Performance Management and Appraisal

In every organization, employees and managers are both important especially in ensuring
the sustainability of the business. They both have their specific tasks and obligations to perform
within the company. Despite their different assigned jobs and responsibilities, they still have one
thing in common and that is to gain competitive advantage, increase productivity rate and
maintain the good function and performance of the organization they belong to. It conveys that
different members of the organization, either top management or bottom level management are
helping one another to achieve one specific goal. Furthermore, in achieving what they want for
the organization, there are various and effective ways to use it.

Employees are the best asset of the organization and they are also one of those significant
people behind the success and failure of the entity itself. Without the skills, knowledge and
ability of the people within the organization particularly the employees, there can be no essential
changes, improvements and innovations in terms of the quality of work, goods and/or even the
services that a certain organization are offering to the market. With these beneficial contributions
of the employees, the administrative duty of the managers as well as the human resource function
is to manage accordingly and properly the behaviors and performance of their people in terms of
doing their assigned job within the company perimeter. Assessing and determining their
performance may sounds undesirable for some because of the reasons that is time consuming,
frustrating and can be burden, still it is the best way to maintain the orderliness and overall
function and process within the company. Evaluating and assessing employees' performance
might result in either greater motivation and happiness or a disappointment in part of the
managers who are evaluating them and the employees who have been evaluated.

Gaining competitive advantage is one of the goals and objectives of different companies
and/or entities worldwide having the primary purpose of maintaining the overall goods and
desirable reputation of the organization. In this instance, the employees play a vital role in
achieving the said competitive advantage, therefore, the top management, specifically the
managers, should have the proper knowledge and control on the behavior of their employees and
they should be aware of the performance their people execute in their particular job and working
area. Technically speaking, this is what we called the performance appraisal wherein the process
of getting information on how well a specific employee is doing or performing his or her job was
being accomplished by the organization itself. Most of the managers viewed the performance
appraisals as an annual ritual because the employees are being evaluated based on their progress
against the goals that are set annually by their managers. This performance appraisals gives the
employees the feedback towards their performance in accomplishing their jobs while in terms of
managers, this help them to make significant decisions and assess those areas which need some
related improvements.
 Stating the fact that performance appraisal is essential for every organization, the company
should take it into consideration as one of the significant parts of their performance management
systems. In accordance with it, some questions might arise on why the organization, especially
the managers, should conduct performance appraisal in their entity, therefore, here are the
reasons why. First, it is essential for the growth of the company as well as the employees because
once the human resource managers identified the overall behavior and performance of their
employees, it would be easy for them to make decisions on how to improve the quality of work
resulting for the continuous growth of the company. It can also help them to determine whether
they should give rewards such as bonuses to their employees to make them more motivated
towards their work. While on the part of the employees, it would be a great help for them
because of the relevant feedback that they might receive from their managers and it would also
be helpful in finding out how they are performing and where their careers are heading.

In addition to why the company should conduct a performance appraisal, it would serve as
a productive platform for the employees to express their work related issues in terms of their
assigned job or their relationship towards their fellow employees and managers as well in a
similar workplace. There are instances in company that communication gap between the
employees and management are the main issues affecting the performance of the employees. One
of the best ways to resolve this issue is through the help of performance appraisal because it
would help them break the ice between each other which will definitely result in a higher
productivity rate. While in part of being a manager, they have the obligation to sort things out
properly regarding the concerns or issues that their people are raising to them. With these
aforementioned statements, it only implies that both employees and management are benefited
when performance appraisals are being exercised or conducted within the organization.

Exercising performance appraisal annually within the company might cause positive and
negative impact to some especially in the viewpoint of the employees. Some people argued that
performance appraisal systems may come to the point of being manipulative, autocratic, abusive
and counterproductive. Due to the fact that it is about the assessment and evaluation of
employees' performance, most of them think about it negatively especially when the results of
performance appraisal turn out to be low and undesirable. It is because managers would make
corresponding actions on how to effectively manage them in performing their job and maybe
because of that, some of them might consider it manipulating. And that was expected to happen
since different employees have different perspectives towards work related concerns.

However, performance appraisal can still provide several valuable benefits to both employees
and the company. One of the important scenarios in which the use of appraisal can be executed
is when the company that a certain employee is working for has a lot of competitors outside
which offers similar products and/or services to the market. When this happens, it only means
that equipped, knowledgeable and flexible employees are needed to be able to compete,
therefore, performance appraisal can be used. Through the performance appraisal, employees can
be evaluated fairly in terms of how they do their job and how they handle various things in times
of need. One of the important parts of appraising performance is to establish employee goals,
which should be tied to the company’s strategic goals which will help to strengthen the
performance of the entity.

Performance management is central to gaining competitive advantage and the company

believes that performance appraisal is only one part of the broader process of it. The process of
performance appraisal clearly tells the top performers that they are being valued by the company.
Those assigned personnel who should assess the performance of the employees are always
mentioned in the previous paragraphs, and they are the managers. Managers as defined are those
persons who are concerned with the proper utilization of human workforce within the
management. They are the one who manage and control accordingly the accurate behavior and
attitude that a particular employee should possess in accordance with the goals, policies and
regulations being implemented within the organization.

A good appraisal process ensures that all employees doing similar jobs are evaluated
according to the same standards which are set by the managers who are administered to this kind
of responsibility. With the help of performance appraisal, the managers could easily identify who
among his employees are the weakest, meaning those who have low results in performance
evaluation and needs some related improvements. And secondly, those who are strongest which
resulted in higher performance evaluation and can contribute more within the organization. With
that, it would be favorable on the part of the human resource managers to legally justify their
decisions in terms of promotions, demotion, salary increase, rewards and discipline for the
employees. It will lessen the burden of the respective managers in decision making process and
at the same time employees will become aware of how they are performing.

Appraisal systems exist to improve organizational efficiency in a way of ensuring that

individuals perform to the best of their ability, develop their potential, and earn appropriate
reward. This system enables the management to lead improvements towards organizational
performance. It allows the company to determine and identify things regarding their workforce.
And most importantly, it helps those underperforming employees to identify training needs and
skill gaps that require focus. These showed how important it is to have or conduct performance
appraisal annually, semi-annually or quarterly depending on the company's decision which will
also help in the continuous growth and performance management of the organization.