Employee performance management

Employee Performance Management

Employee performance management is the process through which a shared worker understanding of corporate goals is accomplished. It entails ensuring that the organization’s goals are in line with the agreed-upon measures of the personnel. The emphasis is on improvement, development, and learning in order to achieve the overall business plan and create a high-performance workforce. Performance management is more than simply an annual evaluation; it should be a continual process and a true cooperation between a business and their employees all year long. A lot of employees have the need to be successful contributors who know what is expected of them for them to meet the expectations or standards that have been set. Effective employee performance management has its share of perks and rewards. Most managers find it tough at times to maximize the performance of individuals. There are a good number of challenges that have proved to be obstacles towards having an effective performance management.

Issues and Challenges in Performance Standards and Motivation

Motivation is the force that combines the desires and energy of an individual into action. It gives the drive to put the effort in ensuring that goal-directed performances are maintained. Issues and challenges that are in performance standard in a workplace can come from the management or ground-level employees (Edwin Lockie, 2013 p. 149). These issues and challenges that affect performances standards and motivation can range from inadequate tools to achieve the company goals to something as simple as lack of acknowledgment of employee achievements by the employer. Some of the challenges and issues in performance standards and motivation include:

Not having Clear Expectations or Requirements

Motivational issues develop in a workplace when a company falls short of making clear their expectations and gives feedback that is inconsistent. Without clear expectations employees usually, find themselves lost and unable to work to their full potential. If an organization does not conduct a continuous performance assessment workers lack direction and good examples of proper performance (Margie Hartnett, 20165 p 58). By not providing adequate feedback and the performance standards to be achieved, an organization can be viewed as one that does not care about job performance. This will aggravate the motivational issues and lower the standards of workforce production.

Lack of Adequate Materials

Lacking appropriate materials or equipment that assist in completing assignments can cause problems and challenges in motivation and performance criteria in the workplace. Employees are usually left feeling undervalued since the organization does not provide them with the necessary assets that they need to achieve a steady productivity (Issa Tomayese, 2014 p.87). Employee motivation can be further damaged if the organization lacks an infrastructure that can request for additional materials or equipment it exacerbates the issue. If the necessary tools or materials to complete tasks are provided employees will see this as a sign of the management understanding their jobs and what is needed to facilitate their completion to the standards of the organization.

Personal Business Investment

When an employer or supervisor does not value the opinion, their employees will result in the employees developing a culture of them not having a metal stake in the company success, and their only connection is the paycheck. The employee will only focus their efforts on getting the paycheck and avoiding to get a disciplinary instead of achieving other goals of the company and raising the standards (Martin Maehr, 2014 p. 32). An employee will only be motivated to achieve higher levels of productivity if the organization shows genuine interests in their opinions on the company.

Lack of Employee Rewards or Pay

Motivational issues are also created in the workplace because of lack of a reward system which can include special monthly recognition and sales bonus as employees feel that the management does not value their productivity. Challenges and issues can also crop when employees believe that the pay they are given is below the industry average and not in line with the level of work and performance (Micheal Armstron, 2014 p.128). Workers who are discouraged have diminished motivation and lowered productivity because of a lack of competitive pay.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs influence on motivation

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs was proposed by Abraham Maslow. Maslow argued that motivation is the result of the attempt of an individual trying to fulfill five basic needs which are psychological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization (John Schermerhon, 2011 p.308). These requirements create internal pressures that influence the behavior of a person. Psychological needs are explained as air, food, water, clothing, sleep, and shelter. Psychological needs can be used to influence motivation by a manager accounting for them for his or her employees by providing comfortable working conditions, reasonable working hours, and regular breaks to eat or use the bathroom. By accounting for the safety needs of employees through the provision of safe working conditions, job security, and secure compensation most especially during a bad economy will lead to motivation. Organizations can also account for the social needs of employees by developing events that give them a chance to know each other which will encourage teamwork, and it will also provide a good work-life balance (Nil Smitch, 2012 p.807). Motivation can be attained as well through esteem needs by praising and recognizing when an employee does well, offering promotions, this will give them the believe they are valued. Self-actualization needs can lead to motivation if a manager gives out a challenging work, welcome employees to be a part of the decision-making and by providing flexible and autonomy in their jobs.

Monitoring and Analyzing Performance

Monitoring and analyzing performance face two main challenges which are Design flaws and lack of credibility (Charles Cardwel, 2012 p 37). Design flaws are brought about when the objectives of an individual and organizational value are not made leading it to failure. Many of the employees believe that the process of monitoring and analyzing lacks credibility.

Performance Appraisals

Performance evaluations are done yearly in every organization, but most managers dread and apprehend even the most experienced of managers (Diane Arthur, 2014 p.161). Most of the employees do not look forward to the performance appraisals. Below are the challenges of performance evaluations.

Rating Bias

Performance appraisals are faced with the issue of inequality in which evaluations favor others. The act of being Bias is usually applied in areas such as gender, race, hair color, or level of friendship (Sharon Armstrong, 2013 p.106). The performance appraisal is rated with bias by using the nonperformance factors like race. Another issue with being biased is that some of the managers assess the performance evaluations with regards to how their mood is that day. These biased attitude ends up affecting the employees in a negative way.

