The current institutions environment is largely dependent on intellectual capital for its performance and therefore human resource has become a valuable asset since it determines an institution’s success or failure. Institutions need to concentrate on managing their human resource for easier operation and one of the methods to achieve this is through performance appraisal “.
It is an analysis of an employee’s recent successes, failures, personal strengths, weaknesses, and suitability for promotion or further training” (Tsiakkiros, 2002,42).It involves collection, analyzing and keeping information about each employee so as to use it for examining the particular employee performance instead of using productivity method only.
It is therefore necessary to have a performance appraisal in an institution strategic plan, because it is an essential tool for production: the importance of the appraisal can be analyzed using two different methods of strategic planning the SWOT and the PEST analysis (Cooper, 2000).
“SWOT analysis is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project” (Armstrong, 1982, 198).The objectives are stipulated then the factors necessary for their achievement analyzed to determine their effect. In this case it is the police in the force; they are a very important component of the force since without them the force can not operate.
The performance appraisal is therefore important because it shows the strengths and weaknesses of the police; their potentials and threats are also evaluated.
The force strengths could be: competence of the police in preventing crime, the force could also be known for its fast response meaning that the police are always available to perform their duties, the awards allocated for good performance, promotions, organization development and communication. This shows the strengths of the force, therefore a performance appraisal could very useful if included in the strategic plan for measuring the force performance (Allison, & Kaye, 2005, 95).
The weaknesses of the force could also be examined; because they will affect the force performance negatively. Some of the weaknesses could be: lack of equipment for service delivery, few officers in comparison to the work available, lack of technology in performing operations, corruption and even police disunity.
This will have negative effects on the efficiency of the force and therefore it would be useful to have the weaknesses included in the plan for improvement. Another component of the appraisal is the opportunities or potentials: these involve the external environment of the force which also affects its performance, this could be new methods of performing it duties, new technologies, new public needs or new government polices.
All these new prospects are to the advantage of the force because they will enable the police to perform their duties better if they have the knowledge about these factors and these can only be achieved by incorporating them in the strategic plan. Lastly threats could also present risk to the force: they could be dissatisfaction at work, transfers, resignations, under performance and public unrest due to poor performance of the force.
These threats should be considered in the plan so that their solutions can be implemented. The above issues are usually incorporated in the performance appraisal and they make management of personnel easier, therefore it is essential if they are included in the strategic plan. However the disadvantage of the appraisal according to this method of analysis is the emphasizes on performance by the police, and it is not the only factor determining the force success (Armstrong, 1982, 200)
“PEST analysis stands for “Political, Economic, Social, and Technological analysis” and describes a framework of macro-environmental factors used in the environmental scanning component of strategic management (Pearce, & Robinson, 2005, 221). In this analysis the above factors that should be in the appraisal are considered.
Political issues affect employment laws, tax policies and also the duties of the government officials hence it is therefore necessary to include the action that should be taken incase political issue affect the force operations by including the appraisal in the strategic plan. Economic factors affecting the force should also be included in the plan because; the global economy keeps fluctuating, interests rates rise, and purchasing prices also change.
This will therefore affect the force as an organization and also at personal level hence affecting operations. Another factor affecting the force is the social aspect: the safety of the officials should be considered depending on their personal health status, age, cultural needs and career ambitions. All of these factors should be considered in allocating duties to the police because they will affect their performance.
Technology today is ever changing and organizations are therefore automating their services for efficiency too: The force management should therefore have a plan on how to automate their services without rendering people jobless but should also consider efficiency.This issues hence should be incorporated in the strategic plan so that they can be considered insetting the force objectives (Armstrong, 2006, 56).
The PEST analysis concentrates more on the external factors unlike the SWOT analysis which considers both the internal and external environments. If the PEST analysis was used to include the appraisal in the strategic plan; only external issues will be handled forgetting the internal issues which are also very important. Both methods of analysis clearly show the importance of the performance appraisal in an institution because the issues it handles are important, and more so for the force success; it should be included in the strategic plan (Pearce, & Robinson, 2005).
Reference list
Allison, & Kaye, J 2005, Strategic Planning for Nonprofit Organizations, NJ, John Wiley and Sons.
Armstrong, M 2006, A handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, London, Kogan Page.
Armstrong, S 1982, “The Value of Formal Planning for Strategic Decisions”, Strategic Management Journal, 197–211.
Cooper, L, 2000, Strategic marketing planning for radically new products, Journal of Marketing, pp.1-15.
Pearce, J & Robinson, R 2005, Strategic Management, New York, McGraw-Hill.
Tsiakkiros, A, 2002, “Strategic planning and education: The case of Cyprus”, The International Journal of Educational Management Bradford, 42.