Performance management stategy at google

The practice of human resource management is concerned with all aspects of how people are employed and managed in organizations. The main principle of human resource management is to make sure that the organization is able to attain success through people. HRM aims to increase organizational efficiency and ability and the capacity of an organization to achieve its goals by making the best use of the resources available to it. Human resource management mainly deals with organizational behavior, organization design and development, people resourcing, performance management, learning and development, rewarding people and employee relations.

In the organizational context, performance is usually defined as the extent to which an organizational member contributes to achieving the goals of the organization. Performance management is a regular process to improve organizational performance by improving the performance of individual persons and teams. The performance management strategy is practical to be the procedure of providing the study about the performance of the employee and is consider being the important tool in the decisions taken by the human resource department. Performance management is defined as “Performance management is a strategic and integrated approach to delivering sustained success to organizations by improving the performance of the people who work in them and by developing the capabilities of teams and individual contributors” (Armstrong and Baron, 2004).

Performance management is the method of formulating, implementing and evaluating the work performance of employees, so that the organization will achieve their goals and objectives. Successful performance management is designed to develop performance, recognize performance requirements, and provide feedback related to those requirements and help with career development.

‘The overall aim of performance management is to establish a high performance culture in which individuals and teams take responsibility for the continuous improvement of business processes and for their own skills and contributions within a framework provided by effective leadership’ (Armstrong, 2006).

The objectives of performance management are

To sustain employees to find knowledge and skills to do their job well,

To encourage in the ability of improved standards of work performance of an employee.

For employees to work towards definite goals.

For employees to get regular feedback on performance and

For employees to achieve personal growth through acquiring significant knowledge and skills and attitudes.

2. FORMULATION OF HR STRATEGY

2.1 Process of Performance Management:

Performance planning and agreements –

This process helps people to get into action so they can achieve planned and agreed results. This process briefly focuses on the elements like what has to be done and how it should be done and what is to be achieved. And this process is equally concentrated on developing people; helping them to learn and giving them the support they need to do well. The managers and the individuals carry out performance and development plan jointly. These planning should lead to an agreement on what needs to be done by two parties.

This process is concentrating on

Role profiles

Objective settings

Measuring performance and assessment

Performance planning

Development planning and

Role profiles –

This section defines the role in terms of the key result areas; define what the role possessor needs to know and be able to do and how they are likely to behave in terms of behavioral competencies and maintenance the organization’s core values.

This process will concentrate on rising the role profiles, defining the core result areas, defining the technical competencies, defining the behavioral competencies, and core values.

Objective Setting –

This process describes the organizational goals or objectives to achieve over a period of time by the departments and the individuals. This will give ongoing role or the work objectives, targets, tasks, behavioral expectations, values, performance improvement, learning, and integrating objectives to manager and the individuals.

As per (Armstrong, 2006) most of the organizations follow SMART mnemonic to summarize the characteristics of good objectives.

S (Specific) – Clear, understandable and challenging.

M (Measurable) – quality, quantity, money and time.

A (Achievable) – challenging but within the reach of a competent and committed person.

R (Relevant) – relevant to the objectives of the organization so that the goal of the individual is aligned to corporate goals.

T (Time framed) – to be completed within an agreed timescale.

Measuring performance and assessment –

This process is a significant model in performance management. It is the main finding for providing and generating feedback, it identify where things are going well and where things are not going well, so that necessary action to be taken.

The criteria for measuring the performance should be (Armstrong, 2006)

linked to the strategic goals

Focusing on inputs, outputs and outcomes, and behaviors.

Point out the data or evidence that will be available as the source for measurement.

Be as specific as possible in accordance with the purpose of the measurement and the accessibility of data.

Give a sound basis for advice and action.

Be comprehensive, covering all the main aspects of performance.

The CIPD surveys of performance management in 2004 discovered that, in order of significance, the following performance measures were used by the respondents (Armstrong, 2006).

Attainment of objectives

Capability

Quality

Contribution to team

Customer care

Working relationships

Output

Flexibility

Skills/learning targets

Aligning personal objectives with organizational goals

Business awareness

Financial awareness

Performance planning –

The performance planning is part of the performance management chain, which involves contract between the manager and the person on what presently needs to do to achieve objectives, move up standards, improve performance and develop the required competencies. It also establishes priorities the key aspects of the job to which attention have to be given. The aim is to make sure that the meaning of the purpose, performance standards and competencies as they apply to everyday work is understood. Agreement is also reached at this phase on how performance will be measured and the proof that will be used to begin levels of competence. It is important that these procedures and evidence requirements should be known and fully approved now because they will be used by persons and managers to check and demonstrate achievements (Armstrong, 2009).

Personal development planning –

Personal development plans provide a learning action plan for which employees are responsible with the support of their managers and the organization. It may contain official training but, more importantly, it will include a wider set of learning and development actions such as self managed learning, training, mentoring, project work, job improvement and job enrichment. It is likely to focus on development in the existing job, and to improve the capability to make it well and to enable individuals to take on bigger responsibilities, extending their ability to accept a broader role. This plan therefore contributes to the success of a policy of continuous development that is predicated on the belief that everyone is able of learning more and doing better in their jobs. The plan will also give to enhancing the likely of persons to carry out higher level jobs (Armstrong, 2009).

