The Professional Practice Series is sponsored by The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Inc. Promoting the research needed to guide future organizational practice. , methods and tools derived from industrial and organizational psychology to solve human-related organizational problems.
Contents
Each provides useful guidelines for practitioners to improve the quality of performance management systems and processes. Doing so enables the authors to present evidence-based "best practices" in performance management.
Overview of Chapters
Paul Squires ("The role of workplace and informal development in performance management") begins by defining informal learning (where on-the-job training is considered a special case of informal learning). Using the GLOBE project as a framework, they briefly review and describe the performance management implications of eight dimensions (performance orientation, future orientation, gender equality, assertiveness, individualism and collectivism, power distance, humane orientation, and uncertainty avoidance) that can be applied. describe the national culture.
Acknowledgments
His work has appeared in the International Journal of Selection and Assessment, the Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, and in several book chapters. Her recent publications have appeared in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Business and Psychology, Public Personnel Management, and the Academy of Management Review.
Day is the Woodside Professor of Leadership and Management in the School of Business at the University of Western
Day is the Woodside Professor of Leadership and Management at Western University's School of Business. He is an adjunct professor in the College of Business at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Sessa is an associate professor of industrial and organi- zational psychology at Montclair State University in New Jersey
Lori Anderson Snyder is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Oklahoma. Weaver is a doctoral student in the Industrial/Organizational Psychology program at the University of Central Florida (UCF).
AN EXPANDED VIEW OF PERFORMANCE
An Expanded View of Performance Management
Fourth, it goes beyond the traditional performance appraisal literature and considers the explicit link between performance appraisal and administrative decisions (e.g., reward allocation, promotions). I hope that this chapter's comprehensive look at the performance management process will help close the gap between science and practice in the field of performance management.
The Science - Practice Divide and Performance Management
This growing science-practice schism is particularly perplexing in the case of I/O psychology because the field was created and appears to be based on the principles of the scientist-practitioner model (Bass, 1974; Dunnette, 1990; McHenry, 2007; Murphy & Saal, 1990; Rupp & Beal, 2007. The first section defines performance management and describes six key purposes served by performance management systems.
What Is Performance Management?
Performance management systems are the primary means by which accurate talent inventories can be compiled. Scores on the test can then be linked to scores collected through the performance management system.
Performance Management Process
It is important that both the employee and the manager take ownership of the appraisal process. In addition, the supervisor evaluates the performance of each team member as well as of the team as a whole.
Performance Management Best Practices
Finally, the benefits of using the system (for example, increased performance and job satisfaction) should be seen as greater than the costs (for example, time, effort, expense). Evaluation data should include system feedback and assessments of the system's operational and technical requirements.
Conclusion
We must be aware that it may take some time for changes at the individual and group level of performance to translate into unit and organizational level results. Also, we need to integrate PM with other HRM functions (for example, staffing, training, compensation, and succession planning) and conduct research on issues of interest to practitioners (Aguinis & Pierce, 2008.
Participation in the performance appraisal process and employee reactions: A meta-analytic review of field investigations. Effective communication in the performance appraisal interview: Face-to-face communication for public managers in the culturally diverse workplace.
ALIGNING PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT WITH
ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY, VALUES,
American Express, Federal Express, WD - 40 Company (WD - 40), UPS, CIT, Caterpillar and others have devoted considerable energy to ensuring that there is alignment between their organizational visions on the one hand and important organizational outcomes such as employee productivity, retention and customer satisfaction on the other hand. And to ensure this, leaders focus on a host of factors—organizational communications, balanced scorecards, goal setting and employee feedback, managing competencies and appropriate rewards, and achieving employee behaviors that give them an edge in execution of the strategy.
Alignment and Performance Management
Another important use of the concept of alignment relates to the interconnectedness of interdependent business processes and work groups, often referred to as 'horizontal alignment'. For the purposes of this chapter, alignment is defined as the extent to which employees are similarly connected to or have a consistent view of the vision and direction of the organization and its customers, often encapsulated within the current strategy.
How Important Is Alignment?
For retention, 43 percent of the difference in low versus high retention is predicted by alignment, leadership and collaboration (Pomeroy, 2005. Another way of looking at alignment is in terms of the negative consequences of being misaligned.
What Drives Alignment?
Another issue of debate is the level of specificity of the goals and rewards. The average organization in the Metrus database receives only 46 percent endorsement of the question: “I am regular.
Impact of Culture
A number of organizations scored below 30 percent on this item, while some companies show a positive score of as much as 79 percent. This type of reward scores lower than financial rewards (typically 50 to 60 percent favorable) and the job itself (typically 70 to 80 percent favorable).
Outreach Airlines: From Strategy to Results
In the airline example, pillars such as those in Figure 2.3 can be more fully developed into scorecard cards (see Figure 2.4) that represent the company's value proposition. For example, gate agents in Figure 2.5 have four roles that can impact on-time performance, such as the timeliness of check-in or boarding.
Performance Management Systems: Why Do They Fail?
One of the often discussed issues is how 'measured' the performance management process should be. A final challenge is to assess the impact of the performance management system in helping an organization execute its strategy.
