Table of Contents

Introduction..........................................................................................................................2 Case Synopsis......................................................................................................................5 Analysis................................................................................................................................6 Analysis of Employee Perspective...................................................................................6 Analysis of organizations perspective............................................................................7 Conclusion...........................................................................................................................8 References..........................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
An organization is composed of five Ms, which are as Man, Material, Machine, Money and Method. These are the five most important parameters which I think are important for any organization. Every organization must maintain all these five parameters and their optimal utilization is the key aspect for which the companies are thriving. Human Resource is the Key factor which helps or assists every organization to achieve the optimal utilization of these resources. This is the reason which makes Human Resource Department as one of the very important departments of any organization. Human Resource department is not only responsible for hiring and firing employees but they are one of the keys which help and assist each and every employee may be at any level to be beneficial for the organization. The appraisal is a tool which helps human resource department to manage or motivate their employee to be more productive. It could also be used for accessing an employee performance levels. Usually performance appraisals are done by immediate supervisors of an employee but there are cases where the employee is not happy with his or her appraisal this is when human resource managers come into pictures. In this research paper I will be concentrating first on some of the basic question like why performance appraisals are important. Who does performance appraisals? For whom should the performance appraisals be done? What should be accessed? When to do performance appraisals? How to do performance appraisals? Where to do performance appraisals? For answering all these questions I will be concentrating more on IT industry as it is one of the industries where appraisal I consider is toughest job and attrition rate in this industry is very high compared to any other industry which makes the appraisal process and its importance more critical. After this I will try to cover process of appraisal and a case where what actions an supervisor should take if an employee is underperforming from both employees and organizations point of view. At the end of the paper I will give my own conclusions for the case. Performance Appraisals are not only meant for accessing an employees performance and using it to hand over the burden of project failure on his shoulders. It is rather meant for and also used to analyze and find the reasons for employees

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underperformance causes and try to resolve them. So that the organizations growth is not hampered instead it is further instead strengthened. The Appraisal process step wise is as under Objectives of Performance Appraisal

Establish Job Expectations

Design an Appraisal Program

Appraise Performance

Performance Interview

Archive Appraisal Data

Use Appraisal Data for Appropriate Purposes Source: Human Resource Management by K Aswathappa Page No: 243 The above figure shows the step wise process involved in execution of a performance and appraisal. Every performance appraisal has two ways of looking at it. One is how employees who are being appraised look and perceives from it and how the organization looks at the performance.

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The performance appraisal could have following reasons or the purpose of it New employees: Whenever a new employee enters an organization he or she is on probation period and after completion of the period the employee undergoes a performance appraisal process. The purpose of this appraisal is to diagnose the level of understanding achieved by the new joiner regarding his work and organization as a whole. The other reason is also accessing the performance of the employee for his confirmation to the position he or she is hired for. Time of promotion: This is the most important time for each and every employee. Every employee is looking for this time period and the ratings given to them in their performance at this time matters most for them as it will affect their promotion. Also for an organization promotion time is very crucial as promotions in a way are fulfilling their demand for man power internally. Earlier feedback is essential: A supervisor must be vigilant enough to give earlier feed back to employees regarding their performance rather than waiting for appraisal process to start as the purpose of appraisal for organization is to improve employees performance and motivate other to do so. The appraisal always is thought in conjunction with rating system as the rating is one of the toughest tasks to perform. It depends upon what we are rating. In performance appraisal following things are rated Quality: It could not be rated numerically so some mathematical model for rating quality is necessary. Quality is the degree to which a job is executed by an employee to perfection. As the perfection can not be measured so the quality is given rating usually as satisfactory, exemplary, good etc. Quantity: This is something which could be easily measured and thus could be easily rated mathematically. Timeliness: The degree to which a particular job is completed in time line so that it is giving extra time for other dependent jobs and the resource could release and work on other projects. Cost Effectiveness: The degree to which organizational resources are utilized. In IT industry because of bigger margins this factor is not much considered or given weight age

