Performance Management Process
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The University of Ghana in Legon, Ghana, was established in 1948 as an affiliate college of the University of London called University College of the Gold Coast. In 1961, the university was reorganized by an act of Parliament into what it is today: the independent, degree-granting University of Ghana (http://www.ug.edu.gh/).
The Balme Library is the main library in the University of Ghana library system. Situated on the main Legon campus, it coordinates a large number of libraries attached to the university’s various schools, institutes, faculties, departments, and halls of residence, most of which are autonomous. The library was started as the College Library in 1948 and was then situated in Achimota College, which was about 8 kilometers from the present Legon campus. In 1959, the College Library moved into its brand-new buildings at the Legon campus and was named after the University College of the Gold Coast’s first principal, David Mowbrary Balme.
As in the case of many other modern university libraries worldwide that face resources challenges and the need to serve an increasingly diverse customer base, the Balme Library has implemented numerous initiatives. One such initiative is a performance management system. However, several of the 5657components of the performance management process at the Balme Library are in need of improvement. First, there is no evidence that a systematic job analysis was conducted for any of the jobs at the library. Second, the forms that the employees are rated on contain vague items such as “general behavior.” The forms include no specific definition of what “general behavior” is or examples explaining to employees (or managers) what would lead to a high or a low rating in this category. In addition, all library employees are rated on the same form, regardless of their job responsibilities. Third, there is no evidence that managers have worked with employees in setting mutually agreed-upon goals. Fourth, there is no formal or informal discussion of results and needed follow-up steps after the subordinates and managers complete their form. Not surprisingly, an employee survey revealed that more than 60% of the employees have never discussed their performance with their managers. Finally, employees are often rated by different people. For example, sometimes the head of the library rates an employee, even though he may not be in direct contact with that employee.
Based on the above description, please answer the following questions.
1)Identify one component in the performance management process at the Balme Library that has not been implemented effectively and describe how the poor implementation of that component has a negative impact on the flow of the performance management process as a whole.
2)Make sure you identify the problem and not just symptoms.
Added thoughts:
In examining this case and other cases, let’s consider a critical thinking approach. Normally we want to move toward solutions before we have thoroughly formulated the problem; the text and author and your studies to date have emphasized that point; probably in your profession as well. We can define a problem as the difference between the current state and the desired state.
Critical thinking and analysis has two essential parts – a process on how we define the problem and can we assess our process? Elder and Paul (2005) instruct us that a problem should be formulated from various points of view. In the case we are examining, does your analysis consider the problem from the management point of view? What is the current and desired state? What if we examined the problem from the employee point of view – from department manager’s point of view – from customer points of view? Now we can move toward a solution!
Paul, R., & Elder, L. (2005). A guide for educators to critical thinking competency standards: Standards, principles, performance indicators, and outcomes with a critical thinking master rubric(Vol. 8). Foundation Critical Thinking.
Also,
1) The answer must raise appropriate critical questions.
2) Do include all your references, as per the Harvard Referencing System,
3) Please don’t use Wikipedia web site.
4) I need examples from peer reviewed articles or researches.
5) Turnitin.com copy percentage must be 10% or less.
SAMPLE ANSWER
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT PROCESS
Performance management is the act of assessing and measuring the output of individual employees, departments, faculties or the organization as a whole. This management aspect entails significant activities that aim at providing a way to examine the production levels of a given organization (Gruman et al., 2011). Therefore, when these performances are measured, the organization can be able to follow the trend of production levels in its activities. This will tell whether the production levels are meeting their targets or they are way below the set targets. The significant of this management aspect is the emphasis it puts on the main performance areas that can help the organization achieve steady growth in providing products or services to their customers.
The performance management process comprises a performance management plan. A performance management plan states the critical performance areas and provides an estimated budget for the organization to use towards achieving their performance targets.
In the Balme Library, the main library of the University of Ghana library system, lacks a comprehensive performance management plan. This means that there is no interaction between the management and the employees of the Balme Library. This shows that the main problem is that there is no helpful work relationship between the managers and the employees. According to the evidence inferred from an employee survey that was conducted, there is no hint of a performance management plan managerial system of the library.
The problem with not having a performance management plan is that there is no basis at all set for a sound foundation on which the entire process of performance management can be built on (Ashdown, 2014). The employee survey revealed that over 60% of the employees in the Balme Library have not had any confrontation with the management of the library concerning the productivity level of the library. The main problem hindering the improvement of the adopted performance management system is the lack of a performance management plan.
The consequences of the problem stated above are very drastic pointing in the negative direction. Balme Library can only meet the need of serving a diverse customer base when they successfully implement the performance management plan. As the situation is right now, there are no targets set for the library. The employees output is not geared towards certain goals. Thus, there is no sure way of telling whether the service level of the library is below or above the measure of standards.
In the current situation, Balme Library will continue to offer services to its customer base. The level of improvement of these services cannot change or will experience little change over an extended period of time. This trend is due to the lack of a set standard of services offered by the employees. Each employee works at an individual level and the services provided by each employee will vary considerably. This in turn leads to a performance conflict whereby a high-performance level of one employee may be brought down by a low-performance level from another employee. Therefore the performance level for the whole library will turn out to be a general depression.
The desired level of performance for any modern university library is very clear. It entails working with the limited available resources to provide efficient services to a diverse customer base. From a manager’s point of view, there are some issues that need to be solved for Balme Library to achieve this conventional level of performance.
To effectively implement the performance management system, the management of the Balme Library needs to determine the key management issues that are not carried out well in the library.
First, the management is not concerned with the grading of employees in the library. This creates a problem of allocating tasks to the qualified employee. Thus, many employees have not been able to carry out their responsibilities in a sufficient manner.
Second, there is no significant supervision of workers. This means that employee work in not overseen by anybody. The lack of an overseeing body or a supervising body leads to low standards of performance.
Lastly, the rating of employees is not done in a proper manner. This their issues goes hand in hand with the second issue. Therefore, the lack of a supervisor leads to the absence of an appropriate to review the employee’s rating. Thus, the task of rating an employee’s performance is left to a person who may not be in direct contact with the employee.
In contrast with the manager’s point of view. There is the employee’s point of view. The main issue regarding the employee’s perspective is the lack of an efficient management system. This leads to laxity among employees and encourages low service standards in the library. The management system does not interact with the employees. No interaction means that employees are not kept in check, have no clearly cut roles and responsibilities. Therefore, the output of the employees is below average.
In conclusion, the improvement of the implementation of the performance management system is due to lack of one of its components, which is the absence of a comprehensive performance management plan. The lack of this component is due to a problem that exists in the Balme Library. This problem is the lack of good work relationship and interaction between the management and the employees. Successful implementation of the performance management system can only be achieved when the problem above is solved.
References
Ashdown, L. (2014). Performance management.
BPP Learning Media (Firm), & Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. (2013). Performance management.
Griffin, R., & Moorhead, G. (2011). Organizational behavior. Cengage Learning.
Gruman, J. A., & Saks, A. M. (2011). Performance management and employee engagement. Human Resource Management Review, 21(2), 123-136.
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