WHAT DOES PM MEAN?

Performance management is a communication process by which managers and employees work

together to plan, monitor and review an employee’s work objectives and overall contribution to
the organization. However, it is not merely an evaluation. More than just an annual performance
review, performance management is the continuous process of setting objectives, assessing
progress and providing ongoing coaching and feedback to ensure that employees are meeting
their objectives and career goals. There is much more to performance management than the
annual performance review meeting. Performance management is a continuous process of
planning, coaching and reviewing employee performance. Performance management is the
process used to ensure that an organization connects its mission with the work of its employees.
The activities of PM includes performance appraisal where managers provide feedbacks to the
employees, improve an activity to boost performance and it also includes interventions that
provide employees the tools and resources they need to perform their tasks. PM involves two
related activities. First, evaluate in the performance of the employee against standards set for
them and second, helping them to develop action plans to improve their performance. Effective
performance management depends

On the development and implementation of appropriate performance management tools,

feedback and implementation of appropriate performance management tools, feedback and
documentation.

Generally, organizations use performance appraisals in two ways: making pay and other
administrative decisions and developing people. Feedback is essential to any strong performance
management system. No performance feedback should be left to an annual meeting. There
should be no surprises

Finally, strong documentation is critical to effective performance management that helps

employees to do their best.

WHY DOES THE SCHOOL HAVE A PM SYSTEM?

Performance management for schools was initially presented as both a necessity and a rational
course of action by the then Secretary of State for Education – ‘the kind of system which is the
norm across the public and private sec-tors’ (Blunkett, 1999) and which was ‘aligned with
current thinking’ (Tomlinson, 2000: 297) about employee account-ability and remuneration in
business

Teacher appraisal is a mechanism for improving teaching and learning. We all agree that
teachers’ professional competence and conscientiousness are the keys to the delivery of quality
education in schools. In a well-designed staff appraisal system, the instruments and procedures
can constitute valuable professional development for teachers and enable the school management
to assess teachers’ performance. The teacher appraisal system assists in recognizing and
encouraging good performance, identifying areas for development, and improving overall
performance of teachers.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF PM?

Staff Development

All fingers are not the same. Some people excel, some lag behind. Performance management
helps organisations to identify the skill gaps and train employees accordingly to get the best
output. Even if employees are performing well, they may need enhanced skills to advance their
careers. Performance management addresses all such concerns related to staff development. All
employees are on a development journey. And, it is the organization’s responsibility to prepare
them for increased responsibility. If done well, an effective performance management system can
help to understand employee career ambitions, identify employee developmental opportunities,
and be an important part of a succession planning process.

Motivate Employees

Performance management is a motivation booster since it gives opportunities to employees to

receive applauds for their efforts. Most organisations have a reward and recognition program
through which they give cash bonuses, incentives, certificates or public ovation to deserving
candidates. As a result, it not only boosts the morale of top-performing employees, but also gives
motivation to the bottom performers to prove them. There should be no surprises if issues are
addressed in real-time and not held until the annual review. Performance appraisals are a time to
celebrate all the wonderful things an employee does over the course of a year and should
encourage staff. The trick to positive appraisals is to focus on what the employee is doing well
while gently course-correcting undesired behaviors.

Allows for Employee Growth

Motivated employees value structure, development, and a plan for growth. An effective
performance management system can help an employee reach their full potential, which can be a
positive experience for both the employee and manager. A good manager takes pride in watching
an employee grow and develop professionally. Organizations should take a global look at their
performance management system and have very objective goals that are tied to strategic
initiatives and the performance management process. Successful organizations have learned the
secret to this. And while not always perfect, striving to constantly improve the process can be
one of the best ways to help organizations achieve their Mission.

Documented History of Employee Performance

All organizations must keep performance records on all employees. The goal is to maintain a
historical record of an employee’s performance and development journey so a new manager can
get a sense of progress over time. This is a document that should be kept in the employee’s
personnel file.

Review of the new system (lecture by trainer)

Who will conduct staff appraisals?

A staff appraisal is a periodical advisory and support discussion between staff members and
management that fosters agreements about objectives and the achievement of targets, which can
be incorporated into target agreements. This process provides the opportunity, in a systematic
and structured way that is outside of every-day working routine, to discuss matters that support
and advance target-oriented cooperation. A staff appraisal is conducted in confidence between
the member of staff and the appropriate member of the management team, and is concluded
consensually.

