Purpose and importance of Performance Reviews

A problem for any manager is to criticize an employee who is not going to accept the criticism.  One of the purposes of a performance review is to ensure that the ability of an employee is enhanced. Although a defensive attitude on the part of the employee should not be allowed to distract the purpose of the review which is to find out whether or not an employee is effectively serving the purpose of the organization (Shields et al., 2015).  In order to decode such behavior it has to be analyzed that how such situation is taken by the employee. In order to manage defensive employees certain considerations can be taken into account by the managers (De Waal, 2013). The purpose of the paper is to provide how Spencer could have managed Jeff who has a defensive attitude effectively.

When it comes to evaluation the mangers must providing the good news to the employees first. Attributes of the employee which can be appreciated may be stated initially in the meeting. According to Aguinis, (2013) Providing negative review initially to the employee may cause emotional shut down and make the employee more hostile. It is important to focus on the main issue which concerns the organization and emphasis on the long term goal while discussing the prospects of change in the employee (Pulakos et al., 2015). Thus in this case Spencer must have conveyed to Jeff about the targets have already achieved in the previous quarters to start the meeting instead Spencer directly told Jeff about how poorly he had performed in the last quarter. He should have appreciated the attributes of Jeff which helped him achieve the targets which he did achieve. This inevitably made Jeff emotionally shut down and made him more defensive. Spencer further should have ensured that he focuses on the long term goal of the organization but instead he was stuck at addressing the short term issue.  Moreover as per chapter 9 Spencer must have helped Jeff to address his problems by creating a personal development plan through which Jeff would have clearly know what are his targets and how she he go about them along with identifying the problems he is facing in relation to achieving his targets.

Assertive speaking does not directly help to eliminate defensive behavior of an employee but however may initiate effective communication and help the message of the organization get across to the employee (Arnaboldi, Lapsley & Steccolini, 2015). According to Van Dooren, Bouckaert & Halligan, (2015) Rather than sating “you” the mangers should say “I believe” or “I agree” instead of “what are you not listing” the mangers should say “please I really want you to listen to me”. Thus here Spencer must have been more assertive while having a conversation with Jeff. He continuously used words like “you”, “we will take more serious action” and “just complete your goals”. If Spencer would have been assertive during the conversation he could have get his message across to Jeff more effectively. Jeff would have felt positive and would have accepted his mistake and ensured better performance. Spencer should have therefore used words like “please I want you to know that if you increase your performance than the performance of the company would also increase or else the company would be in trouble. This would have made Jeff realizes how important his performance is for the development of the company and he would have had a positive attitude towards the meeting. As provided in chapter 9 Spencer had to take coaching seriously in relation to managing employees as he would have been able to better listen to the employees, encourage expressing feelings openly, providing them intangible and tangible support for development, encourage for problem solving and honest discussion and helping them establish an action plan which would aid in problem solving. 

Providing positive feedback and focusing on achievements

When an employee is subjected to negative comments he may deflect blame, argue on pre established points and raise his voice. If the worker is passive he will listen to everything but would not apply anything in relation to changing his habits as per Buckingham & Goodall, (2015) Thus in this case the manager must provide to the employee that his position is understood and then provide his own points. Spencer subjected Jeff to negative comments as soon as the meeting started. He was told that he did not meet targets; serious actions must be taken against him and direct words such as just meet your goals. Thus Spencer’s actions caused Jeff to deflect blame and become defensive and agitated which ultimately made him develop a negative approach towards the meeting. A contingent pay plan would also have helped to motivate Jeff for achieving his targets instead of a traditional pay plan as provided in chapter 10.

Employees who are defensive have to be provided attention so that it can be conveyed to them that they are an important part of the organization (Mone & London, 2014). If the employees are not treated with attentiveness during the meeting they would feel that they have been called upon to be insulted. Spencer started the meeting with a phone call not paying any attention to Jeff who was the main concern of the meeting. As he was not paid attention to and was already curious about the meeting he gained a more negative approach towards the meeting. He was told by Jeff that he cannot push his blame on other but instead of that he should have told Jeff that other would really appreciate it if he achieved his targets.

