Management simply means getting things done in an organization. It “entails controlling and managing the resources of an organization more effectively and efficiently to achieve the organizational goals and objectives” (Aguinis 2009, p.67). In this modern, dynamic and uncertain world, excellent leadership becomes a priority if indeed any manager of a company wants to give it a competitive edge.
Globalization and adjusting organizational structures subject managers to challenging responsibilities beyond their scope of expertise. Performance management is one crucial thing that should be taken into consideration while running the affairs of an organization.
Performance management is widely advocated for since it helps in maximizing individual’s contribution towards the achievement of organizational goals and objectives. Performance management helps in measuring the organizational effectiveness.
According to Jean-François (2004, p.102) there are important key elements required to ensure successful performance management system. The employee’s performance should be continually reviewed on regular basis to assess their progress against the targets. It is here that any arising issues from the prior period are resolved.
Besides there must be annual performance review that should entail all the employees and managers of an organization to establish the organizational achievements and the manner in which they have been met. Some organizations rely on 360-degree appraisal procedure to gather evidence from organization al members.
Questionnaires are used and the questions give an indication of the effectiveness of an employee in a specific area. This will reflect the strengths and weaknesses of an employee and is considered a valuable tool for measuring performance management (Morse & Wagner 1978, p.29).
Another important key element is that employee’s performance plans that should match organizational goals and clear and concise performance elements must be included in those plans. These performance elements or rather expectations are communicated to the concerned parties in a timely manner.
Provision of a smooth process for dealing with poor performance is another important element. This can be well addressed through the company’s set out procedures and policies. This is handled through doing thorough analysis to determine the root cause of individual’s or organization’s poor performance and then appropriate measures are taken against those responsible for the shortfalls (Aguinis 2009, p.98).
The employees must be adequately involved in development of their performance plans and their performance must be regularly communicated at the end of each appraisal period including their ratings.
Consider a university library scenario. One of the important operations in such a facility is the issuance of books to the interested readers. This happens in the reading materials issuing desk and there is staff vested with that responsibility. The performance management of that section can be well established through the manner in which they are handling the readers and whether the readers are satisfied with their services.
As pointed out by Goddard & Broad ( 2010, p.60) there are performance standards expected of that staff that include how proper they have managed their records, the accuracy of the records kept and also whether the actual records kept matches the tangible stock of books on the shelves at any given stock taking time.
The management performance will be determined once the evaluation has been carried out to determine how well the expected standards have been met.
Once poor performance has been detected on the part of the section in question then the appropriate measures are taken that may include demotion or inter-departmental transfer of employees within the organization. The employees might be transferred to other departments to see whether they can perform better.
References List
Aguinis, H 2009, Performance management. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Goddard, A & Broad, M 2010,Internal performance management with UK higher education, Measuring Business Excellence, vol. 14,no.1, pp. 60 -66.
Jean-François, H 2004, Performance measurement and Organizational Effectiveness: bridging the gap, Managerial Finance, vol. 30, no.6, pp. 93-123.
Morse, J & Wagner, F 1978, Measuring the process of Managerial effectiveness, Academy of Management Journal, 21, no.1, pp. 24-35.