Managing Performance

Using Performance Management effectively in an organization

Performance management is an ongoing process of communication between employer & employee which supports to achieve goals of the organization which includes setting objectives, clarifying problems, identifying goals, giving suitable feedbacks & reward employees accordingly.

According to Capelli (2008), there are four elements of Performance Management.

1.     Agreement

2.     Feedback

3.     Positive reinforcement

4.     Dialogue

To perform a duty well, employees should know what they have to do & what is their end goal is. To make this clear a fully up to date job description is required which describe their job functions & responsibilities. It will also provide a guideline in to what skills are required & what are the areas that employees should perform.

It is important to recruit potential employees who can perform the duties up to the expected levels by conducting interviews & frequent meetings & welcome them to the organization.

Once they entered to the organization, assign them with a mentor & moderate them with the organizational culture. Do not forget to negotiate their requirements & reward them for their performances & outcomes.

It is recommended to provide them with ongoing education & training, coaching & feedback at least quarterly. It helps to identify their capacities & discrepancies towards the performance & will provide sufficient time to overcome such situations. This will lead them to their career development/promotions where it will motivate & enhance the moral of the employees.

If performance management implements correctly, following outcomes can be emphasized.

Improved Communication

The employee & the supervisor communicates more frequently where they agree on changed objectives & both can always ensure that their input on specific objective has not gone waste. More focus will be there towards the end goal.

Awareness

Both employee & supervisor enter the process with better understanding & confidence where all the rules are clearly prior defined. It provides more comfort to both because it describes what is expected, how to perform & how they will be assessed at the end of the year.

Reduce Stress

By conducting review quarterly or bi-annually, employees will always get feedback on their performance where they have ample of time to overcome their discrepancies & perform better. This helps them to reduce their stress & provide more confident on their work which leads to better performance.

Performance Appraisals

By conducting frequent reviews, objectives can be adjusted to suit the changing business environment. Performance appraisals ensures that judging past performance according to agreed objectives. Non performers get more focus & attention & problems can be addressed much faster. Most of the organizations reports who has or has not achieved their objectives & reasons for it. This provides a understanding where employees lacking & where they need trainings & advise.

Learning & Development

Most of Performance Management systems enforce superiors & employees to develop a learning culture & engage more with the organization. Personal development is a frequent topic over organizations where they help employees to develop themselves & make them work toward the organizational goals in an efficient way.

Finally, this enables an engaged workforce who committed to achieve organizational goals & take it towards success.

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References

Performance Management: Concepts & Definitions (2019) Berkeley University of California. Available at: https://hr.berkeley.edu/hr-network/central-guide-managing-hr/managing-hr/managing-successfully/performance-management/concepts.

Performance Management (2019) The balance Careers. Available at: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/performance-management-1918226.

Introduction to Performance Management (2019) PeopleStream. Available at: https://www.peoplestreme.com/what-is-performance-management.

HRM & Design of Work

New Forms of Employment – How it is practical in Sri Lankan context

Due to social, economic & technological changes new forms of employment has risen where it is more different from traditional work. It is found that these new forms of employment have the potential to transform traditional relationships between employer & employee.

The industrial world is now looking for options to replace full time permanent employment by some of following alternatives.

·      Temporary working

·      Part-time working

·      Job sharing

·      Home working

In Europe, they have identified several new forms of employment which is already in practice.

Employee Sharing

Individual worker jointly hired by several employers in different companies.

Job Sharing

An employer hires a group of workers to jointly perform a specific job.

Interim Management

Experts are hired temporarily to perform a specific project or to solve a specific problem.

Casual Work

An employer is not obliged to provide regular work to the employee, but maintains a flexibility to call them on demand.

Voucher based work

Where employer-employee relationship based on a voucher purchased by the employer from an authorized organization which covers pay & social security contributions.

ICT based mobile work

Workers do not perform their duties in an exact work premises where they work form any place at any time supporting by new technologies.

Crowd employment

Virtual platform linked to larger tasks broken in to small jobs with a division of labour among virtual cloud of workers.

Even though this looks like a successful results-oriented way of employment in Europe, there are some practical issues that needs to be addressed before implementing the same in Sri Lankan context.

As an example, ICT based mobile work offers higher flexibility & empowers the employees but also results in increased stress levels, extra working hours which impacts on work-life balance.

For self-employed & freelancers, crowd employment & portfolio work offers richer mix of tasks and more opportunities.

Casual work is a way of empowering & providing higher job flexibility but results in low training, low levels of job & income security.

Voucher based work results in some job insecurity, social & professional isolation & limited access to further trainings.

It is more practical to implement Employee sharing, Job sharing & Interim management as new forms of employment in Sri Lankan context considering the labour market in the country. Other forms of employment discussed above are not the most suitable ones in Sri Lanka because they need to be fulfilled with some level of discipline & ethics of both employees & employers.  

Sri Lanka can move to new forms of employment in the future by enabling all the features we discussed above after developing people’s attitudes & the way they think of their jobs.

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References

New forms of employment (2019) Eurofound. Available at: https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/topic/new-forms-of-employment.

Irene, M. (2015) New Forms Of Employment Offer Both Benefits And Risks, Social Europe. Available at: https://www.socialeurope.eu/new-forms-of-employment-offer-both-benefits-and-risks.

Social Protection for Workers in New Forms of Employment (2019) International Labour Organization. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3wXMxGg12c.