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Question 1- What are the aims of performance management?

Answer: One of the important objectives of performance management is identifying the strengths and weaknesses of employees and finding ways to overcome their shortcomings. This is done by evaluating employee output and the companys overall ability to meet the goals by having quarterly or annual audits. Often, after an evaluation, there will be widespread company meetings where managers and employees discuss concerns and solutions to problems. Another objective is to discover where employees and the company are falling short. This is done by going through details such as profits earned, new clients acquired and the contribution of employees to make these things happen. Employees whose contribution are minimal or not up to the mark are counselled on how to improve performance. The evaluation of an employees performance is based on their work output and the amount of time spent by them on the project. Although time spent in an office is not an accurate way of measuring performance, most companies still have the notion that better employees put in longer hours of work. A better way of measuring employee productivity would be to measure the output of work and the accuracy of work completed. Overall evaluation of a company and its ability to set and reach goals is another important objective of performance management. Increasing revenue is the overall goal of any company. Other goals may be to acquire more or specific clients, develop new products or hire new talent. It is very easy to determine which of these goals have been met, because these are things that can be seen or calculated. The inability of a company to meet the goals is mainly due to poor leadership, poor planning, poor implementation or poor employee performance. Economic factors also play a major role, but it is better for companies to concentrate on factors that are within their control. The best way of improving a companys overall output is motivating the employees and improving their performance. To identify and remedy situations that hinder company performance is another important objective of performance management. This includes replacing underperforming employees, gaining new clients, developing new strategies for reaching the goals and discussing strategies that have worked in the past. In order to meet the objectives of performance management and improve the overall performance of a company, every employee must work with the team members to develop new techniques and implement changes. The aims of performance management can be summarised into the following points. The aims of performance management are: To assist in the achievement of enhanced standards of work performance of an employee or class of employees. To assist employees to identify the knowledge and skills to perform their jobs efficiently. To ensure that the employees work towards the defined goals. To ensure that the employees receive regular feedback on performance. To assist the employees to achieve personal growth through acquiring relevant knowledge and skills and attitudes. To evaluate the company and its ability to set and reach goals. To identify and remedy situations that are hindering company performance.

Question 2 - (a) Define motivation. (b) Explain McGregors theory X and theory Y. Answer: (a) Motivation: Motivation is defined by goal-directed behaviour. Motivation is concerned with the strength and direction of that behaviour. It implies that motivation takes place when people expect that a course of action is likely to lead to the attainment of a goal and a valued reward - one which satisfies their particular needs. Motivated people acknowledge that their efforts are required for both the needs of the organisation and their own interests. Therefore, in the context of Performance Management, the process of motivation entails positive reinforcement progression. Douglas M. McGregor, in his book The Human Side of Enterprise, says The task of management is to arrange organisational conditions and methods of operation so that people can achieve their own goals best by directing their own efforts towards organisational objectives. Rensis Likert, in his book Motivation: The Core of Management, explained motivation as the core of management which shows that every human being earnestly seeks a secure, friendly and supportive relationship which gives him a sense of worth in face-toface groups which are most important to him. A supervisor should strive to treat individuals with dignity and recognition of their personal worth. (b) McGregors theory X and theory Y In the book The Human side of Enterprise, Douglas McGregor states that employees of an organisation can be managed in two ways. The first is called category X which is basically negative, and the other is basically positive, which falls under the category Y. The managers behaviour towards subordinates is based on these assumptions. Under the assumptions of theory X: Employees inherently do not like work and whenever possible, will attempt to avoid it. Because employees dislike work, they have to be forced or threatened with punishment to achieve goals. Employees avoid responsibilities and do not work untill formal directions are issued. Most workers place a greater importance on security over all other factors and display little ambition. In contrast, under the assumptions of theory Y: Physical and mental effort at work is as natural as rest or play. People do exercise self-control and self-direction if they are committed to those goals. Average human beings are willing to take responsibility and exercise imagination, ingenuity and creativity in solving the problems of the organisation. Looking at the way the things are organised, the average human beings brainpower is only partly used.

Theory X assumes that lower-order needs dominate individuals and theory Y assumes that higher-order needs dominate individuals. An organisation that is run on the lines of Theory X tends to be authoritarian in nature that is such organisations believe that they have the power to enforce obedience and the right to command. In contrast, Theory Y organisations can be described as participative, where the aims of the organisation and of the individuals in it are integrated; individuals can achieve their own goals best by directing their efforts towards the success of the organisation.