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but todays market is very competitive and organizations are becoming concerned about this too. Need of Supervision: This is to check how independently the employee could work and handle responsibilities given to him. The degree to which supervisory assistance is required for the particular employee. Interpersonal Impact: The degree to which a performer promotes feeling of self-estee, goodwill and co-operation among co-workers and subordinates. This helps in building working healthy environment at office premises. Community Service: Understanding social responsibility and performing or working towards its fulfillment is also and area to be appraised. After this introduction about the performance appraisal, the steps involved and other aspects associated with it let us take a look at the following case described in short below. It is a case of an IT employee. Who was working in an IT MNC company in India. The case is narrated by the employee himself. The name of the employee (Mr. X) and company (XYZ Solutions) both are changed.

Case Synopsis
Mr. X was working in an IT MNC XYZ Solution from June, 2006 till May, 2009. In the above mentioned three year work period he was appraised thrice, including appraisal in probation period after which his job was confirmed. The appraisal process was on yearly basis. First appraisal was done in January 2007, it was confirmation appraisal in which the employee was rated with highest ratings. His performance according to his supervisor was above par and knowledge and understanding of the business requirement was exemplary for new joiners. The second full time appraisal of the employee was conducted in January 2008, where again he was rated with highest rating in the account which was of 250 employees strength. Before this he was also awarded with the best employee of the year in the project. He was given appropriate gifts and certificates for his performance by the organization. The employee had his own aspiration of getting an promotion or working at onsite location for long periods. But

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because of lack of experience at that time only crossed one year he was suitable for either of the aspirations. This was conveyed to him in the appraisal meeting by his supervisor. In the year 2009 the appraisal ratings of the employee fell down drastically. His rating was declined by two grades which was acceptable to him. His appraisal meeting with the manager turned out to become a heated discussion. The employee finally in couple of months resigned from the company and joined rival organization.

Analysis
Analysis of Employee Perspective
It is always healthy for a business and its employee that personal feelings about each other should not get into the way of a business. There are many instances when a employee does not have positive opinion about his or her manager. Same in this case employee feels that the recent conflict between them is now becoming a bottle neck in his promotion. He feels that he is not being treated properly as his performance in the current year is average and due to this selective perception his excellent past performance is ignored by the senior leader. Employee is also feeling that his colleagues who were more favorable to the supervisor were getting unfair advantage. His perception for getting promotion has changed. To him promotion is all about buttering the senior leaders and it has no linkage to his performance and capabilities. Earlier he used to feel that he has a one-on-one relationship with your boss, but now he takes himself as a part of a crowd of people. If the employee is motivated at the time of his under performance he might become an invaluable tool to the organization. The employee can take some extra time to understand the behavior of the supervisor rather than making an instant decision on the situation. "Understanding somebody's background always helps illustrate how that person might approach a situation," says Mike Fister, CEO of Cadence Design Systems and a former senior vice president of the Enterprise Platforms Group at Intel. If this approach is also taken by the employee it would also help him that what his manager want and what he needs to deliver.

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Conflict sometimes has a destructive effect on the individuals and groups involved. At other times, however, conflict can increase the capacity of those affected to deal with problems, and therefore it can be used as a motivating force toward innovation and change. Conflict is encountered in two general forms. Personal conflict refers to an individual's inner workings and personality problems.