Appraisal usually revolves around a face-to-face discussion during which one employee's work is
discussed, reviewed and appraised by another, using an agreed and understood framework.
However, peers/ workmates can also appraise each other. Even customers and other
stakeholders can be involved but most usually, however, line managers conduct appraisals of
their staff, and the present benchmark is based upon such an approach.

How long will the appraisals take?

Performance appraisal in any organisation will be done at a specific period, like annually or half
yearly or quarterly or maybe regularly. It all depends upon the nature or size of the organisation,
and sometimes necessity of the managers decide the period of performance appraisal of their
employees. Most of organisations are insisting employee appraisal should be a continuous
process and should not be limited to a formal review once a year. The frequency of formal
appraisals will depend on the nature of the organization and on the objectives of the system.

Where will the appraisals take place?

Appraisals must not exist in isolation, but should be part of an ongoing process in which both
management and staff have a responsibility. A successful appraisal depends on creating an
informal environment in which a full, frank but friendly exchange of views can take place. It is
best to start with a fairly general discussion before getting into any detail.

How far in advance will appraises know the date for their performance review?
One week is the best option because the sooner the appraises will know the date for their
performance, the sooner they will be ready to prepare for such performance review and also to
know what areas are need to be improved or requires more training.

What documents/evidence will you need to show your appraiser?

Appraisal forms can include sections for qualitative feedback from peers or supervisors
mentioning employee commendations or opportunities for improvement.

SUMMARY OF CASE STUDY

Prior to the new Performance Management system, Southwood has already introduced the DfEs
System before which created a ruckus among its staff and in their performance management
process as whole. The system was found to be ineffective at addressing key concerns in the
organization such as failure in meeting annual deadlines, confusion among staff, and waste of
time, inappropriate system, and training needs and follow through, appraisals and performance
objectives.

Thus, a new system was created with the consultation from the stakeholders to address the
abovementioned issues.

So, initially to be able to identify who will design and deliver the program, the director suggested
that the selection of managers complete a standard internet based training program provided by
an online training organization. Managers who completed the online training would receive a
certificate of achievement. Based on input from the HR manager, however, it was decided that a
custom-designed program would be more appropriate because it would better meet managers’
needs. In the end, it was decided that the HR manager will be the one to design and develop the
program because such person possesses specialized knowledge about the system since he/she
was the one who developed it. The HR manager is also experienced in training programs and it is
least expensive as well as it would be easier to specify the new pm system if it is done by an
internal person and because an HR manager will be more flexible than an external trainer.

In designing the training, the program would have a focus group of 5 managers who would be
dealing with difficult people and it will include an In-house 2-hour workshop. The activities
created will appeal to various learning style such as interactive presentations, role play, case
study and small group exercises.

On the delivery of the training, the participants were asked to read all documents related to the
new system prior or before engaging in the said training. The training will be held in classrooms
with it equipment during non-school hours. 80 percent of the appraisers attended and the
remaining 20% trained a month later.
On the evaluation of the training program in the trainer's perspective, resulted the following: the
45 minutes communication exercise only took 20 minutes to finish, no extra activities done and
had to stretch out final discussion, 2 people did not actively participated, and it is unknown or
unsure if participants believe in benefits of new performance management system.

On the designing the training program for appraises, no focus group was held instead the hr
manager sent out email asking support staff what should be included in the training program.
However, less than 10 % only responded.

The instructional methods to be used are the presentations by the trainer, practical activities, role
plays and work sheets.

On the delivery of the training, no pre work was assigned before the training as it could
overwhelm the participants however the new performance management system details was
emailed to the participants but sadly, most did not read it so the details was redistributed during
the training. The trainer discussed the details and answered questions. The session was held in
classroom but outside normal working hours to avoid disrupting the staff however, as a
compensation for the inconvenience, attendees received an overtime of 2 hours.

The evaluation of the training resulted to the trainer who ran out of time and no formal
evaluations were submitted by the participants. The trainer thought the session was challenging
as it was difficult to engage the appraises because they all have different needs and the 2 hour
session is not enough to accommodate such needs.

As a conclusion the case study only shows how important it is to consider the factors when
planning and designing training programs. And because everyone has various needs, it is
difficult to deliver a program that will fit for everyone.

