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Personal Development Plan

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Organizations have been looking for human resources tools that encourage knowledge workers to maintain and improve their expertise (Ericsson, 2006). With respect to the latter, tools such as 360-degree feedback, self- and/or peer assessment and personal development plans (PDPs) have been argued to be successful in stimulating learning and development (Evans, 2002). However, the small amount of often contrasting evidence has shown that implementing these tools does not guarantee effectiveness in terms of fostering employees’ learning and development and, in turn, advancing their performance (Austin, Marini, and Desroches 2005; Beausaert, 2011). In order to make the tools effective, they have to be facilitated by various supporting conditions (Beausaert, 2011). PDPs are increasingly implemented as a learning tool in assessment cycles, consisting of development-, follow-up- and performance appraisal interviews (Beausaert, 2011) The personal development plan can be characterized as a too...
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APPRAISING EFFECTIVENESS OF KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

Performance indicators or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are an industry jargon for a type of performance measurement. (Formoso and Lantelme E., 2000). An organization may use KPIs to evaluate its success, or to evaluate the success of a particular activity in which it is engaged. KPIs are tools that may be used by an organization to define, measure, monitor, and track its performance over time toward the attainment of its stated organizational goals. Accordingly, choosing the right KPIs relies upon a good understanding of what is important to the organization. 'What is important' often depends on the department measuring the performance (Love, P.and Holt, G., 2000). Key performance indicators help an organization defined and measure progress towards organizational goals. In addition, Wikipedia explains that KPIs are commonly used by an organization to evaluate its success or the success of a particular activity in which it is engaged (Egan, J., 1998).   Prior to 1980s p...
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Practical Application of Balanced Scorecard

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The Balanced Scorecard was first presented by Robert Kaplan and David Norton from Harvard Business School in an article “The Balanced Scorecard – Measures that Drive Performance”, Harvard Business Review, January/February 1992. It is claimed that the scorecard with four perspectives- financial, customers, internal business processes, and innovation, learning and growth provides an excellent balanced solution for facing these challenges. The concept of the balanced scorecard enables organizations to achieve an integrated and aligned balanced focus between these four perspectives, which collectively underpin the achievement of the organization’s vision. (Meena. C, 2009). High-quality services, intellectual capital, skilled employees, prompt and reliable services, responsiveness efficient and adaptable business processes are all intangible assets which are important but their presence or absence does not show up on a balance sheet and does not alert employees, customers, shareholders an...
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360-Degree Feedback on Management Skills and Leadership Development

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‘Feedback of any nature is really vital for initiating improvements’ (Mandal, 2002). 360-degree feedback is a combination of giving feedback and evaluating performance in its unique character (Mandal, 2002). Since the last decade, the 360-degree appraisal system has attracted the attention of the Human Resources method (Cemal, I, 2016). The process has been vastly used by many organizations and the popularity of the approach has been increasing year by year (Waldman and Atwater, 1998). The effectiveness of the 360-degree feedback procedure as a development instrument is rightly proven and accepted by experts. However, the efficiency of the method in evaluating performance is not totally clarified (Tyson and Ward, 2004). 360-degree feedback is also known as full-circle appraisal, multi-rater feedback, multi-source feedback, upwards feedback, group performance review, 360-degree appraisal, 540-degree feedback, all-round feedback, and peer appraisal and all these terms convey the same m...
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Performance Appraisal In The Workplace

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Performance appraisal is one of the critical human resource practices administered in managing organizations (Jafari, M., Bourouni, A., & Amiri, H, 2009) to identify, rewarding, and discipline employees according to performance; developing programs and other management activities that are important in human resource management. It is perceived to be critical in leveraging human capital towards the desired direction (Takeuchi, R., Lepak, P., Wang, H., & Takeuchi, K, 2007). Appraisals generally are utilized mainly for two main purposes; 1). Development and 2). Evaluation (Maund, 2001). Developmental uses are administered to identify employees’ needs, give feedback, determine assignments and transfers, and point out employees’ strengths and weaknesses. Evaluative uses entail identifying performance, promotion/demotion decisions, recognizing each worker's performance, wage management and retention or termination determinations. Despite the fact that the evaluations have benef...
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Effectiveness of Performance Management System for Employee Performance Through Engagement

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Performance management system effectiveness (PMSE) is the measure of alignment between employee and organizational objectives (Armstrong, 2015). An effective performance management system implementation process necessitates that employees eagerly accept and effectively participate in the goal-setting process (Kennerley & Neely, 2003).   The exploration of PMSE in terms of its impact on employees’ motivation, work engagement, performance, and retention (Audenaert, M., Decramer, A., George, B., Verschuere, B., & Van Waeyenberg, T., 2019) Lawler (2003) found certain design factors responsible for PMSE: Ongoing feedback, use of behaviour-based measures, preset goals, Trained raters, and equitable rewards. However, his study considered and used items pertaining to performance appraisal effectiveness (PAE) in terms of its relationship with different reward practices. Broadbent and Laughlin (2009) add that the concept of PMSE is also dependent on the context that varies base...
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Critiquing Performance Management

It has been proposed that the unitarist perspective ‘may represent one of the threats to performance management as it fails to recognize the plurality of interests that are so much a part of organizational reality’ organizational reality’ (Williams, 2002) Line management has a major mediating influence on the implementation of HR practices (Den Hartog, 2004).   Employee perceptions will be crucial. Consequently, if there is perceived inequality over pay it may be difficult to achieve the espoused benefits of performance management (Gospel and Pendleton, 2005).   For example, if a practice is perceived as being manipulative it may have a negative impact. This can be witnessed through both overt and covert outcomes through decreased motivation which may result in worse performance and increased labour turnover (Dobbins, G., Cardy, R. and Platz-Vieno, 1990) As stated by Fowler (1990), the starting point of a performance management system should be setting out the organization...
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