Analysis of organizations perspective

In this particular case the conflict between employee and manager can create negativity in the other staff members too which is not a healthy sign for the organization. Before this situation will expand its reach, senior leaders should take adequate steps to prevent the consequences. There are cases when personal conflict leads to frustration and loss of efficiency, counseling may prove to be an effective remedy. We can see that in many organization professional counselors on the staff, given some training, managers may be able to perform this function. Nondirective counseling, or "listening with understanding", is little more than being a good listener something every manager should be. Sometimes the simple process of being able to vent one's feelings that is, to express them to a concerned and understanding listener, is enough to relieve frustration and make it possible for the frustrated individual to advance to a problem-solving frame of mind, better able to cope with a personal difficulty that is affecting his work adversely. The nondirective approach is one effective way for managers to deal with frustrated subordinates and co-workers. There can be more direct and more diagnostic ways that might be used in appropriate circumstances. The great strength of the nondirective, however, lies in its simplicity, its effectiveness, and the fact that it deliberately avoids the manager-counselor's diagnosing and interpreting emotional problems, which would call for special psychological training. No one has ever been harmed by being listened to sympathetically and understandingly. On the contrary, this approach has helped many people to cope with problems that were interfering with their effectiveness on the job. <Course Code> <Course Name> 7

There can be many other ways to handle these types of conflict between supervisor and employee. A few of them are as under Avoidance: In this management strategy separation of the conflicting parties is done. In our case we can see this separation as the switching of employee to other department. This can not be a good solution when employee is hired on some specific skill and his skill would be of no value in some other department. Smoothing: This is a technique which is used by different organization to stresses the achievement of harmony between disputants. Dominance: In this technique the decision of the upper management is imposed on the employee. But this technique can be better when the interest of the employee is also kept in mind during making any final call. Compromise: There are number of instances when one party (employee or supervisor) has to sacrifice some of interest in order to get a solution of the problem. Confrontation: It is a type of method to settle down this type of conflict by face to face discussion. In this strategy featuring a thorough and frank discussion of the sources and types of conflict and achieving a resolution that is in the best interest of the group, but that may be at the expense of one or all of the conflicting parties.

Conclusion
After looking at the whole case we could understand that even though the employees demand were totally unrealistic but the period in which the employee was demanding was not favorable as all the companies in those time were facing the impact of recession and that might be cause for the organizations incapability to fulfill the demands. But the situation described could have been handled more intelligently and properly which might have helped organization in retaining the employee and boosting his morale to improve his performance in future. One thing that the manager should have done earlier is that he should have noticed the performance of employee which was declining that too after being best performer for continuous two years. He should have convinced the employee regarding the economic condition and must have used some other motivating factor like if possible raising salary or any other demand like of a holiday which might give him a break from job and when he returns back to work again he is filled with new energy to

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concentrate on work. Manager must have assured him that when the time is adequate and his performance was at par his aspirations will be fulfilled. This case seems to me that because of negligence of manager he has to loose an good performer. I feel that managers should be given training about the reasons because of which performance appraisals are performed and how a manager should always be active for an employees underperformance and should always try to find and resolve the causes of underperformance.

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References
Book: Human Resource Management By, Gary Dessler and Biju Varkkey Chapter 9 on Performance Management and Aappraisal. Edition: Eleventh Edition Book: Human Resource Management By, K Aswathappa, Chapter 10 on Appraising and Managing Performance. Edition: Fifth Edition Case Study: Unbundling the Performance Appraisal Process Improvement Team Web link: http://www.strategyconversions.com/PDF%20Files/CaseStdyPerfAp.pdf Case Study: Staff performance management in reforming health systems. By, Delanyo Dovlo HR division, ministry of health, ghana Kenneth Sagoe HR division, ministry of health, ghana Steven Ntow HR division, ministry of health, ghana Edith Wellington Health Research unit, ministry of health, Ghana Case Study: Performance appraisal and career opportunities By, Klaus Mohn, University of Stavanger, Norway, Ola Kvaly University of Stavanger, Norway, and Arngrim Hunnes, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen, Norway Book: Management, systems, and society : an introduction. Richard Arvid Johnson (1976). Pacific Palisades, Calif.: Goodyear Pub. Co.. pp. 148142. Book: The social psychology of organizations Daniel Katz; Robert Louis Kahn (1966).. New York: Wiley. pp. 1833. Book: Employment with a Human Face: Balancing Efficiency, Equity, and Voice. Budd, John W. (2004). Cornell University Press. Book: Workplace Wars and How to End Them: Turning Personal Conflict into Productive Teamwork. New York: AMACOM.

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