EXPLANATION:

So clearly, the previously used system did not reach the objective as it was not approved by the
employees. The negative feedback proved that the system should be changed. The developers of
the new system took into account all the drawbacks of the previous one and addressed the issues
and problems. The new PM system suggested an attempt to improve their PM system,
Southwood School, along with the hr manager implemented the new pm system which changes
that allows the appraiser and appraise to review past performance, set goals and objectives for
upcoming year, identify training needs, allows performance review meetings to occur annually,
encouraged both parties to meet at regular intervals throughout the year to discuss progress.
These changes were the result of the following interventions established by the hr manager such
as introducing adequate awareness which helped in minimizing chances of confusion and
conflict between the appraise and the appraiser. This was done through first during an initial
training on what the new pm system entailed as well as the employees being given a chance
before meeting their appraiser to fill up the document to which they highlighted some of the
areas they would wish to be focused on during the discussion. The hr manager also solved the
issue of too much documentation by simplifying terms of the language and jargon used to avoid
confusion.

Privacy was also addressed by requiring that meetings were to be held in a private room unlike in
the old system where they were done in public areas.

DELIVERY OF TRAINING METHODS

In terms of the delivery of the training methods, the trainer was able to follow the methods for
the training to be successful however there are few drawbacks that we found in delivering the
training such as not all the attendants of the workshop read the materials. It should be stated that
the awareness of the people regarding the issues raised during the workshop is dependent on
whether they have read the information. For the attendants to go through the files, the
information should be presented clearly. Moreover, tips would be helpful as they will save the
workers time delivering the needed data.

Also, all the activities of the training session should correspond to the age of the participants.
They should not be childish. The major objective of the activities should be the reflection of how
the theory works in practice.

The last but not the least is that attendants should understand that the implementation of the
performance management will be beneficial for them and will improve the quality of work.
Some respondents stated that it was only the additional paperwork. The main problem is that the
trainer failed to deliver the significance of the project to the audience.

It is impossible to satisfy every participant. However, I suppose, that a skillful presenter can
change the attitude of the public. The key to success is inspiring, motivated, clear, and
professional speech. The presenter should stress the significance of the meeting and interact with
the participants.
The information regarding the participants would be useful for a better understanding of their
experience and background. Although the information should not necessarily be provided, it will
considerably ease the process of interaction with the public. The presenter can make an accent of
what is interesting to people and what issues should receive the priority.

The trainer should have leadership, communication, organizational, presentation, and negotiation
types of skills. Moreover, a good trainer knows how to cooperate with different people, be
flexible, and use the skills of influence to impact the opinion of the public.

Although the system of feedback provides a better understanding of the success of the workshop,
it should be stressed that it can be estimated during the training. The general mood of the public
can be understood by how people participate in the discussion, their facial expressions, asking
questions, and attentiveness. The major point is to provide participants with interesting
information and interact with the audience.

IS THERE A TRANSFER OF TRAINING OCCURS?

On the training process for managers, there is a transfer of training. The trainers were able to
identify the training needs of the managers and were able to select the participants which were
the managers. The objective was met because the training was successful and resulted to positive
feedbacks from the participants. The trainer also monitored the training and in the end, the
participants were able to apply their learning into their field. However, on the training done for
the appraisee, it’s hard to say if there was a transfer of training because it was not clearly stated.
The training needs of the appraisee were identified but not all of it since it’s difficult to
accommodate various needs. The selections of participants were done but the expectation was
not met since the feedback and the result of the training was not as successful as that in the
manager’s training. Due to factors like the participants were not motivated enough and only few
participated.

The biggest problem is that the trainer can influence the work and outcome of the employees
during the workshop; however, it is almost impossible to control the transferring of the skills into
the working space. The trainer cannot be responsible for applying the knowledge by the workers
in the workplace.

Do you think the 3 stakeholders are present in the training process?

The learners’ responsibility in this regard is to learn, have strong sense of ownership and
responsibility in the learning process. The trainer is responsible for ensuring that the skills of
their learners are being developed by helping learners’ reach their potential. Trainers help to
build client satisfaction, making it easier for companies to attract and retain a quality workforce.
The organization is the one addressing their needs through increased flexibility in corporate
learning and development policies, caring for the employees’ personal and professional
development, as well as investing in their future by prioritizing promotions from within.
Additionally, the main reason on why an organization conducts a training process is to enhance
the skills of the employees. In simple terms, training process exists because of the organization.
They are all present in the training process in the sense that, it is a process and because it is a
process, one cannot continue or perform its function without the help of the other. The trainer
trains the trainee to meet the expectations, objectives and goals of the org.