Question 3 - Explain managers responsibility in Performance Planning. Answer: There are six basic responsibilities of a manager. These responsibilities can be classified into two those that the manager has to work on with the employees before the performance planning meeting and those accomplished during the performance planning meeting. Before the meeting, the manager has to: Re-examine the organisations mission statement, or vision and values, and teams goals. Understand the employees job description. Think about the goals and objectives the person needs to achieve in the upcoming appraisal period. Recognise the most important competencies that are expected from the employees in performing the job. Determine what can be considered as fully successful performance in each area. During the meeting the manager has to: Discuss and come to agreement with the employee on the most important competencies, key position responsibilities, and goals. Discuss and come to agreement on the employees development plan. A major part of the job involved in effective performance planning happens before the actual meeting. Before the meeting begins, the manager and the employees should review the documents that provide a clear picture of the companys mission statement and the corporate vision and values statement. The organisations strategic goals for the upcoming year, the department or division goals and the individuals job description also have to be reviewed. The manager needs to consider about the goals the individual needs to accomplish over the year and the important competencies or behaviours the manager expects the employees to display in their performance. If there are no goals set for the department, the manager can set the goals before the planning meeting begins. After setting goals for the entire team or department, the manager can encourage each subordinate to set individual goals that help ensure that the overall department goals will be met. The manager will discuss the goals for the department and the company as a whole during the meeting. The manager works with the subordinates to set significant, quantifiable, and meaningful goals that will help accomplish the departments and the organisations mission. Hence it is important for the manager to have some specific ideas for areas in which the individual should consider setting goals. The manager and the subordinate then review the most important parts of the individuals job and talk about which responsibilities are the most essential to success. Apart from job-competencies and results, the managers also have to discuss how performance will be measured. The manager needs to describe what level of performance will be considered to be fully successful. Before the meeting begins, the manager also needs to think about the subordinates development needs. It is the employees responsibility to create and execute a development plan. However, the manager needs to be prepared with suggestions on areas where development will have a payoff. If the manager is well prepared, then 45 to 60 minutes should be sufficient to discuss key responsibilities, set goals, discuss competencies, talk about how performance will be measured, and review the employees ideas about plans for development. 3

At the conclusion of the planning phase, the manager should be able to: Understand the employees day-to-day job responsibilities better. Have a clear understanding of how carrying out those responsibilities contributes to the work unit. Be convinced that both the higher authority and the employee have a shared understanding of the job and performance expectations. Have dealt with methods to help the employee succeed and be committed to any actions required to help the employee. Have a few documents of the performance-planning process and decisions made. Some of the points mentioned above deal with employee performance because the point of the entire process, from planning to reviewing, is to help the employee succeed. The reason underlying this is that if each employee succeeds, the team succeeds, and if the team succeeds, the manager must surely be succeeding. Hence, the planning process focuses on where the employee needs to be and not as much on where the manager needs to be.

Question 4 - Describe the traditional methods of performance appraisal. Answer: From the name itself, one can identify that these are the methods that are most commonly used. The traditional methods of performance appraisal are: Essay appraisal method The essay method includes an evaluated report created by the appraiser, which basically includes appraising an employee's performance based on facts and evidences. Besides using the information for decisions on pay rise, promotion or termination of employees, it can also be used for developmental purposes. Straight ranking method Ranking methods compare employees with each other, resulting in an ordering of employees in relation to one another. Rather than in specific judgments about a number of job components, ranking regularly results in general evaluation of employees. Straight ranking demands an evaluator to order a group of employees from best to worst overall, or from best effective to worst effective in terms of a certain condition. The ranking process is carried out in a specific manner. Paired comparison method A better technique of comparison than the straight ranking method, this method compares each employee with all others in the group, one at a time. After all the comparisons on the basis of the overall comparisons, the employees are given the final rankings. Critical incidents method This method describes how the employee behaved during the critical incidents with respect to performance over a period of time. These are then matched with the employee focusing on actual behavior rather than on qualities. Though this method suits well in performance review interviews, it has a drawback in that the evaluator has to make a note of the critical incidents as and when they occur. Field review checklist method Since every individual differs in quality and attitude, they unintentionally introduce bias in their ratings. To overcome this, essay and graphic rating measures can be combined in an organised review process. In the field review method, 'a representative of the HRM staff meets a chunk of evaluators from the supervisory units to discuss each rating, analytically notifying areas of inter-evaluator disagreement. Graphic ratings scale method One of the most common methods of performance appraisal, the graphic ratings scale method requires an evaluator to measure on a scale, the angle to which an employee reflects a particular trait, behavior, or performance result. Evaluating forms comprise a number of scales, each relating to a certain job or performance-related measurement, such as job skills, responsibility or quality of work. Forced distribution method Forced distribution is a structure of comparative evaluation in which an evaluator rates subordinates according to specified directions. In contrast to ranking methods, forced distribution is frequently applied to several, rather than only one component of job performance.

