Initiating Performance Management

Discuss about the Employee resistance to the organizational change.

The current business scenario is becoming more employees centric and effectively considering the welfare of them. On the other hand, performance enhancement of the employees is also being taken care of. The key objective of initiating performance management by the business organizations is to determine the performance of the employees along with their effectiveness in the workplace (Anitha 2014, pp. 308). It enables the business organizations to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the employees and appraise them accordingly. One of the most effective and popular appraisal method used by the contemporary business organizations is the 360 degree feedback mechanism. This mechanism is becoming more popular in the recent time due to the reason that it provides holistic and compete feedback of the employees.

This mechanism works on the feedback generated from different stakeholders in the organization regarding the performance of a particular employee. In this case, the feedback from both the superiors and subordinates of the employees is being gathered in order to have holisticinformation regarding the employees (Espinilla et al. 2013, pp. 459-471). Thus, using of the 360 degree feedback mechanism helps in reducing the biasness in appraising the performance of the employees. In some cases, external stakeholders such as the customers are also being involved in providing feedback of the employees.

This report will discuss about the effectiveness of 360 degree feedback mechanism in improving the performance of the employees. Variousscholarly articles will be used in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the 360 degree feedback mechanism. In addition, the reasons of not able to successfully implementing the 360 feedback in Sahra LLC will also be discussed. This report will provide a few recommended steps in order to enhance the effectiveness of the 360 feedback mechanism in Sahra LLC.

There are various authors who are given the feedback regarding the use and effectiveness of the 360 degree appraisal system. However, majority of them are having the opinion that initiation of the 360 degree feedback mechanism will have favorable implication on the business performance as well as on the organizational performance. According to Bracken and Church (2013), initiation of the 360 degree appraisal system will help in capitalizing unrealized potentiality of the employees. This is due to the reason that initiation of the 360 degree appraisal system will help the business organizations to get to know the hidden talents of the employees, which are not known earlier. Subordinates and the superiors working with the particular employee will be able to identify the hidden talents. Thus, with the help of the 360 degree appraisal system, these talents and potentiality will get communicated to the upper level management . Management can able to initiate strategies in order to further enhance the hidden talents of the employees and it will in turn improve the productivity of the employees.

360 Degree Feedback Mechanism

There are some other authors who have given the opinion that initiation of the 360 degree feedback mechanism will help in having an effective and ideal mode of learning in the organization (Tee and Ahmed 2014). This is due to the reason that 360 degree feedback mechanism will help the upper level management to determine the negatives and positives of the employees. Moreover, the authors have also stated that initiation of the 360 degree feedback mechanism will help the upper level management to learn about the performance of the employees and what could be done in enhancing the performance of them. Thus, according to the authors, initiation of the 360 degree feedback mechanism helps in having learning and knowledge environment in the organization. in addition, with the identification of the diverse knowledge about the employees, the learning environment in the organization will be more varied and effective. This will also help in improving the performance of the employees due to the reason that having effective learning environment in the organization will enable the employees to have their issues gets solved more effectively.

According to the authors, 360 degree feedback system also helps in generating the feedback of the employees. In addition, the authors have also stated that having the 360 degree feedback mechanism will help in having holistic review about the performance of the employees. Moreover, another advantage to be gained from the initiation of the 360degree feedback mechanismis the opportunity to gather the information regarding the employees from different sources. The information is more complete and holistic in nature. It will help the upper level management to review and appraise the performance of the employees more holistically. Employees will be appraised according to their performance and effectiveness in their workplace. This will make the appraisal program more effective and employees will be more motivated when they will get appraised according to their performance. Increase in the level of the motivation will help to improve the performance of them.

According to Campion, Campion and Campion (2015), initiation of the 360 degree performance appraisal will help in enhancing the entire process of performance management. This is due to the reason that compared to the traditional mode of performance appraisal; 360 degree feedback system is more effective and holistic in nature. The authors have stated thatperformance of the employees can only be enhanced when they will be given appraisal according to their performance in their workplace. In the case of the traditional appraisal model, employees are being judged only by the upper level management. Thus, the appraisal process may get biased or having one sided information. This may lead to the ineffective appraisal for the employees. On the other hand, the authors have also stated that with the help of the 360 degree feedback mechanism, diverse information can be gained. Moreover, it also enables the management to match the diverse ideas gathered from different stakeholders. This will reduce the chance of having any biasness in the appraisal process and will help the organization in enhancing entire process of performance management.

Effectiveness of 360 Degree Feedback Mechanism

Authors such as Rai and Singh (2013) have stated that there is a direct relationship between the 360 degree feedback mechanism and employee performance. According to the authors, initiation of the 360 degree mechanism in the performance appraisal process helps in having organizational justice. This is mainly due to the reason that initiation of the 360 degree feedback mechanism will involve both the internal and external stakeholders and thus, the probability of having fair and transparent process of appraisal is more. The more organizational justice will be offered, the more fair and transparent will be the process of performance appraisal, and employee performance will get more improved. Moreover, according to the authors, 360 degree feedback mechanism is the most effective among all the available methods of performance appraisal. This will involve the maximum number of the stakeholders in the appraisal process. Providence of the organizational justice will help to treat all the employees equally and this will create positive impression among the employees. Therefore, having the 360 degree feedback mechanism influence the performance of the employees and is having direct relationship between these two.

