Role of HR Professionals in

Performance Management; Ethical

and Legal Issues

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 Outlines

• Role of HR professionals in performance management

• Seven sins of HR professionals
• Effective strategic roles for HR professionals

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 ROLE OF HR PROFESSIONALS IN
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
• HR Professionals have to ensure that performance
management is:
– Consistent with organization’s mission, objectives and
strategy
– Beneficial as a strategic and developmental tool
– Useful as an administrative tool
– Legally defensible and role based and
– Viewed as generally fair and enabling by employees

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 ROLE OF HR PROFESSIONAL’S IN
IMPROVING ORGANIZATIONAL
PERFORMANCE
• HR Professionals have to:
– Become competency builder
– Link work goals to performance expectations
– Become change agent
– Organizational rejuvenation initiator
– Customer relationship management trainer
– Effective communication facilitator
– Talent farmer
– Strategic recruiter
– Strategic outsourcer
– Ethics custodian and
– Internal Systems Critic

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 HR PROFESSIONALS AND PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM: AN OVERVIEW OF CURRENT COMPETENCIES,
ROLES, AND PROBLEMS

• Three conditions appear critical for HR

professionals:
• Business Focus
– Competitive advantage
– Customer value
– Stakeholder wealth

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 HR PROFESSIONALS AND PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM: AN OVERVIEW OF CURRENT COMPETENCIES,
ROLES, AND PROBLEMS

• Contemporary expertise
– Systems knowledge
– Line Competencies
– HR competencies
• People orientation
– Building an inspiring culture
– Ensuring corporate social responsibility

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 SEVEN SINS OF HR PROFESSIONALS

• Decision making is prerogative of CEO

• Tunnel vision
• Fault finding
• Never Trust Anybody
• Role Model
• Not cost savvy
• Move Alone

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 EFFECTIVE STRATEGIC ROLES FOR HR
PROFESSIONALS
• Creating an information sharing culture
• Training managers to conduct performance
management effectively
• Training employees to participate effectively in the
performance management system and
• Acting as ‘Internal Consultant’ for managers and
employees when the inevitable problems occur

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 JOB PROFILE OF HR PROFESSIONALS: AN
ADVERTISEMENT
A recent job advertisement for “Senior Management Position” of a well
known Company reads like this (excerpt):

HUMAN RESOURCE

The role will encompass handling the entire gamut of human resource
function which includes devising Recruitment strategies to attract best
talent, organization wide HRD strategies, comprehensive Performance
management and Compensation management, Culture building and
communication, HR planning in line with the business strategies and
benchmarking with the global best practices ……

Adapted from Guha, 2007 “Times Ascent”, The Times of India, Wednesday, 06/06/2007,
New Delhi

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 APPRAISING HR FUNCTION: ENERGIZING
FOR CORPORATE SUCCESS
• Operations Perspective
– What are the problems inflicting the business of the
organization?
– How solving the problem will affect the business
– Is the problem affecting quality?
– Is it pushing up costs?
– Is it increasing rework?
– What price is the organization paying for this problem?

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 APPRAISING HR FUNCTION: ENERGIZING
FOR CORPORATE SUCCESS
• Financial Perspective
– What is the total cost of compensation and benefits?
– What is the optimal level as per industry norms?
– What is the organization’s ability to pay?
– What is business strategy, and growth prospects of the
organization?

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 APPRAISING HR FUNCTION: ENERGIZING
FOR CORPORATE SUCCESS
• HR Perspective
– What is the total training mandays being invested?
– What is the management attitude towards employee
development?
– What is the present competence of human resources?
– What is status of organization’s talent pool?

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 APPRAISING HR FUNCTION: ENERGIZING
FOR CORPORATE SUCCESS
• Customer Perspective
– Are the customers of the organization satisfied?
– Are employees happy, satisfied and committed?
– Is HR making employees as goodwill ambassadors for the
organization?
– Is HR responsive to customer’s (internal & external) needs
and aspirations?

