The Activities of Performance Management Roles

Performance management (PM) actually includes activities to ensure that goals or objectives of a company are consistently being met in an effective and efficient manner. Performance management also includes the processes used to conduct corporate performance such as strategy formulation, budgeting and forecasting. Besides that, performance management can focus on the performance of an employee, a department, an organization or even the processes to build a product or service. First we have to know the important roles of a management in a marketing company.

Many people believe that the role of a management is improving control systems. It is also believe that greater control over marketing costs and results are major benefits used to justify the implementation of database marketing (DBM) systems. The development and implementation of performance measures provide feedback upon which effective control is based. Feedback from measures of performance may assist managers in improving the productivity of marketing mix decisions, data collection, segmentation, and modeling. Measuring the results of alternative marketing programs is also an important feature of DBM. Accurate measurement provides feedback about the responses of different customer segments to alternative marketing mix scenarios which may supply information to improve DBM productivity. The implementation of performance measure within DBM systems provides an ideal work for measuring the effectiveness of marketing programs. However, developing an effective system is a complex process.

Firstly, the process requires a deeply understanding of the application of control processes to DBM especially the managers.

[1] The managers also have to know the data capture requirements and construction of alternative performance measures.

[1] Lastly, they also have be familiar with the human and cultural factors, within the environmental context of business, which constrain and enhance the control process.

[1] This understanding should assist the managers in determining their performance measurement needs, and how they can be effectively implemented within the context of DBM systems. The marketing control process basically consists of four steps which the managers have to go through. Firstly, the managers have to define the database marketing aims and objectives which are most appropriate to their organization’s needs.

Then the customer database may then be used as a source of information for market planning. The next step requires the definition of performance measures that will adequately monitor the results of alternative marketing scenarios. Before we talk about the roles of a manager to create performance opportunities, let’s go through the performance deficiencies that may occur in a company. Firstly, the work tasks given by the superior are done incompletely, late or not at all. I believe this is a common performance deficiency that happens in most of the companies. Besides that, some of the employees do complete their work tasks but it is sloppy and contains many errors.

Some of the employees also only complete their work when they are reminded constantly. This shows that the employee cannot manage his or her own work. In addition to that, employees do not report results back to the appropriate parties, so the right people do not know they are complete. Another performance deficiency is that the quality of work tasks done by the employee are uneven, sometimes adequate and sometimes not. Performance deficiency also occurs in a company where the employers or managers discriminate against any group of persons for some reasons. Some of the performance deficiencies of particular concern can also be grouped into four primary categories.

Firstly, where a pattern of behaviour as indicated by more than an isolated comment or complain about a person’s job related behaviour of performance. The performance concerns may be expressed by county Extension oversight committees, program areas, program partners, clientele groups and also colleagues. Secondly is the observer behaviour where a single incident or a pattern over time that is contributing to a hostile work environment. Thirdly is the unsuccessful tenured faculty review leading to a twelve month remediation process and the fourth is the lack of acceptable improvement in professional performance after feedback and coaching related to observed deficiencies. Normally, an employee will be given an opportunity period which he/her will be given the opportunity to work on those portions of the job that are unacceptable, but not to the exclusion of other work assignments. A longer period may be warranted depending on the nature of the employee’s position 2 and the performance deficiency involved.

The rating official will ensure that the employee receives adequate work time to improve the area that has been declared unacceptable. Normally within 14 days of the end of the opportunity period, the rating official will notify the employee in writing whether the employee’s performance has improved to the fully successful level. However, there are ways that a manager can take to reduce the performance deficiency in a company and also increases the productivity. One of the most effective ways is by the performance appraisal. Performance appraisal is a formal management system that provides for the evaluation of the quality of an individual’s performance in an organization.[3]Most organisations throughout the world regardless of whether they are large or small, public or private, service or manufacturing, use performance appraisal, with varying degrees of success, as a tool to achieve a variety of human resource management objectives (Longenecker, 1997).

[2] Yong (1996) defines performance appraisal as “an evaluation and grading exercise undertaken by an organisation on all its employees either periodically or annually, on the outcomes of performance based on the job content, job requirement and personal behaviour in the position”.

[2] For example, the performance appraisal system in the Malaysian Public Service Department is a continuous process of evaluating every employee’s performance which begins in January and ends in December every year.

[2] Performance appraisal is a process which involves creating work standards; evaluate employee’s actual performance relative to those work standards; and giving feedback to employee so as to motivate him or her to improve the job performance or to eliminate performance deficiency. Typically, modern performance appraisal systems are employed to achieve several objectives that include improvement in the communication between supervisor and subordinate through the use of feedback between them, identification of the scope for performance improvement and the means to achieve this, identification of individual training and development needs, identification of the potential of individuals for promotion placement, as the basis for remuneration and reward, on the basis of performance and as a powerful means of managerial control, through the setting of objectives and a review of success or failure in achieving these (Edmonstone, 1996; Longenecker, 1997).

[2] The purpose of this performance appraisal is also to highlight the common problems associated with performance appraisals. At the same time, this paper explores the type of rater training programmes available and the rater skills that managers require to enable them to perform effective formal performance appraisals. It will demonstrate that the managerial skills necessary to conduct an effective performance appraisal are indeed complex and, yet, highly interrelated and require attention to properly develop. Four aspects will be taken into consideration when evaluating staff performance and each aspect will index into its sub criteria such as working output, knowledge and skills, personal quality and informal events and contributions.

[3] The working output aspect evaluates the quantity, quality and effectiveness of the staff’s working output as well as staff’s punctuality. However, the knowledge and skills aspect evaluates the staff’s knowledge and skills in the working field as well as their effectiveness in communication and realization of rules.

Besides that, the personal quality aspect evaluates the personal quality appreciated by the organization such as discipline, proactive, innovative, cooperativeness and independence. Lastly, the informal events and contributions aspect is the staff’s contribution to the organization, community, state, country and international. Performance appraisals also require the rater of the performance appraisal to objectively reach a conclusion about performance.

The use of ratings assumes that the rater is reasonably objective and accurate. However, in reality, raters’ memories are quite fallible, and raters subscribe to their own sets of likes, dislikes, and expectations about people, which may or may not be valid (Ivancevich, 2001). During the performance appraisal review, managers have to meet up with employees or subordinates to review performance ratings, deal with employees reactions which sometimes resistant or negative to appraisal ratings, solve problems and discuss with employees on how to improve their performance at work and also potentially deal with career counselling and career development issues. For the managers to successfully complete this performance appraisal they have to require some specific skills such as specific knowledge of effective appraisal review procedures, coaching skills to discuss specific feedback issues, conflict resolution and problem-solving skills to identify and remove employee concerns and workplace frustrations and performance barriers.

[2] Moreover, managers have to have the skills of employee development or career counseling to help the employee identify the opportunities for improvement and to discuss long-term career issues.

[2] Besides that, managers also have to have the knowledge of legal or compliance issues to avoid discussions that violate existing laws or create unnecessary legal exposure.

[2] So as we can see, the managers have to do their part well or properly train to conduct effective appraisals. If performance is important to an organisation, so is the appraisal of that performance. If appraisal is important, then managers must be led to develop the skills presented that are critical for effective appraisal. We can say that the organisational appraisal process cannot achieve its desired objectives without these critical competencies. The effectiveness of this performance appraisal is mainly determined by the understanding, commitment and skills of the managers who must actually implement the system.

When the manager conducting any performance appraisal does not possess the skill or motivation to rate the employee’s performance, problems are a foregone conclusion.

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