Errors In Performance - Management Assignment

Performance management is one of the indispensable segments of human resource management. Nevertheless, there are always many errors in the process of management because the procedure is controlled by people. Sometimes people use their subjective consciousness to manage and ignore the criterion. Such behavior often leads to mistakes and unfair results in performance management. This essay discusses a number of errors in performance management and explains the reasons for them. Then several solutions are put forward and evaluated.

In modern human resource management, performance management is a significant and strategic process because it will impact on the development of the organizations [1] and the individual. First of all, the managers can judge the job performance of a person who works in their organizations through performance appraisal and realize what can be improved. In the process of performance appraisal, the evaluation that is made by the managers is the main cause of obtaining the appraisal result. The managers collect the data of working achievement of the staff through a number of methods, such as meetings and questionnaires. According to the analysis of these data, the managers then decide whether the performance of the employee is efficient or not. Thus, it is can be seen that the attitude of the managers play a decisive role in the procedure of performance management. Moreover, an impartial and equitable outcome of performance survey is important for the staff and organization. There is a relationship between the employee's performance and their salary, career, and training opportunities [2]. Meanwhile, the organizations' purpose can be achieved if the whole employee's performance is good enough [1]. When the staff do their best and contribute their energy to their career, more profits will be created and the developmental speed of the organizations will be increased. Therefore, a fair and reasonable appraisal result is significant to both the staff and the organizations.

However, there are several issues in the performance management process caused by the subjective conception of the managers. Moreover, the detailed reasons for them are different.

First, the managers usually confuse the different aspects of the performance. In other words, unrelated aspects of the appraisal criterion, but not the real achievement of work, can impact on the managers' decision [2]. In the performance management, different positions should have different appraisal criteria. However, maybe the managers ignore these important criteria because of the impressions of the employees' other characteristics. Evaluating the performance of two salesmen is a case in point. If one of them has a clearer appearance and is better at communicating with customers, he will maybe feel that has a better performance in his work. Conversely, another person who has a poor appearance and communication skills will be considered that his achievement is worse. Actually, the main performance criterion for a salesman is how many products he sells, and not his appearance and communication skills. Therefore, such a performance appraisal for the two salesmen is unfair.

Second, an employee who has some similarity with their managers may be considered as having a high performance [2]. The reason for this phenomenon is that this kind of person is easy to recognize and has a good relationship with everyone. A familiar example is that, in an organization, people always assist the person who graduated from the same school as theirs. Otherwise, alike instances happened in a lot of workplaces due to other similar circumstances, like economic background, religion and attitude. In a word, an inequitable appraisal outcome will be brought forward because the managers may favor some employees who have the same characters.

Third, the errors will appear if not every manager understands the appraisal principle clearly [2]. The reason which leads to such a result may be that many managers from different departments work together on evaluate their employees in the process of performance management. However, as the managers come from different departments, they cannot comprehend the appraisal criterion of other departments clearly. For instance, the human resource manager cannot understand the work procedure of the marketing department, and then the result offered by this manager may not be correct.

A number of suggestions are offered when the managers find that these errors may affect the development of the organizations. First of all, the 360-degree feedback system is proposed to solve these errors [3]. In such a system, the information of the work achievement of the employee is collected from different personnel all round, such as the manager, the colleague, the customers and the employee themselves. These people put forward their own opinion and advice to the employee who is being appraised. According to the information, the managers evaluate the performance for their employee. Then, the second effective measure is training the managers who take charge of the performance evaluation [2]. The managers who cannot understand the appraisal criteria clearly have to be trained in the situations which can result in errors. For example, the managers can discuss some cases in an unfair situation. Finally, the managers and employees should work together on performance management to guarantee the fairness of performance appraisal [2]. It is significant that the employee joins the performance management process. If the employees can supervise the process and give feedback about appraisal outcome in time, the errors can be avoided and the outcome will be more accurate.

To some extent, there are a number of advantages and disadvantages in such solutions. First of all, the 360-degree feedback system may be the most useful method due to its practicality and efficiency [3]. The first advantage is that problems and shortcoming can be found because the information from this system is the person's all-round performance. The information gathered from different personnel is more complete than before because the system can avoid personal bias. In addition, such a system is simple to establish and be accepted by the managers and the employee. Nevertheless, a disadvantage is that more time and higher costs have to be expended on such a system. Then, training the managers can be used to foresee the potential errors which the managers can avoid. An advantage is that the purpose of such training is creating an equitable environment for performance appraisal. The managers will realize what the most important principle is and what information needs to be gathered. Consequently, they can save time to collect more sufficient data than before. Finally, the last solution is useful for the employee to join the process of performance management. The employee can be encouraged to look for the drawbacks in their performance and improve them. However, the problem is that such a solution is impractical in fact. Owing to the pressure of the employee's superior, maybe the employee does not have enough bravery to doubt the final performance outcome.

In conclusion, performance management is one of the most significant aspects which decides whether the enterprise can be profitable or not. However, there will be a number of errors caused by subjective attitudes of the managers and the staff in the execution process. It is generally agreed that the 360-degree feedback is the most effective solution to solve the errors. Meanwhile, there are another two available solutions, training the managers and encouraging employees participate in the management. These methods can change the unfair situations in performance management to some extent.

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