2. Assess performance
2.1

Design performance management and review processes to ensure consistency with organisational objectives and policies

2.2

Train participants in the performance management and review process

2.3

Conduct performance management in accordance with organisational protocols and time lines 2.4

Monitor and evaluate performance on a continuous basis

2.1 - Design performance management and review processes to ensure consistency with organisational objectives and policies

What is Performance Management?
Performance management is a method used to measure and improve the effectiveness of people in the workplace. (Luecke and Hall, 2005, p.xi). Performance Management starts with goal setting. As a manager, you need to not only look at individual goals, but at the group as a whole so that you can develop and manage and develop in a way in which you can increase the probability that you will be able to ensure that both long and short term goals are met.
The key is ensuring that the individuals and their teams obtain a clear and concise shared understanding of what they are trying to achieve.

Overview of performance assessment
Now that you have established work processes, performance standards and indicators and codes of conduct have been established and agreed to, you need to think about how you plan to assess and manage performance.
To remain competitive, it is essential to make sure that your human assets are effective. Measuring performance allows you to measure your team members’ ability to apply their skills and knowledge, to work effectively together and to use service excellence to meet and surpass the customer’s needs. Assessing performance is important to all organisations in terms of promoting employee performance. It is not good for any organisation to establish outcomes and performance requirements unless they are supported by a functional system of assessment. As a manager you need to manage your staff members’ performance to see how well or badly individual staff and teams are performing.

The role of assessment in the performance process
The management and assessment of performance is integral to the development and success of an organisation. It makes sure that the employees are aware of what they are doing.

For example
Fred is employed in your organisation’s administration office. His job involves answering customer enquiries, processing new customers and handling complaints. To be effective in his job, he has to answer the phone within three rings and handle complaints while, processing all new customer information and entering it into organisations’ database within 24 hours of the customer’s initial call. You have recently been appointed as a manager and schedule a meeting with him to see how he is performing in the job. He tells you that he is doing well and everything is fine. You would like to verify this by looking at some relevant data, but you discover that:

 Your organisation has no system for tracking the number of the calls he receives and that he processes all of the required information into the database.
 You database software states exactly where information has been entered and by who.
You can see that every new customer has spoken with has been entered into the database, but you have no way of knowing whether this was done within 24 hours of the initial call.
 Notes you have found from Fred’s previous supervisor indicate that he passed on very few customer complaints; however there is no way of knowing whether the amount of complaints passed on exceeded 25%.

This example illustrates why performance cannot be managed unless an organisation puts in place a framework and set of specific procedures for assessing performance.

What is a performance management system?
A performance management system provides management with the key elements for the recruitment, assessment; appraisal and follow up of performance. It relies on documents and procedures that guide
management