Performance management failure

The National Security Personnel System

The National Security Personnel System is one of the systems, according to the article by Hardy (2011), designed to improve the performance of employees who failed within three years of their inception in 2006. (NSPS). The author explains that the federal government’s senior managers’ bias led to the performance management system’s collapse. The majority of complaints, according to a compilation of viewpoints by some of the program’s participants, point to unfair metrics, corrupt government employees who receive unfair promotions, and a lack of alignment between the goals and the program’s execution (Hardy, 2011). The initial desired outcome was to motivate the employees to work hard so that the evaluation at the end of every year could determine the pay for performance. In this regard, through rewarding the employee’s efforts to drive high performance in the public sector, the quality of service would increase. Also, the strategy was to ensure not only the employee satisfaction but also enhance their commitment to their duties at work.

Failure of the Scheme

However, the actual outcome led to the failure of the scheme and consequent repealing of the same. According to Hardy (2011), most of the workers ended up being dissatisfied with their jobs, while it promoted inequality in promotions. Most of the complaints by members of the system indicate that managers could only consider members of the inner circle for the benefits of the scheme.

Reasons for the Failure

One of the primary reasons for the failure is due to the lack of proper understanding of the strategic objectives for the success of the program. Another reason is that the failure of the managers to focus on the needs of the employees but rather the process led into the situation. Lastly, the lack of the alignment of the strategy with the execution process also contributed significantly to its ineffectiveness to obtain the desired behavior out of the employees (DeNisi & Smith, 2014). As a result, most of the employees ended up dissatisfied, demotivated, and develop negative attitudes towards the system.

References

DeNisi, A., & Smith, C. (2014). Performance Appraisal, Performance Management, and Firm-Level Performance: A Review, a Proposed Model, and New Directions for Future Research. The Academy Of Management Annals, 8(1), 127-179. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19416520.2014.873178

Hardy, M., (2011). NSPS: Anatomy of a Failure. Retrieved from https://fcw.com/articles/2011/07/25/feat-pay-for-performance-sidebar.aspx