The main purpose of this report is to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the performance management system in the United States Army and make recommendations, which may improve the system. Overall, such a process as performance management is aimed at increasing the productivity of the organization or company. It usually consists of the following stages or steps: planning (or creating a vision, setting goals and performance expectations), monitoring (observing or recording work-related activities of the employee), developing (improving work-related skills of the employee), rating and rewarding (Jerry W. Hedge, 2002).
It is worth mentioning that the employment contract must include a provision for performance expectations, they must be clear and understandable to him or her. As a rule, they include general responsibilities (or job description), qualities, which the employee should possess, and performance ratings (O’Leary, 2004). The United States Army experiences certain difficulties in establishing these standards because responsibilities are usually mission-based and various.
Probably, it would be better to trace the development of this process. As regards the first stage (setting goals and expectations), it should be mentioned that normally, such formulation as “general responsibilities” is not applicable, because each task sets different criteria, and the responsibilities of the officer or soldier cannot exactly coincide with the regulations or statute.
The fact, that performance expectations are mission-based should be viewed from various perspectives. First, they are usually clear and concise to the employee (officer or soldier). However, such peculiarity makes the rating process very difficult. In order to evaluate the productivity of the employee, the management has to observe work-related activities of the employee or record them, which is sometimes impossible if we are speaking about the army (Tyler, 2004). The process of monitoring is closely intertwined with developing or training. The United States Army attempts to increase the capacities of the military personnel; however, this development is not always evidence-based. The main problem is that under certain conditions, military operations cannot be monitored or observed.
Furthermore, traditional assessment (especially in civil organizations) allows various degrees of productivity or success such as for instance (outstanding, good, satisfactory, needs improvement, or unsatisfactory) (Hedge, 2002). Such grading method does not reflect all the complexity of the military organization. Very often, we can speak only of two grades (outstanding or unsatisfactory). Regarding long-term tasks, I would like to say that occasionally the performance of the employee cannot be objectively evaluated because rating, itself requires some results or numerical data, but they are not readily available in military operations or missions.
The last stage of performance management is rewarding; as it has been mentioned before, the productivity or effectiveness of the military cannot be measured by qualitative methods, therefore, the reward is often incommensurable with the achievement. Thus, it is possible to conclude that traditional techniques of performance management cannot be appropriately used in the United States Army.
In my opinion, it is necessary to develop and establish a set of assessment criteria for long and short-term operations and missions in order to objectively evaluate the performance of the employee and award him or her. Secondly, special attention should be given to the process of monitoring, particularly, regarding military operations, because commanding officers should be able to identify the aspects, which require improvement or correction. Furthermore, training should be based on the evidence-based analysis of military operations or missions, which, unfortunately, is not always so.
References
Christopher J. O’Leary (2004). Job Training Policy in the United States. W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
Jerry W. Hedge (2002).Implementing Organizational Interventions: Steps,. Processes, and Best Practices. Jossey-Bass.
McLean, G. N. (2005). Examining approaches to HR evaluation. Strategic HR Review, 4(2), 24-27. 2008.
Messmer, M. (2004). Developing Effective Performance Reviews. Strategic Finance, 85(9), 13-14. ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 575939711).
Tyler, K. (2005). PERFORMANCE ART. HRMagazine, 50(8), 58-63. ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 884378261).