates additional work for supervisors. The approach places pressure on employees and forces them to establish specific goals and adopt the behaviours necessary to achieve these goals. Also, the process puts employees and supervisors in an uncomfortable position, where employees may feel they are unfairly judged because they are being graded as if they were in school. Managers find it difficult to be candid and constructive at the same time when conducting a Performance Management session that involves negative feedback.
However, to achieve employee productivity leading to institutions goals and objectives being met, an effective system of providing feedback to employees must be periodic and objective. Performance Management is an additional benefit to organisations that can help identify inefficient work practices or reveal potential problems, restricting the company’s progress.
There is a straight connection between an individual’s job and the organisation’s strategic goals, which can directly increase the company’s profits. Other benefits of Performance Management are identifying high performers and low performers and identifying strengths and development areas. Besides enhancing motivation, Performance Management is about the involvement of employers and employees in committing to enhanced responsibility, encouragement and recognition for effective delivery and effort.
Linking Employee Productivity and Performance Management
Employers need to create criteria for determining how well employees perform through performance and skills to make a more meaningful impact in their institutions. Job descriptions and performance plans should also be designed to give guidance on what to do. Motivating employees is also crucial to improve their job performances. Performance Management can foster commitment, mutual understanding and build positive working relationships. It can also make institution/client, management/employee, and employee/co-worker relationships promote the successful attainment of objectives. An organisation that is thriving well is triumphantly attaining its goals and objectives; in other words, effectively implementing an appropriate strategy.
Managers ought to discover and put in operation training and other actions necessary to improve individual performance. The performance management process is a strategic and integrated approach intended to dispense unrelenting success to organisations by advancing the performance of the persons who work in them and expanding the capabilities of groups and individual contributors.
Performance Management, however, presents challenges of its own, from system structuring to effective process management. In most cases, the challenge confronting performance management is on the level of structure, mechanics, and practice. Often, managers, supervisors, and employees alike are not convinced of the value of performance management. Due to insufficient information, they may feel that it simply represents additional work and remain sceptical of the process.
At pcl. we have navigated excellently in the territory of performance management. We leverage our vast experiences over the past 28 years, developing and innovating with the relevant new normal resources on upskilling employees to sustain businesses by proffering solutions to help organisations achieve workforce success. We can help you achieve the same.
Please send us an email today through people@phillipsconsulting.net
Written by:
Mayowa Oloyede
Senior Consultant
