7PFM Performance Management

Description of the performance management guide

Performance management is a module used to provide a good understanding of the strategies used to enhance performance management within the business. Performance management is influenced by the directions given by the organisational leaders, towards ensuring that organisations record high performance within the business environment. Performance management relates with the transformation of the organisational objectives in order to ensure that the performance outcomes within the business are achieved.

Learning performance management in CIPD Level 7 equips learners with the skills needed to facilitate fair and ethical review of performance. Performance is enhanced in situations when an organisation gets to relate with effective forms of communication skills, where employees are expected to be transparent and become ethically involved in completing business objectives.

Aim of performance management

• To ensure that strategic business objectives are attained within the business environment
• To create a link between corporate business performance and the performance of the employees within the organisation
• To determine the role of HR in promoting organisational performance
• To explain the role of HR in creating an organisational culture that relates with high-performance work as well as improved work practices within the organisation
• To explain the approaches considered in ensuring that the high performance is achieved within the multicultural and the international business context
• To find out how employees can be motivated towards ensuring that they bring out good performances from their places of work

Leadership role in handling performance review

Leaders promote performance capability, with which they encourage high-performance working environment. This is achieved in organisations where personal development is encouraged towards ensuring that the capabilities of the individuals are enhanced, as well as those of the teams working in the organisations. In order to promote capabilities, leaders take responsibility of coaching their subordinates, mentoring them and giving them counselling whenever necessary.

Leaders also promote challenges by providing platforms through which they set targets for the employees. They also set objectives that have to be met to encourage employees to perform and meet those objectives. Leaders also encourage the employees within the organisation to provide feedback in order to create an environment effective to attaining high organisational performance.

Leaders also encourage performance through rewarding and recognising the employees. The rewards can be both financial and non-financial, and they are meant to encourage the employees to perform better, and motivate them as well.

Employee involvement in performance management

Employees as well have the responsibility of promoting performance in the organisation. Employees are encouraged to communicate and share the necessary organisational information with the purpose of ensuring that they become committed to meeting the performance goals. Through communication, the employees are able to identify problems, and develop strategies to solve the problems for purposes for purposes of improving individual, team, and organisational performances. They also get to identify areas of improvement, and in process make the necessary plans to enhance change and create new ways of managing performance.

Impact of high performance within organisations

High performance is significant to enhancing employee commitment to an organisation. The HR leaders should seek to implement effective goals necessary in ensuring that the employees find value in staying in the organisation, with the intention to ensure that organisational objectives are achieved (Purcell and Hutchinson, 2007).

Organisations focus on creating work-life balance with the intention to ensure that they promote performance in all levels of organisation operations. The performance of the employees can only be enhanced in situations when the leaders have effectively created a work-life balance, where the personal needs of the employees are equally balanced to the work that they perform.

The attainment of high-level performance encourages management of diversity in the organisation. Sayers et al. (2018) state that the need to promote a diverse organisation is dependent on the effort put in place by the Hr to ensure that all people are equally treated and respected. This creates fairness and equality, which are considered to be important measures of performance management.

The management is able to make decisions on the basis of rewarding employees, most especially with regard to rewarding high-performing employees. Through this, the leaders are able to identify measures of performance, and at the same time get to assess the means through which performance can be improved among the employees. According to Guerra‐López and Hutchinson (2013), it is important for the HR leaders to identify the right measures of performance with the aim of ensuring that the right decisions are made to enhancing improvement and achievement of organisation objectives.

High-performance impacts the extent to which leaders are able to coach and mentor their employees to do things accordingly for purposes of encouraging performance. Coaching and mentorship encourages communication in the workplace, which is also significant in determining the extent to which the HR leaders provide a direction for the employees, and at the same time encourage them to perform well towards meeting the organisation vision and goals.

High-performance enhances development of a positive organisational culture. Geare and Edgar argue that an organisational culture is characterised by the value of the workplace members in creating supportive HRM practices, which are significant in creating desirable working conditions. The HR leaders in this perspective have to be concerned about the influence they have on the employees in developing positive attitudes that are considered to be very necessary in impacting organisational performance.

Performance management learning outcomes

The learning outcomes for Performance Management CIPD Level 7 are;

• To help students identify the purpose and aim of performance management, and effectively communicate them towards attaining performance objectives.
• To help students learn the significance of the performance management policies that is effective to promote individual, team, and organisation performance.
• Identify the performance review techniques and their significance in improving organisational performance.
• Relate with the communication skills considered effective to managing organisational achievements and underachievement among the individual employees, the teams, and the general organisation.
• To determine the effectiveness and impacts of performance management to employees and in the organisation.

Winding up;

Students willing to take on the module will gain an insight on how to effectively make the right performance decisions in any of their levels of operations, for purposes of securing the best alternatives to enhancing performance. For the students with HR and CIPD career aspirations, this is a guide to help in identifying the right actions to be taken in promoting capabilities and opportunities, effective in promoting performance. The module is flexible to people wishing to learn and pursue it, and the learning materials are provided virtually to all candidates.

References:

Geare, A., & Edgar, F. The ‘Black Box’ between human resource management practice and organisational performance. Online <https://www.anzam.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf-manager/1848_GEAREALAN_191.PDF> [Accessed 7^th August 2020]

Guerra‐López, I., & Hutchinson, A. (2013). Measurable and continuous performance improvement: The development of a performance measurement, management, and improvement system. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 26(2), 159-173.

Purcell, J., & Hutchinson, S. (2007). Front‐line managers as agents in the HRM‐performance causal chain: theory, analysis and evidence. Human Resource management journal, 17(1), 3-20.

Sayers, E., Benson, A., Hussey, D., Thompson, B., & Irdam, D. (2018). Improvement required’? A mixed-methods study of employers’ use of Performance Management systems, Online <https://archive.acas.org.uk/media/6055/Improvement-required-A-mixed-methods-study-of-employers-use-of-Performance-Management-systems/pdf/Impro> [Accessed 7^th August 2020]