Sahra LLC is one of the major conglomerates based in Muscat. They are having their market presence in different business sectors such as beauty products, cleaning products and health products. Being a major business organization in Muscat, they are having good number of employees in place belonging from different social and cultural backgrounds (Karkoulian, Assaker and Hallak 2016, pp. 1862-1867). However, in the due course of their operation, they had faced the issues of resistance in implementing the 360 degree feedback system in the organization. The resistance was mainly originated from the side of the employees. Ultimately, it was discontinued in the organization two years ago. Thus, this is one of rare examples where employees resisted the implementation of the 360 degree feedback mechanism.

The 360 degree feedback system was not implemented successfully due to the reason that, all the employees are not communicated properly about the implementation of the system. Thus, the employees were reluctant about the benefits of the system and thus resisted. It is aso identified that the older system was not implemented in a holistic basis and thus all the internal stakeholders were not having the access to rate others. This also caused dissatisfaction among the lower level employees.

Sahra LLC, two years ago failed to implement 360 degree feedback due to the resistance and lack of cooperation with the system, which led to stop it. But later, the company again decided to use this system despite its failure. However, they have initiated a new way in implementing the sysem in place. The steps followed are:

1. External conulstants are being hired in order to implement the system. It is done to prevent the previous reasons for failure and have expertise knowledge in place. In addition, the reasons for failure in the previous time are also identified and rectified in the present system. This wil ensure in having a full proof feedback system in place.
2. Employees are involved in the process and they are communicated about the new system. All the staffs are being informed about the implementation process of the new system. This will help them in having the idea about why the company is changing the system, why is it implementing and how it uses and what to benefit from it.
3. Sahra LLC has linked ratings of the performance of employees with rewards in order to motivate employees to participate effectively with the system and develop their performance and give them the desire and determination to reach the goals of the company. Thus, the employees will have the idea about how to peform better in having better reward and benefits. The rewards will be given according to the rating results of performance in order to encourage them to do their best.
4. Sahra LLC Company has provided training for all the employees to train them on how to rate the others. Moreover, they are also being given training about how their performance will be rated. In addition, the document training will be given to all staffs from top management to lower managements in order to observe, evaluate and record behaviors and performance of targeted employees.
5. Sahra LLC has made a sample survey on the website to order to provide it for all employees to fill and practice on it in order to ensure all employees are having the clear understanding about the system. Moreover, it is also communicated to the employees that in case of any doubts and issues, they can anytime approach to the HR for further details.

Challenges Faced by Sahra LLC

There are various reasons being identified behind the failed attempt of implementing the 360 degree feedback mechanism in Sahra LLC.

• The key reason of failed implementation process is the lack of gathering opinion of the employees before initiating the 360 degree feedback mechanism. In the case study, it is stated that the CEO of the company decided to implement the system in the organization. However, the opinions of the employees arenot being gathered. This caused negative impression among the employees that 360 degree feedback will reduce the appraisal for them. Thus, they resisted in the implementation process.
• Another challenge identified is not designing the 360 degree feedback system according to the specific needs of the employees. This was important becauserequirements of the employees are different in different organizations and implementing universal approach will not appraise the employees effectively. In the case of Sahra LLC, universal approach of the 360 degree feedback mechanism is being implemented, which caused issues with the employees. Their requirements are not being met effectively and caused resistance from the side of them.

• It is recommended that the 360 degree feedback mechanism should be designed after ensuring the confidentiality of the employee data. Proper steps and measures should be taken especially in the case of the online mode. There are no provision for maintaining confidentiality stated in the new system.
• In the new system, employees are communicated about the implementation process. However, it is recommended that feedback and opinion from the employees should also be gathered in order to understand their issues and problems. The new system should be implemented in accordance to that.
• It should also be communicated to the employees that their bonuses will be determined by the ratings received. On the other hand, they should also be informed that their ratings will determine the promotion and review of their seniors. This will ensure that employees will have the impression that they will be treated equally in the new system.

Conclusion

Thus, it can be concluded that 360 degree feedback mechanism is one of the most effective forms of feedback generating systems for the business organizations. This report discussed about the effectiveness of the 360 degree feedback mechanism in Sahra LLC. It is discussed in this report that Sahra LLC is having number of issues being faced by them, which caused in the failure of the implementation process of the feedback mechanism. Different challenges being faced by them are discussed in this report. In accordance to these challenges, there are some recommended steps also discussed in this report. it is expected that the effective implementation of the discussed recommended steps will help them in having an efficient 360 degree feedback mechanism in place. In relation to the scholarly articles used in this report, it can be concluded that initiation of the 360 degree feedback mechanism will have majority of the positive implications on the organization.

Reference

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