Perfman HR: What is Performance Management

Performance Management Consultants from Mumbai
A group of managers spend a day in a workshop discussing rating systems, how to make their judgements more objective and how to use the full range of the scales available to them. New to some of them is the idea of linking individual objectives to the framework of their company’s goals. Their discussion then turns to the question of how far these figures might be related to other sets charting customer satisfaction. An HR specialist and a medical director pore through the results of assessments made against a suite of performance indicators (PIs), noting the imbalance between ‘technical’ and ‘behavioural’ outcomes in the figures before them.

A management consultant reviews a development planning framework with his client, who suspects that a forthcoming senior management team audit will reveal shortcomings in communications and strategic thinking. ‘Let’s consider the range of development options that the company will back financially,’ the consultant suggests and then goes on to say, ‘You might contemplate setting up some bespoke training through a business school. But don’t let’s forget that some of the best development will come through self-driven efforts. We need to ensure that there is a supportive framework, but one in which your people will feel they have scope for choices in the investment they make in their own growth.’ These are all aspects of performance management, not one thing but a mix of approaches supported by an underlying philosophy about the importance of whole organization management. Jones (1995) for instance talks about managing the context rather than the performance, while Armstrong & Baron (1998) talk about a range of concerns in the field, including planning, continuous development and improvement, and satisfying stakeholder needs.

INPUTS AND OUTPUTS

Assessments in selection are the inputs used to predict future outputs. The inputs may be entirely current in nature, as when a candidate undertakes a group discussion in an assessment centre. Very often, though, they will include aspects of past behaviour. This happens when the same candidate responds to a structured interview in terms of previous successes, say in project management, or reflects habitual preferences in responding to a personality questionnaire item on watching versus performing in a stage production. The same assessments may be reported in terms that cover ideas for working with the candidate if hired, so merging with the field of performance management. In performance management as such as currently practised one uses inputs from past and current behaviour to manage future behaviour relevant to performance. That is, there is more of a focus on controlling outputs. In its antecedents there was less emphasis on the ongoing reviews of performance than is currently the case and more on using historic performance information to determine reward or role. A linking concept in both cases is that of competency, which is discussed further below and which is returned to at a number of points throughout this book. Again, a further linking category supporting both these ideas is that of objectivity in measurement, also discussed in this article.

Sonal Aurora is director and co-founder of Top Recruitment Company India. Perfman HR is a premier HR Consulting & Recruitment Company Founded in Mumbai, India. We are an inventive and dynamic Human Resource Company specializing in Executive Search, Performance Management, Assessments, Recruitments, Training, Learning & HR Solutions.