Managing performance throughout the year –

Managing performance is that it is a continuous process that reflects normal good management practices of setting direction, monitoring and measuring performance and taking action accordingly. Performance management should not be imposed on managers as something special they have to do. It should instead be treated as a natural function that all good managers carry out. This approach contracts with that used in conventional performance appraisal systems, which were usually built around an annual event, the formal review, which tended to do well on the past. This was carried out at the behest of the personnel department. Managers proceeded to manage without any further references to the outcome of the review and the appraisal form was buried in the personnel record system (Armstrong, 2009).

Performance review and assessment –

Performance management is a permanent process it is compulsory to have an official review once or twice a year. This will give an idea on the key performance and development issues. There are mainly five performance management elements for review meetings; they are agreement, measurement, feedback, positive reinforcement and dialogue. These elements will leads to the end of the performance management cycle by informing performance and development agreements (Armstrong, 2009). The criteria for the performance review are

Achievements with respect to objectives

The level of skills and knowledge possessed and applied (Technical competencies)

Performance is getting effected in job by the behavior (Competencies)

Day-to-day effectiveness

2.2 Learning and Development:

Employee development is the main method followed by most of the organizations to develop organization performance, which in turn requires a perceptive of the processes and techniques of organization, team and individual learning. Performance reviews can be regarded as learning events, in which employees can be encouraged to think about how and in which ways they want to develop. Development programs are reflecting the needs of sequence plans and looking for to promote leadership skills (CIPD, 2010).

In a successful organization, employee developmental needs are addressed. Developing in this case means increasing the ability to make through giving training, develop new skills or by giving more responsibilities. Introducing the processes of performance management provides an outstanding opportunity to identify developmental needs. During the planning and monitoring of work, deficiencies in performance become clear and can be addressed. Areas for improving good performance also show up and action can be taken to help successful employees progress even better. http://www.opm.gov/perform/overview.asp

2.3 360 – Degree feedback:

360 – Degree feedback recognizes the difficulty of management and the value of input from a range of sources. The feedback is frequently unspecified and may be presented to the employee to the manager or to both employee and manager. Some organizations do not arrange for feedback to be mysterious. Whether or not feedback is anonymous depends on the organization’s culture (Armstrong, 2009).

The main advantages of having feedback are

Individuals get a broader viewpoint of how they seem by others.

It gives people a broad view of their performance

Increased awareness by senior management.

The main disadvantages of having feedback are

Employees or managers do not always give honest feedback

People may feel stress in receiving or providing feedback

Too much official procedure (bureaucracy)

In organizations they do not have a practice of open feedback; it is likely that 360 – Degree feedback will be seen with greater levels of distrust.

2.4 Reward:

Reward management is concerned with the formulation and implementation of strategies and policies in order to reward people fairly, equally and consistently in agreement with their value to the organization (Armstrong, 2009).

The aims of reward management are

Reward people as per the organization want to pay for.

Reward people for the value they creating.

Build up a performance culture

Motivate people and obtain their commitment.

Help to attract and keep the high quality people the organization desires.

Operate fairly

Operate transparently

2.5 Rating performance:

Rating scales can be defined alphabetically, or numerically. Initials are sometimes used in an attempt to disguise the hierarchical nature of the scale. The alphabetical or numerical points scale points may be described adjectivally, for example, a= excellent, b= good, c= satisfactory and d= dissatisfactory.

2.6 Advantages of having performance management:

There are several benefits of having an effective performance management system.

Employees know where the organization is going and they having a clear knowledge on organizational aims and objectives.

Employees will get an idea what organization is expecting form them.

It helps organization to meet their legal responsibilities in employment in terms of health and safety, fairness and multiplicity. Employees and the organization itself will be clear by roundabout and clear contractual terms, such as codes of conduct, the duty of common trust and self-assurance and the duty to follow sensible instructions, as well as health and safety equalities legislation. Legal issues will also arise in cases where the organization seeks performance improvement or decides to terminate employment on the grounds of the employee’s incapability to do their job.

Equality and diversity are important aspects of performance management. Not only does the organization’s managing diversity approach impact upon its overall performance rating through the best value performance indicators. It also impacts upon how performance is managed within the organization. A performance management approach that recognizes and promotes diversity, while supporting fairness and equity will ensure that people are selected and developed on the basis of their capability to do the job.

2.7 line managers and performance management:

Line managers are crucial to the success of performance management. But there can be problems with their commitment and skills and it is necessary to involve them in developing the process, provide training and guidance, gain top management support, keep the process simple, emphasize that performance reviews provide for quality time with their staff and need not be stressful if conducted properly.

REFERENCES:

Armstrong, M. and Baron, A. (2004). Managing performance: performance management in action. London: Chartered Institute of Personal and Development.

Armstrong, M. (2006). Performance Management: Key Strategies and Practical Guidelines. 3rd Ed. London: Chartered Institute of Personal and Development.