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 FUTURE ROLES OF HR PROFESSIONALS IN
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT IN THE
KNOWLEDGE MILLENIUM
• HR Professional shall be responsible for building competency
of the organization
• HR Professional should be able to pre-empt performance
problems in advance and ensure its speedy and reliable
rectification
• HR Professional shall act as ‘Performance Counselor’
• HR Professional’s Entrepreneurship Skills shall be critical to
improve organizational performance

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 ETHICS

• Ethics is a process whereby we choose between

competing moral and/or economic values
• Ethics is an inquiry into the nature and grounds of
morality where the term morality is taken to mean
moral judgments, standards and rules of conduct

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 Components of Comprehensive
Ethics
• Written standards of ethical workplace conduct
• Means for an employee to anonymously report violations
of ethics standards
• Orientation or training on ethical workplace conduct
• A specific office, telephone line, e-mail address or Web
site where employees can get advice about ethics-related
issues
• Evaluation of ethical conduct as part of regular
performance appraisals
• Discipline for employees who commit ethics violations

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 ETHICS IN PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

• Six Pertinent Questions in Ethical Performance Management

– What does an ethical performance management mean?
– How to approach ethical performance management as a business aligned
HR strategy?
– What structures and systems need to be developed by HR professionals
to guide employees and managers and foster reasonable expectations
among organization’s stakeholders?
– How should one communicate with stakeholders about ethical
performance standards, expectations and accountability?
– How should one align performance management practices with core
values and beliefs of the organization?
– How should the ethical performance management practices be evaluated
and one learn from it?

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 ETHICAL PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
DEFINED
• Process of planning, managing, appraising and monitoring employee
performance based on the principles of fairness, objectivity, transparency
and good corporate governance
• Achieve the organizational objectives and strategy in a way that promotes
effective self-regulatory practices and management systems
• Foster a relationship of confidence and mutual trust between managers,
employees and the organization on one hand and
• The society in which they operate on the other hand, in pursuit of
improving organizational performance and competence

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 PRINCIPLES OF ETHICAL PERFORMANCE
MANAGEMENT
• Employees are driven by the core values of the organization
• Inherently promotes fairness and justice in order to avoid ethical
dilemmas in the first place
• Recognizes and reinforces individuals for assuming responsibility for
actions they take on behalf of the organization
• Well integrated with diverse and changing internal and external
stakeholders expectations and demands
• Operationalizes ethical culture
• Robust process

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 ETHICAL ISSUES AND DILEMMAS IN
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

• Managerial malpractice
• Moral mazes
• Different standards
• Value conflict
• Corporate goal achievement
• Superior’s taking credit of subordinates work
• Employee engagement
• Managerial favouritism
• Peer pressure
• Career aspirations
• Workplace politics

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 ETHICAL STRATEGIES IN PERFORMANCE
MANAGEMENT
• Education and training on ethics
• Employment accountability
• Communication
• Resolving value conflict
• Ethical performance
• Building ethical performance culture
• Increasing employee engagement
• Culture of dissent

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 DEVELOPING CODE OF ETHICS IN
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
• Professional Responsibility
• Professional Development
• Ethical Leadership
• Fairness and Justice
• Conflict of Interest
• Use of Information

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 FUTURE IMPLICATIONS OF ETHICS IN
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
• Talented employees shall be attracted towards ethical
organizations
• Leave organizations for value conflict
• Increasing population of whistle blowers
• Increased cultural diversity
• Ethics as a key corporate asset
• Employees will behave like customers
• Role of leadership will catch greater attention
• Ethics shall become a key performance management strategy

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 Ethical Mistakes in
Performance Management
• Ethical misconduct most commonly identified by HR
professionals included abusive or intimidating behavior
toward fellow employees, plus abuse of e-mail or Internet
privileges.
• HR professionals think that top management (77 percent)
would be less likely to be held accountable if caught violating
their organization’s ethics standards than supervisors (86
percent) and non-management employees (91 percent).
• A small proportion of HR professionals (19 percent) and
employees (U.S. average: 11 percent) reported feeling
pressure by others (within their organization or externally) to
compromise their organization’s ethics standards, company
policy, or the law.
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 PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT IN
MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS
• Cultural Context (Hofstede’s study)
– Individualism vs Collectivism
– Power Distance
– Masculinity/Femininity
– Uncertainty Avoidance
• Harmony
• Face Saving

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 Legal Issues in Appraisals
• Title VII and the courts have found that inadequate
appraisal systems often lie at the root of
discriminatory layoffs, promotions, discharges or
merit pays
• They are held illegal if appraisals are:
– Based on subjective observations
– Not administered and scored consistently
– Based on evaluators who did not have daily contact

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 Legal Consideration in
Performance Management System
• Thorough, detailed and objectively based documentation is
essential.
• Type all evaluations as responses, or comments on the
evaluation form, as a web attachment. Avoid handwritten
documentation in pencil.
• Never amend an evaluation later, or change information on
the evaluation without the express written consent and
knowledge of the employee.
• Avoid any documentation that refers to an employee's race,
sex, national origin, disability, age or other potentially
discriminatory data.
• Hire an attorney for any legal compliance issues
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