Performance appraisals, and reward & recognition programs

  There are number of performance appraisal methods those have been developed over the time. One method would be best suited for a company while another is for another company. The organizations follow different types of appraisal methods since there is no any universal appraisal method. According to Lunenburg (2012), three are 3 main categories of performance appraisals: the judgmental approach, the absolute standards approach, and the results-oriented approach. According to Nash, Winstone, Gregory and Papps (2018), the main two categories are Past-Oriented and Future Oriented Performance appraisals. However, performance appraisals can be broadly categorized into two categories: Traditional methods and Modern Methods (Aggarwal and Thakur, 2013).   Traditional Methods   Ranking Method The managers rank their subordinates from best to worst considering the performance or a particular trait. The practice is to write the name of best performer on the top and least ...

  In contrast to the Traditional methods of performance appraisals, Modern performance appraisal methods have been developed to mitigate the shortcomings such as bias and subjectivity (Aggarwal and Thakur, 2013).   Modern Methods Management By Objectives (MBO) The “Management By Objectives” method was introduced by Peter Drucker in 1954. According to Drucker’s concept, ‘objectives setting’ and ‘progress monitoring’ are the main 2 factors those should be followed throughout the company from the CEO to the labor (Kyriakopoulos, 2012). Extended model for MBO, namely SAMBO was introduced by Heinz Weihrich in 2000 with 7 elements. 1.       Strategic Planning and hierarchy of objectives 2.       Setting objectives 3.       Planning for actions 4.       Implementation of MBO 5.       Control and Appraisal 6.       Su...

    Organizational performance is dependent on individual performances of the employees. Due to biasness or some rating errors, employees get inaccurate ratings in their performance evaluations. Types of errors/effects and biasness are described in detail in the below. Minimizing the errors will bring employee satisfaction, motivation to work as well as the performance improvement  (Javidmehr and Ebrahimpour, 2015)   Strictness or Leniency Depending on the rater, employees might get lower rating or a higher rating than the deserved rating. The superior employees will get affected due to strictness as they are getting a lower rating than the expected. Due to leniency, all the subordinates will get a higher rating than the expected but consequently superior subordinates might get demotivated. The Forced distribution like grading on a curve, or modern appraisal techniques can be used to minimize the Strictness-Leniency bias as those techniques are result oriented and ab...

       The Reward and Recognition are employee motivational factors those influence and direct the employee behaviors to achieve the targets and goals (Danish and Usman, 2010). The efficiency and the productivity of an organization can be improved through a well-designed reward and recognition mechanism (Akafo and Boateng, 2015).      Reward is an incentive which is given in return for an accomplishment of a task/goal. Bonuses, promotions, gift certificates, flowers are examples of rewards. Recognition is how the employees are publicly valued for their contributions for the company. Positive feedback, appreciations, encouragements are samples for recognition (Zeb, Rehman, Saeed and Ullah, 2014). ‘Employee-of-the-month’ and ‘Lunch-with-the-CEO’ are also the recognition programs ( Akafo and Boateng, 2015)   Total Reward Management      Total Rewards concept had been developed since early 1990s, but a Total Rewards Model was first unve...

Performance appraisals are used to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of the employees in an organization (Aggarwal and Thakur, 2013). Mutually agreed goals are more effective than the pre-defined goals for an employee. The mutually agreed goals which are driven by the business strategy are the most effective for performance appraisal (Lawler III, Benson and McDermott, 2012). The goal setting should be done using the SMART technique (“Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Targeted”) to increase the effectiveness of the performance appraisals (Cappelli and Conyon, 2018) According to Rothwell, Lindholm, Yarrish and Zaballero (2012), dilemmas in performance appraisals include: Uncomfortable Time-consuming Not specific, general comments Ratings inflated Sends false message of success Creates false superiority Limits future development Hard to defend in court According to Russell, J. and Russell, L. (2009), dilemmas of the performance appraisals can be mitigated by refr...