Poor Informal Feedback

Some organizations take too long to give back feedback to the employees on how they did during the performance appraisal and areas they need to change. With poor feedback, most of the employees are never motivated enough to achieve high levels of productivity. This poor feedback will also lead to a disconnection between the employees and the employers.

Poor Communication during Formal Feedback Sessions

Managers sometimes have a lot of competing priorities that make them unprepared, and insufficiently inherent challenges make them unable to perform informal and formal performance feedback (John Bernadin, 2012 p.394). With this type of rate many people end up feeling diminished, the employee satisfaction lowers, and they lose hope in the appraisal process.

Rate errors

Employees have often complained that they realize that managers do not give them accurate ratings. Some managers in order to avoid conflicts often give the employees undeserved high ratings or average ratings. Their organizations put very high-performance standards which discourage employees.

HR Contribution to an Effective Employee Performance

A team’s success depends on how employees perform but still many companies to maximize employee performance and still ensure that motivation remains high (Dorothy Marcic, 2012 p. 288). There are so many ways in which HR managers can impact employee productivity positively. For instance:

Set Clear Expectations

The first step in ensuring that there is effective employee performance the human resource managers should be clear on their expectations. After making the expectations clear, the managers should make sure to connect with the employees so that communication can be established so as to manage the expectations. Managers should also ensure that their staff understands their objectives.

Prioritize Employee Development

To ensure that there is an active employee performance organizations should play a role in the development of their worker’s growth. Managers should learn to work with staff and help them develop new skills as well as sharpen the skills they already have. By doing this the employee and employer have an understanding, and it will improve as well as maintain employee satisfaction.

Give frequent and timely feedback

It is important for managers to recognize those who go an extra mile by awarding them and encouraging. If the employee’s service exceeds their expectations, they should be rewarded not forgetting that it is also important that when an employee falls short of what is expected the managers should also talk to them. Negative feedback can help a lot as it will make the employees learn and understand their expectations more.

Motivate the Employees

Steps should be done to ensure that employees are motivated and are satisfied with their jobs. These steps could be reviewing the benefits, salary increment, and work environment if it is safe and ensure that every benefit that is offered is valued by the employees. Managers should always recognize those who are putting more effort and exceeding their expectations.

Provision of Adequate Materials and Equipment

Appropriate materials and equipment should be provided by the organization so as to ensure that the employees get everything that they need and desire to help them accomplish their goals and the expectations of the company. When the employees have every material and equipment needed quality productivity will be very high, and the workers have great moral to work.

Ways in Which the HR Motivate and Set Performance Standards

Below are some ways in which the Human Resource Management can help drive and set performance standards for the staff.

Share information generously

For employees to be fully engaged in their work they should be aware of what is going on around them. The management should always do their best to ensure they engage the employees in everything that is going on and even make them part of the decision makers. They should be able to know the feedback from customers, competitive landscape, direction of the company, and department performance. If they are aware, the more they will feel respected and valued, and these will push them to perform even better.

Offer training and development

The HR should invest their time and money in ensuring that their employees are trained as this is like an investment that will be returned to them with a better loyal workforce. The employees will gain knowledge business as well as social skills.

Sharing of responsibility

Traditionally managers have been doing a lot of work some that the junior staff can even handle. The leaders should share some of these duties so that the employees remain involved and are much happier.

Empower the employees always to take charge and solve a problem the moment it occurs no matter the place

Listening is one crucial skill that leaders should possess

The feelings and opinions of the employees should be put into consideration. Listening will take time, but it will build trust and rest assured that real issues are being dealt with.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

A Key Performer Indicator helps to measure how well an organization is performing in regards to their strategic goals and objectives. Goals are first aligned across multiple members who create a company’s success. The company will then use its KPI as a foundation to be able to analyze and track performance and make critical decisions that involve staffing and resources. The company will translate its corporate vision into operational goals that employees are aware of. These goals are the linked to individual performance goals that are assessed on a periodic basis internal processes are then developed to meet the strategic goals and expectations of the customer. The final step the KPIs are analyzed so as to make evaluations then recommendations are made for the improvement of future company performance.

Performance Appraisals Can Improve Productivity And How To Give Effective Feedback To Employees

Performance evaluations can help organizations to identify and understand the strengths and weaknesses of employee performance which will assist them to figure a way that the managers and the supervisors can work with each other. By doing a performance appraisal, it will not only benefit the individual but the company as well which increases the rapport between them. To attain a good feedback one should know which specific goal it relates to, it should then be delivered promptly, and it should be provided for the sole purpose of helping improve performance and not diminish an employee.

Conclusion

Many times when productivity goes down there has to be a cause for it. The main causes of low productivity are employees who are dissatisfied, lack of adequate training, inadequate tools, unclear expectations, and conflicting priorities. By identifying these root causes and being open to change an organization or company will be on its full way to maximized productivity. Leaders should create a working environment where their employees can thrive.

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