Performance Management Effectiveness - Essay Help

Introduction

Performance management is considered as an integral part of any organization’s managerial practices. Companies undertake this continuous process of performance enhancement by aligning the employee goals with the organizational goals, developing their capabilities, skills and experiences and then evaluating their performance progress (Armstrong, 2018). Organizations may adapt to several performance management strategies which includes training and development sessions to enhance the employee skills, incentive strategies to reward them and performance appraisals to evaluate their performance. An efficient performance management framework enables an organization to practice strategic human resource management. This practice would enhance the employee’s productivity and thereby would lead the company to prosper in the long run (Wild, Rhodes & Martinov‐Bennie, 2019). This report is designed to compare and contrast two different performance management frameworks. The analysis of the differences and the similarities will assert the unique patterns of performance effectiveness adapted by different organizations. 

Comparison between two performance management frameworks

The Haines et al and the Biron et al research papers assert different strategies to ensure performance effectiveness in the management framework. Haines et al, which conducts its research via a sample of 312 public and private corporations asserts that organizations that incorporate employee training, recognition and feedback in their performance management system tend to develop valuable frameworks (Biron, Farndale & Paauwe, 2011). Training and appraisal systems also tend to increase employee engagement, thereby strengthening the performance management dynamics (Mone, Eisinger, Guggenheim, Price & Stine, 2019).The research also analyses the effect of other variables like the organizational culture and the employee relations climate on the performance management frameworks (Biron, Farndale & Paauwe, 2011). The research tends to focus more on the practical implications of enhancing the performance management system, rather than on the theoretical framework and design of the system. 

The Biron et al, on the other hand, conducts it’s research via a sample from 16 leading firms and proposes a different theory that tends to explain the effectiveness of the performance management system. His model uses a signaling theory to explain how various factors within the organizational framework tend to communicate the organizational expectations to the employees, thereby reiterating a strong performance management system (Haines & St-Onge, 2012).The signaling theory also leverages the employees by providing them with the ability to interpret the organizational cues (Bergh, Conelly, Ketchen & Shannon, 2014). The paper proposes that performance management frameworks can be enhanced by embedding both the strategic and the tactical aspects of performance management in the framework, involving the senior management in the procedure, communicating the targets and expectations to the workforce and lastly, conducting formal training for the performance raters (Haines & St-Onge, 2012).

The performance effectiveness factors that has been tested in both the theories largely differ. The Haines et all research focuses only on the tactical approach of performance management such as performance appraisals and recognition and limited it’s emphasis on the strategic factors (Haines & St-Onge, 2012). However, the Biron et al research focus on a more comprehensive and an in-depth approach to performance management by covering both the strategic and the tactical goals and including other external factors like senior management involvement in the analysis. Furthermore, the Hiason research tends to establish a direct association between the effectiveness of performance management and it’s consequent variables, unlike the Biron research which establishes an indirect connection. Hence, it can be affirmed that both the articles depict a different perspective to performance management effectiveness (Biron, Farndale & Paauwe, 2011).