如何改善绩效管理-How-can-perance-management-be-improved.doc

English Language CentrePre-sessional 2012HOW CAN PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT BE IMPROVED?Written ProjectByYuyao Chen30th August 2012 Supervisor: Paul DickinsonDeclarationThe work contained in this project is my own and has not been submitted for any other qualification.All sentences and passages quoted from published sources have been specifically acknowledged by referencing to author, work and page(s).Name: Yuyao ChenSignature:Date: Contents1.Introduction12. An overview of performance management12.1 What is performance management12.2 The purpose and aims of performance management22.3 Principles of performance management23. Performance management processes34. The effectiveness of performance management45. The weakness of performance management and how to deal with it55.1 Problems55.2 Solutions66. Developing and improving performance management67. Conclusion7References8How can performance management be improved?1. IntroductionWith the economic globalization nowadays, the market competition is becoming increasingly fierce. Consequently, human resource management is much more important than before. However, the core of human resource management is performance management and a good performance management system can not only motivate employees, but also improve the management efficiency. In this essay, the first section is an overview of performance management including its definition, purpose and principles. And then, it illustrates the process of performance management .In the following section, the essay will use the example of Omega to analyse the effectiveness and weakness of performance management. And conclude with some suggestions for the development of performance management.2. An overview of performance management2.1 What is performance management Performance management is the methodical process of an organization which involves planning, giving employees some guidance in training, work assessment and the application of result, in order to improve organizational effectiveness and achieve the strategic goals of organization .What is more, performance management must be regard as an enterprise-wide level, which because the scope of performance management is very extensive. A study by Cokins (2010: P.9) demonstrates that a simple definition of performance management is “the translation of plans into results-execution.” And then he concludes that it is the process of managing an organizations strategy (Cokins, 2010: P.9).2.2 The purpose and aims of performance managementFrom the research and the practice in recently years, the general aim of performance management is to achieve the high performance through delivering the high performance cultural of team and organization which can encourage employees be active and enthusiasm in team work and accomplish organizational goal. To be more important, performance management is relevant to making sure that the ability and efficiency of individual in the team can be improved by guidance and some other support (Armstrong, 2006:P.2).2.3 Principles of performance managementIn order to improve of the performance, managers should consider obeying some principles of performance management which are revealed by Armstrong (2000: P.7):First and foremost, performance improvement is the most important principle which closely relate to the effectiveness of performance management. In this principle, managers have to translate the organization and corporations goals into employees goals and the goal of departments which can also help individuals to have a fair picture of corporate goals. Secondly, it is connected with individual development. If there are no effective processes of continuous performance development, performance improvement cannot be achieved. And encouraging self-management of individual performance is a very important part of Performance management (IRS, 1996:P.30). The central abilities of corporation and the specific abilities of employees and departments are the essential factors. As Armstrong (2000: P.7) commented, “performance management should really be called performance and development management”. What is more, performance management is connect with the satisfying the needs and the anticipation of all participates, such as owners, managers, employees, suppliers, consumers and the general public. More importantly, employees cannot be ignored and organization and managers should treat them as partners whose opinions are listened, considered and even be accepted. Finally, communication and involvement are essential for performance management. It creates a good atmosphere to improve the communication between managers and the members of their department which can share their ideas and feelings about the organizations mission, goals and values. It is beneficial to establish a high-involvement organization by getting teams and individuals to participate in setting their goals and improving work methods to raise work efficiency. Therefore, cooperation is much more important than control.3. Performance management processesThe process of performance management is regarded as a natural process of differentiation and some basic activities by expert William Deming (1986:P.30): plan, act, monitor and review.The processes which are mentioned above can be described as an ongoing cycle as demonstrated in Figure 1(Armstrong, 2006:P.16).Play Act Review Monitor Figure 1 The management cycleThat is a very simple stages which has been expressed before, but according to Aguinis (2013:P.38), performance management is an continuous processes including several more detailed parts and they are highly interrelated and affect each other, thus this processes have been well summarized by Aguinis (2013:P. 38-50) as follows:At the beginning, prerequisites are very important including recognition of groups task and purpose and recognition of some questions about their work.Secondly, performance planning should not be ignored by managers and employees. In this stage, each member of this organization should have a meeting and reach an agreement about what and how they need to do in this mission. Actually, it is very necessary at the start of every performance cycle. The third one is performance execution including some factors must be explained below: 1. Goals must be achieved which set by employees before. 2. The performance feedback and training should be regarded as an ongoing process. 3. The supervisors should openly and regularly communicate with individuals. 4. Performance data should be collected and shared. 5. Performance reviews should be prepared.The fourth phase is performance art assessment. In this stage, the extent of execution is measured by both the employees and supervisors.The final stage is performance review. It involves the appraisal meeting about reviewing the assessment between the employees and supervisors.4. The effectiveness of performance managementGenerally speaking, performance management is beneficial for achieving the goal of business, satisfying the requirement of employees and cooperating the work of human resource management. There is an example which can illustrate us the effectiveness of performance management. According to Aguinis (2013, P.55-56), Omega, Inc., is a manufacturing company and its situation of sales only depends on the sales representatives who are employed by franchised dealers. Omegas dilemma begun to appeared because it could not control sales performance for these independent dealer-ships. However, the success of Omega is largely decided by sales. To make matters worse, there was no formal sales process .The ability of sales representatives was varied and most of them did not work hard. After understanding this situation, Omega improved its management. Many measures have been adopted: 1.Creating the performance art management system. 2. Supporting the training for sales representatives. 3. Publishing mission statement which is based on providing high-quality customer services. 4. Setting performance art goals. 5. Giving feedback to employees . After that, that situation was better than before. From Omega, the effectiveness of performance management can be clearly seen. First of all, added value. Omega adopted a series of measures to motivate employees such as training and setting goals. The opinion of Wilson (2005:P.163) is that , “there are two dimensions to add value: that of adding value to the business on and that of engaging employees in a way that motives them to performance to standards where they give added value.” Secondly, integrated system can make the links. From this aspect, the complete performance management is closely related to high performance and five categories which are customers, employees, markets, shareholders, creativity and innovation can be benefited by it. Thirdly, motivation can be worked by performance management. Reference to Wilson (2005:P.164) reveals that, in order to achieve the expectations of performance management, motivation is to have a scientific method to evaluating and managing performance. 5. The weakness of performance management and how to deal with it 5.1 Problems From the performance management of Omega, it can be found that there is some weakness of performance management. Firstly, it may not achieve the expectation, if managers over rely on the procedure. For example, in Omega, the level of salesmen is different and managers need to train them in different ways. Moreover, it is hard to set a reasonable goal unless there is a very effective method to monitor employees quotas. Such like the different goals between the sales off season and the sales busy season. 5.2 Solutions Some suggestions by Schaffer (1991:P.142-149) which are worth noticing:1. Select the goals. It should be started with the most urgent problem. 2. Communicate expectation clearly. Communication is very necessary between managers and employees to help managers get to know the change of markets and the feeling of individuals.6. Developing and improving performance managementThrough the analysis above, I will put forward some stages to describe how to develop and improve performance management.Firstly, performance management is based on an ongoing process. Thus, managers must make sure that organizational problems can be identified and some new management measures can be involved in the process. Secondly, expand the performance management process. It based on the extension of the original goal and the new strategic requirement.Thirdly, the performance management development must base on product development and market development. Because the innovative products and changeable market require the employees productivity can be motivated in times. 7. Conclusion This essay describes the impact of performance management and gives some suggestion to improve and develop it. In order to accommodate the changing marketing requirements, managers have to adopt advanced human resources management, especially for the performance management