Putting It All Together
When we asked the leaders of the top performing organizations from my interviews, there was no doubt in their belief that a strong performance management system delivers results. As evidenced in the Gillette example, organizations with superior performance management systems also have high expectations of their managers and manage those systems in a disciplined manner.
Conclusions
In preparing this chapter, I found several organizations that actually demonstrated overwhelming success in their efforts to link strategy with performance management. Within this, they apply many of the proven principles of performance management; for example, clear direction; well-articulated specific goals; fast, effective feedback and training; and good incentives.
Note s
PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF GOAL - SETTING THEORY
By providing direction and a standard against which progress can be monitored, challenging goals can give people direction and improve their performance. By providing self-satisfaction, goal achievement often increases organizational commitment (Tziner & Latham, 1989), which in turn positively affects organizational citizenship behavior (Organ, Podsakoff, & Mackenzie, 2006), negatively affects turnover (Wagner, 2007), and increases the strength of the relationship between difficult goals and performance (Locke & Latham.
Goal Commitment
Role models are most effective in raising self-efficacy when they are personally liked and perceived to have attributes (such as age, gender, talent, and ethnicity) similar to those of the individuals observing them. Goal commitment can also be built by cultivating self-efficacy through applying the principles of active self-mastery, role modeling, and verbal persuasion (Bandura as exemplified concretely by Heslin and Klehe's (2006) self-esteem measure.
Task Complexity
First, using a modestly complex business game, Latham and Seijts (1999) replicated Kanfer and Ackerman's (1989) observation that participants performed better with a vague "do your best" goal than with a specific distal (ultimate) goal . result) goal. Only when the task was complex did a learning goal lead to higher performance than a do-your-best or a performance goal.
Goal Framing
However, those who perceived the task as a threat performed better when they had learning goals rather than outcome goals. Particularly when goals are challenging, it is important to help people see them as a challenge from which they can learn, rather than as a threat where failure is foreseeable.
Team Goals
Two additional initiatives are to develop team effectiveness and enable participation in setting team goals. Challenging team goals can increase team effectiveness, as well as subsequent strategic risk-taking and team performance (Knight, Durham, & Locke, 2000.
Feedback
Latham and Locke (2006) and Latham and Mann (2006) discuss additional issues and insights relevant to the astute use of goal setting in the context of performance management. Enhancing work motivation and performance in brainstorming groups: The effects of three group goal setting strategies.
Note
Feedback valence, feedback style, task autonomy, and achievement orientation: Interactive effects on creative performance.
COACHING AND PERFORMANCE
Organizational Approaches to Coaching
Four Stages
However, rarely do organizations at this stage establish formal criteria for who receives coaching, nor measure the overall organizational benefits of coaching. Organizations in the fourth stage are explicit about what is expected of managers as coaches, as well as what coaching needs are served by managers, internal professionals and external coaches.
A Framework for Coaching and Performance Management
The extent to which someone is willing to invest the time and energy needed to develop themselves. The extent to which internal and external mechanisms exist to attend to and deliver change.
The Manager ’ s Role
In terms of the coaching framework, managers in Stage 1 organizations tend to focus on Insight ("Here's what we need from you and how I see you currently performing") and Accountability ("Here's my assessment of how you did this year.They tend to focus on four aspects of the coaching framework, building on the Insight and Accountability elements common to Stage 1 organizations and including a focus on Real World Skills and Practice.
Performance Management vs. Developmental Coaching
Take time to explore what is important to the person you are coaching—his or her goals, values, and motivations. Communicate the positive expectation that you believe in the person and his or her ability to learn and make significant progress toward goals.
The Role of Human Resources and Internal Coaches
In general, external coaches are best suited when working with top managers, with highly confidential or sensitive issues where the individual does not want an internal person involved, and when internal coaches do not have the time, specific expertise or credibility ( Holstein, 2005 and McDermott, Levenson, & Newton, 2007. Internal coaches are best suited when workplace observation and real-time coaching are critical and when in-depth knowledge of politics, personalities, or relationships is important.
The Role of External Coaches
As in earlier sections of this chapter, the recommendations are tailored to the organization's maturity level, as reflected in the four stages of organizational approaches to coaching. One of the keys to measuring the broader impact of coaching is identifying and defining criteria for talent issues at the organizational level.
Building a Culture of Coaching and Development
Coaching and developing others should be the criteria for selection, promotion and advancement in leadership positions. In summary, coaching—whether by managers, HR professionals, internal professional coaches, or executive coaches—is a powerful tool for performance management and for developing individual and organizational capabilities.
THE ROLE OF ON - THE - JOB AND INFORMAL
A thorough understanding of the role of on-the-job training and informal learning in performance management involves knowledge of a very wide range of disciplines, including industrial psychology, labor economics, learning theory and organizational theory. One is to introduce the reader to specific information and principles from these disciplines that will broaden the reader's understanding of on-the-job training and informal learning.
Informal Learning and Human Capital
Therefore, those with greater amounts of formal education seek and are offered by their employers more opportunities for informal learning. Most formal and informal learning takes place in the first ten years of a worker's career.
What Is Informal Learning?
If a worker reads a manual on methods and procedures in a work environment, learning can be considered informal. In addition, the learner reads the manual in a work environment, so learning can be considered informal.
Incidence of Informal Training