This part of the report reviews the article provided by Yongmei Liu et al. “The value of human resource management for organizational performance”.  

This article has been chosen for review because it is impossible for organizations to create a good team of employees when proper human resource is not available. The main function of human resource management is to train the existing employees, recruit new employees, evaluate and enhance their performance, motivate employees, enhance communication and safety in the work place and ensure compliance with other employment law provisions. Debates in relation to the importance of HRM in workplace take place very often. A few employees have a perspective that HR managers are systematizing, traumatizing and policing organ of the executive management. The others see the managers as protector of their rights and interest in relation to the work place. HR managers are the closest managers to the employees who often know about their characters, attributes and other traits of behavior. If the human resources of the organization are not managed properly there will be chaos in the company with no accountability and no sustainability towards employment and frequent breaches of employment rights.

Being assertive in communication

The article provides that science- practice gaps exists in relation to organization behavior where all the knowledge provided by scholars are ignored totally by the managers.  The paper identified why it is important to improve the practices of human resource managers which would let them know that how important their practices are towards the enhancement of organization behavior and performance. The “science-practice” gap has been pointed out by various authors in the area of organization behavior.

It can be concluded from the paper that the researchers conducted in the field of HRM is ignored by the managers and other decision makers of the organization. Academic researches’ are thought to be abstract instead of useful, readily applicable and practical to their needs and jobs. The paper argues that area of performance management would be subjected to enhanced benefits if the relevance of researches’ in organization behavior is taken into account.

The life blood of all organizations is a skilled and talented workforce.  The importance of having the right people in management is increasing daily as the fight for talented employees are increasing. The most importance challenges which an organization faces in relation to performance management are creating leadership pipeline, improve and revamp employee learning and culture, engagement and retention. Performance management is not conducted on effectively by the companies on  a regular basis. It has been showed by researches that the companies which have ongoing focus in relation to performance management obtain better results in relation to the business. The paper majorly focuses on the process of human resource management just like the course materials. Both the course materials and the paper provide how important performance management is for the organization and how the employees should be managed effectively. Using knowledge gained by researcher is always better than implementing personal knowledge with respect to managing the employees as Human resource management is a wide area which still has scope for result and any mistake in relation to the management may make the organization suffer loss of reputation as well as productivity.

Yes, the view of the author provided through this paper is correct to a large extent. According to Armstrong & Taylor, (2014) it would be best for the human resources managers that they not only apply their own skill and diligence in relation to decision making about the employees but also ensure that they comply with the guidelines which needs to be followed in the area as provided by scholars. This is because the area needs a lot to experience in order to be managed effectively. According to Sparrow, Brewster & Chung, (2016) the concept of human resource management has to be globalized so that the managers can take advantages of the experiences in the area.

References

Aguinis, H. (2013). Performance management (Vol. 2). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Armstrong’s handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers.

Arnaboldi, M., Lapsley, I. and Steccolini, I., 2015. Performance management in the public sector: The ultimate challenge. Financial Accountability & Management, 31(1), pp.1-22.

Buckingham, M., & Goodall, A. (2015). Reinventing performance management. Harvard Business Review, 93(4), 40-50.

De Waal, A. (2013). Strategic Performance Management: A managerial and behavioral approach. Palgrave Macmillan.

Mone, E. M., & London, M. (2014). Employee engagement through effective performance management: A practical guide for managers. Routledge.

Pulakos, E. D., Hanson, R. M., Arad, S., & Moye, N. (2015). Performance management can be fixed: An on-the-job experiential learning approach for complex behavior change. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 8(1), 51-76.

Shields, J., Brown, M., Kaine, S., Dolle-Samuel, C., North-Samardzic, A., McLean, P., … & Plimmer, G. (2015). Managing Employee Performance & Reward: Concepts, Practices, Strategies. Cambridge University Press.

Sparrow, P., Brewster, C., & Chung, C. (2016). Globalizing human resource management. Routledge.

Van Dooren, W., Bouckaert, G., & Halligan, J. (2015). Performance management in the public sector. Routledge.