Performance management is part of a continuous process of improvement over time, and demands daily, not annual, attention. Performance management requires the willingness and commitment to focus on improving performance at the individual as well as team level on a daily basis.
Managing for maximum performance requires that managers do three things well:
(a) Defining Performance: setting specific, challenging goals; deciding how to measure accomplishment; and providing regular assessments of progress.
(b) Facilitating Performance: eliminating roadblocks to successful performance; providing adequate resources to get a job done right and on time; paying careful attention to selecting employees.
(c) Encouraging Performance: providing sufficient amount of rewards that employees really value in a timely and fair manner.
Performance appraisal plays an important part in the overall process of performance management. Almost all organizations practice performance appraisal in one form or another to achieve certain objectives.
There are two primary objectives behind the use of performance appraisal namely: as an evaluation system and feedback system. The aim of the evaluation system is to identify the gap between the actual performance of the employee and that required by the organization. The aim of the feedback system is to inform the employee about the quality of his work or performance. Performance appraisal should put emphasis on individual objectives, organizational objectives and also mutual objectives.
Some of the popular performance appraisal methods include (1) ranking of all employees in a group; (2) using rating scales to define above-average, average, and below-average performance; (3) recording favorable and unfavorable performance; and (4) managing by objectives.
Performance Appraisals serve several purposes, including (1) guiding human resources actions such as hiring, firing and promoting; (2) rewarding performance through bonuses, promotions, and so on; (3) providing feedback and identifying areas for improvement; (4) identifying training and development needs in order to improve the individual’s job related data useful in human resources planning.
Performance appraisals serve the following processes:
(a) to improve employees’ work performance by helping them realise and use their full potentials in carrying out their organisation’s objectives, (b) to provide information to employees and managers for use in workrelated decisions.
From an employee’s perspective, lack of regular feedback about performance detracts from his or her quality of work life. The cost of failure to provide such feedback may result in the loss of key professional employees, the continued poor performance of employees who are not meeting performance standards, and a loss of commitment by all employees.
In the CBM, performance evaluation is carried out by the supervising staff of the relevant section. Performances of the employees are evaluated only when the superior is considering subordinates for promotion. There are 10 factors in the performance evaluation and these include (1) willingness to work, (2) competency (3) credibility (4) learning (5) effort (6) innovation-minded (7) discipline (8) helpfulness (9) social relation (10) leadership skill. Every superior will rate his/her subordinates according to the above factors up to a maximum of 10 points for each factor. After the employees’ performances have been evaluated by the supervisor and reviewed by the head of the department, the evaluations are sent to the administration department, and finally to the Board.
The performance evaluation is not linked to any reward (such as pay increase, training), but only in consideration for promotion. However, generally, the linkage between performance and promotion is not significant because the subordinates are normally rated highly by supervisors who rates, based on the general performance and not just specific performance.