Performance Management: Recent Trends

Every employee, no matter what his or her role is, knows that exceptional employee performance is critical in today s world. Any organization that plans for long-term success needs to focus on the performance of employees to prevent any undue effect. This brings out a change in the manager’s role-from performance supervisors to performance coaches. Every organization needs to have competent and experienced persons to accomplish the activities successfully. Employee performance does not occur in a vacuum and it is necessary to raise the skill level and increase the versatility and adaptability of employees through coaching, mentoring and training. The success of an organization depends on its ability to measure accurately the performance of its members and use it objectively to optimize them as a vital resource. Performance appraisal provides the management a feedback on employee performance to improve and help them acquire new skills. It helps identify training and development needs of employees and equip them to meet challenges in their current and future employment. The appraisals can be used for identifying areas where development efforts are needed. Thus, performance appraisal is a major tool for identifying these deficiencies and it is used as a criterion against which selection devices and development programmes are validated. Coaching, mentoring and training are key components of performance enhancement programmes. Special care is taken to ensure that talented persons are hired and then offered a commitment by the organisation to maintain their ongoing development. Coaching, mentoring and training can become the vehicle that motivates behavioural change in increasing the organisation s performance.