Designing a performance appraisal system Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Designing a performance appraisal system - Essay Example While the exact nature of the goals may vary, some of the determined objectives would usually pertain to achieving a certain amount in sales, revenues and profits. There should also be measures in place to monitor and control the effectiveness and efficiency of every department. A performance appraisal system is one such management tool that would control the activities of managers, supervisors and subordinates throughout the entire organization. The task of creating and maintaining a performance appraisal system is usually one of the key tasks of the Human Resources Department and is also connected to the performance rewards and compensation system of the enterprise. Assumptions In the given scenario, I am working as an Occupational Psychologist and have been approached by a medium-sized organization called Select. The Managing Director has identified a need for a new performance appraisal system for senior and middle managers only, and he wants me to put together a proposal of how I would get this task done. The organization has 10 senior managers, 50 middle managers and 400 employees. The appraisal system will be conducted twice a year. Last appraisals using the current system were conducted one month ago. Competency frameworks are already available for the roles of senior and middle managers. ... Every organization no matter how big or small usually has a recap at least once a year in which it takes account of how well each department, division and how it as a whole has performed in terms of revenues, profits, market share, shareholder value or whatever other measure management deems as necessary and important to gauge performance (Brown, 2001). The truth is that we never know how well or badly we are doing at a certain task until we develop a measurement for it. A performance appraisal system enables us to measure how each employee, supervisor or manager is doing in the attainment of his or her objectives. In such a system, individual goals contribute to departmental goals, which in turn contribute to the overall goals of the enterprise. A performance appraisal or management system is a diverse, well thought out process that seeks to elicit cooperation from the workers in the pursuit and attainment of organizational goals, by using rewards like bonuses, increments and stock options for good performance and punishments or warnings for bad performance. In this way the manager or supervisor evaluates and lets the worker know how he or she is doing on the job (Fletcher, 2004). It has been observed that there are both positive and negative feelings about the initiation of a performance appraisal system in an organization. Employees who are not performing up to the mark and who are warned about their lackluster performance are likely to view the performance appraisal system as a nuisance and react negatively to attempts to correct undesirable behavior and put them back on track. On the other hand, employees who are exhibiting all the positive traits and performance are rewarded for their good behavior and are likely to treat the performance appraisal system as a