Your organization’s current system

Start by finding out your current situation. Describe your organization’s current system for performance management and its policies and practices for human resource management. Explain its role in your organization and its relationship to your organization’s other HR functions (hiring, disciplinary measures, transfers, promotions, IR, occupational health and safety, etc.). You might find that different people have very different views of what the system actually is, and the written policy and procedures might be different again.

There might also be very good reasons for designing the current system as it is, such as the size and structure of the organization, the industry, internal politics, etc. Make a note of these as they come up.

 

Evaluate your current system

Do an evaluation of your system, using the following questions to guide you:

1. Draw a diagram of the lines of accountability in the organization. This should already be written down in your organization's policies, but their might be points that are unclear or have the potential to create difficulty in a performance management system. (For example, some people might be accountable to multiple supervisors, and some people might have multiple roles, perhaps at different levels.)
2. Does your organization have career policies? How good are they? How many people even know what they are?
3. How are staff evaluated?
1. How often?
2. By what criteria? Who sets the criteria?
3. Who is responsible to make sure it happens?
4. What incentives does the system have for employees?
5. Why would people want to make the system effective for the organization? What are the incentives?
6. What are the weaknesses and strengths of your performance management system?
7. What is your organization's current organizational capability? If it doesn’t have a clear statement of its capability, look at the strategic plan, where it will probably be implied. Consider also the effects of change, such as growth, economic circumstances, and excess capacity.

 

The improvement cycle

When someone first assesses an organization for improvements, the changes are often quite large and offer huge benefit for relatively little effort. However, later on when the biggest problems are resolved and the system is quite good, only small improvements are possible. In other words, you can make rather large changes if your organization needs help. But don't worry if the system is already quite good and you can't make such large changes.

Eventually, the whole system becomes out-dated if, for example, the organization outgrows the system or new technology becomes available. The system then needs to needs to be replaced with a new, different system, so the improvements are again quite radical. The cycle starts again.

 

Suggest improvements

You have already had a good look at current best practice. Any shortcomings in your current system should now be fairly obvious.

1. What improvements in the system would you suggest? Explain your reasons.
2. What improvements in the training of supervisors would you suggest? Explain your reasons.