Following persons bear responsibility in performance management:
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1. Individuals
Individual employees bear the main responsibility in performance management. The key activities involved in managing an organization’s individual performance are:
- Commitment to Goal Achievement: Performance starts with goals, a new and distinct atmosphere that the individual seeks to achieve. It is noteworthy that a goal is neither a necessity nor a desire. When a manager declares to his employees to bring down the costs by 10% in the upcoming quarter, it cannot be called a goal until and unless it is also accompanied by employees’ efforts. Thus, the goal is essentially an ideal state to which employees are committed.
- Requesting Performance Feedback and Coaching: The employee should proactively request his performance feedback and should not wait for the review cycle to get over. Again, the employee should not wait for any serious problem to develop to ask for coaching. Here, the employee is expected to play an active role in requesting coaching and performance feedback from his manager.
- Open and Continuous Communication with the Supervisor: Similar to supervisors, who bear the responsibility of providing regular feedback and revising task expectations required during the appraisal process, subordinates, to have the responsibility of communicating their views on the subject with their respective supervisors on a regular basis.
- Gathering and Sharing Performance Data: As soon as the tasks are completed, and goals are met, the employees are required to update the manager regarding the level of achievement of goals.
- Preparing for Performance Reviews: The individual is no more an inactive participant whenever a review is upcoming, be it a yearly formal performance appraisal discussion or an informal progress check is done quarterly. The advice to employees is to remain prepared. Any work done beforehand will significantly affect the effectiveness of a performance appraisal meeting. An employee who is new to the company can ask his coworkers about what he can expect. If a standard form of performance appraisal is followed in the company, the employee can write the performance appraisal after getting a copy. It does not matter if the procedures require it or not. The employee should be blunt about his weaknesses and, at the same time, open about his achievements. While writing the appraisal, the employee must keep in mind the perspective of his supervisor. This would help him to identify the areas where he has wrongly read his supervisor’s perceptions. He can also evaluate his actual performance by comparing it with the goals set a year ago and thereby ascertain how far he has been successful in achieving those goals.
2. Supervisors
Supervisors bear primary responsibility over the following issues:
- Observation and Documentation: It is the responsibility of supervisors to constantly monitor good as well as poor performance. For this purpose, they need to observe and document the performances of individuals on a daily basis.
- Updates: With the change in goals of the organization, supervisors need to update and change the original objectives, performance standards, areas of competence, and basic responsibilities.
- Feedback: Supervisors should provide regular feedback about the progress toward goals and give coaching to employees, prior to the completion of the review cycle, in order to improve their performance.
- Resources: It is the responsibility of supervisors to provide employees with necessary equipment and materials, besides an opportunity so that they may contribute in the progress of the organization. They must promote and encourage employees to participate in various developmental activities, special assignments, and training. Generally, it is the supervisor’s responsibility to see that employees are having adequate funds and other resources to perform the task at hand effectively.
- Reinforcement: Through reinforcement of successful behaviors, supervisors should let their employees know that their exceptional performance is being recognized. Moreover, it is also necessary that supervisors must provide feedback on poor performance and the remedial action needed to correct it. But, recognition and communication are not enough, rather performance problems must be detected early, and remedial actions should be taken immediately.