Human_Performance_Management

Human Performance Management: The People Side of Quality In enhancing business growth and meeting customer needs and expectations, Human Performance, is looked at as a system of key components. The key components, according to the authors, are necessary for a business to improve quality and productivity. The key components are: 1. Customer Needs and Expectations 2. Vision, Mission, values and Goals 3. Core Organizational Competencies and Processes 4. Individual Performance 5. Job Analysis, Personnel Specifications, Performance Requirements, and job Descriptions. 6. Recruiting and Selection Guidelines 7. Performance Appraisal 8. Feedback/Coaching, Training, and development Activities 9. Performance Evaluation 10. Compensation and Benefits, Reward and Recognition System 11. Career Pathing and Succession Planning Customer Needs and Expectations – are viewed as general needs and molds the reader into the idea that the business overall needs to be focused on this. Customer satisfaction should always be the number one goal of any business that wishes to succeed. Vision, Mission, Values and Goals – the Vision, Mission, Values and Goals, according to the writers, are “created to guide performance at every level of the organization”. Core Organizational Competencies and Processes - is discussed as being important to knowing the business Core Competencies, while helping to define the Core Business Processes. Individual Performance – “an employee’s individual and collective behavior contributes to the Core competencies of the organization.” When the connection occurs, it helps the employee understand how they contribute to the success of the organization and this becomes very important if rewards are linked to performance or skills. Job Analysis, Personnel Specifications, Performance Requirements, and Job Descriptions - The Job Analysis is described as”the process of analyzing each job in terms of the tasks, duties and behaviors necessary to complete the job”. Personnel Specifications define the skills and abilities for a person to be successful at a job. Performance Requirements identify the “levels of effective individual and team performance.” Interestingly, they pose the question how to know when an individual is performing effectively or when it is the team. To this they say “….effective and ineffective job performance levels must be identified.” This can only be done through clearly defined goals as prescribed through Performance Management. Job Descriptions, they contend, are created after all of the other information is gathered in order to the relevant data for each job. Recruiting and Selection Guidelines – is a blurred attempt at selecting individuals who will likely be successful employees. They talk about developing procedures for selecting individuals based upon the job analysis, but nothing more. I’m not convinced a procedure will help in selecting the right candidate. Performance Appraisal – different from Employee Evaluation, the article addresses the importance of performance on both the individual and team levels. The appraisal is intended to provide feedback to the employee on how he/she has performs on the job. It also contends that the Performance Appraisal is useful in identifying training and development needs, and provides an opportunity for setting goals. Feedback/Coaching, Training, and Development Activities – provides a structure for a manager and employee to agree on development plans and goals, which include training. Performance Evaluation – evaluates individual and team performance and skills in terms of value. This is directly linked to pay and promotions. “Individual performance is evaluated against criteria identified in the job analysis process”…. Compensation and Benefits, Reward and Recognition System – is developed to link compensation to some type of a method of rewarding performance. One statement that they emphasized is; “Combining a meaningful compensation system with a training and development system provides employees and managers with both the incentives and the support they need to achieve peak performance.” Career Pathing and Succession Planning – Career Pathing is described as a way for an employee to “clearly identify a path that his/her career could follow in their organization.” Succession Planning is the process of looking into the future to determine what positions may be created due to growth, and who may fill those positions. Taking into account the key components noted, the article sees this as an entire system to encompass the organizational culture, values, and how structured the company may be. The article continues along the same lines regurgitating the same information only in different words. It says it needs to be supported completely from the top management for the system to work. With this core guiding principles must be understood by everyone in the organization to provide direction for how people should behave. Conclusion- “For the quality movement to continue to provide the full benefit of its approaches and methodologies, it must now look to the source of productivity. The source of the productivity is not the processes but the people who perform them.” While the overall article is very good and informative, it does touch upon some aspects of Performance Management. However, the article places an emphasis on a “system” instead of focusing on enhancing the performance of the people who are the organization.