Question 5 - What are the causes of subjectivity and how does error in rating occur? Answer: Subjectivity or biases tend to occur when the grading allotted by any evaluator to any individual is derived more from aspects rather than the presentational or behavioral manner exhibited by individual on the aspects under evaluation. The following are generally recorded events that add to errors and biases in evaluation raising subjectivity: Sometimes evaluators accept or reject some particular acts or attributes of the individual enormously and, thus grade him/her confidently on all other measures (called Halo effect). Some evaluators feel to believe that they should be fair to their appraisee and thus lean to assign them compassionate grades (leniency effect). The other evaluators might adapt a reverse theory while inspecting their appraisee and thus lean to rate them too harshly (Severity effect). Some evaluators assign nearly equal grades to their appraisee due to their conscious nature, that is, they lean to grade most of their appraisees around the average (Central tendency and averaging). Some evaluators prefer to favour individuals who are more like them who think on the same lines and thus allot them a higher grade than those who seem to have a different opinion. Some appreciate those who posses uniqueness which the evaluator does not have but would like to incur (called assimilation or differential effects). Comparatively some evaluators make opinion about individuals on account of their first impression and are likely to carry these feelings over a long period of time (First impression errors). Sometimes evaluators allocate grades on account of the current behavior they have noticed in their appraisee without recalling about the past deeds over a period of time (Recency effect). Some evaluators lean to evaluate their appraisee on the basis of their probability and observations made from their own assessment program.

Question 6 - What are the methods to measure performance? Answer: An organisation can identify the particular dimensions of performance and choose to include only those dimensions in its own performance management system. However, this will create another set of issues as how the dimensions will be measured. As a practice, selecting or choosing objectives and setting measures of performance are often linked. Fowler has suggested that performance dimensions are sometimes chosen not because they are most valued by the organisation; because they are the most easily measured. Quantitative measure It is important for you to know that most of the organisations use at least some type of quantitative (that is, statistical) indicators to measure their employees performance. This is also done to measure whether the organisation is achieving the goals which were set by them. A performance management system which has indisputably extracted dimensions of performance to be applied to individuals and groups from its wider strategy, may find that some of the dimensions are not measured by existing indicators. In addition, it may not be available from the current management information system. It is possible, for example, that increasing satisfaction of customer is identified as an outcome to be rewarded and encouraged. However, no satisfactory measure exists to report this. In this case, the organisation must do one of the following two things: Remove the objective from the performance management system. or Develop a way or means to measure the dimension. The other problem which must be addressed with reference to quantitative measures is the organisations quality. Although quantitative measures often have lot of objectives surrounding them and an aura of robustness exists, a closer analysis reveals that they may be rather more objective and arbitrary than expected. Qualitative measure The quality of any performance indicator or measure of performance will depend whether it is both reliable and valid. Validity always refers to whether the indicator actually measures what it is supposed to measure. For example, productivity or profitability of a particular group or unit might be taken as an indicator of managerial effectiveness. However, it is likely that aspects outside the managers control could have a greater effect on profitability, and thus it is not a valid indicator of managerial effectiveness. Reliability is a simpler decisive factor. It means that related results will be exposed if the measure is used on the same person or object by different people and/or at different times. Thus, reliability reflects repeatability and validity describes whether you are measuring what you intend to measure. In addition, for practical reasons, an excellent measure needs to be clear-cut to understand and economical to collect. If for instance, when these conditions are not met, a performance management system will include flaws which make it depart from the expectancy theory ideal. Appraisal system We have understood that the most effective way to manage a performance is the system of appraisal. Appraisal systems can take many forms such as: Annual verbal discussions between the supervisor and the employee. Indicators or systems which may include written reviews from superiors and subordinates, as well as peers. Use of various quantitative performance indicators. The common characteristic of each form is that the employees performance is recorded on a regular basis with an objective assessment. Some question the effectiveness of appraisals as an adequate means of assessing employees performance because they predictably involve objective judgements. One school of thought highlights the social processes that underlie performance appraisals. Their

argument is that because these ratings are given by people to other people, it makes it impossible to separate the social influences that may exist, such as: Do the appraisee and appraiser enjoy a social understanding? Do non-relevant aspects of the appraisee influence the awareness which the appraiser has of his/her performance? An example of this last point is research conducted in the US, which reveals that employees receive significantly higher ratings from appraisers of their own race. For example, many studies have indicated that womens success rate at traditional mens tasks are often credited to luck or ease of the task rather than the superior performance by women. By and large, appraisers may feel socially uncomfortable about giving appraisal ratings that may be relatively poor. The solution to this may be to gather ratings artificially around the mean, or to give way to a general rating creep by awarding more marks above a suggested mean than below.

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