Performance Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Performance Management - Essay Example Therefore, the system of performance management generally involves evaluating and developing the skills, behaviors, and the performance of individual employees, for ensuring that the organization competes favorably in the market through its high performance. Performance management is used as a measuring and management instrument of employees in the organization. This process mostly benefits the big international companies, and those companies, whose workforce is greatly distributed. As a process, performance management comprises different types of activities aimed at achieving the objective of the general process. These include reward and remuneration for employees, coaching and mentoring of employees, team working, measuring, competencies, and personal development plans, among others. Today, performance management is characterized by various changes, as the way it is approached today differs with how the process was approached in the past centuries. The changes in performance management today have contributed to its increased efficiency, and help organizations retain their high-performing employees. Performance management today is a holistic process, which embraces different processes, and this is efficient in people management in compa nies (Kreitner 2008). Armstrong & Baron (2005) note that performance management is not a new process. This has lasted for the past seventy years, since its inception in the 1940’s. Initially, managers of companies developed performance management during this period, in order to establish whether the different salaries and remuneration for the employees were justified or not.... The difference between performance management of those days, and the performance management today, is reflected in the complexity of the process. Today, performance management process is more sophisticated, as managers have incorporated more elements, which lacked in the past. For instance, managers have incorporated the aspects of development planning, competencies, and 360-degree feedback, among others, in the recent times (Armstrong & Baron 2005). According to Hale and Whitlam (2000), it is possible to trace the roots of performance management back to through the various past themes of organizational development. In this case, there was a work-study performed. Work would be broken down into different tasks in a way that is analytical. This helped with time planning, supervision, and cost planning. Additionally, this would help in determining the incentives for employees on the job. In this case, the aspect of competency took a different approach, as we know it today, since this di d not apply to more diverse work, and not only limited to work-study (Hale &Whitlam 2000). Another situation in past organization that reflects performance management is the use of merit schemes. The merit schemes in organizations were historically used to provide the generic definition of effective performance, in addition to providing a scale, with which performance would be assessed and rated against. However, today, the merit schemes have been disregarded due to their weaknesses. For instance, merit schemes cannot be used to measure aspects of a job that are unique, therefore, this is limiting. Additionally, the merit schemes could not be used to measure behavioral characteristics, which