Because line managers are in daily contact with employees and can best measure performance, they are usually the ones who conduct appraisals.

I see the appraisal as a communication tool to measure each employee’s individual contribution, it assists in evaluating talent and achievement with consistency and accuracy.  This sort of evaluation should help managers have a better understanding of each employee’s skills with the goal to facilitate, train and develop abilities and empower their employees.

The impact of the outcome of such an appraisal form is underestimated in an organisation.

My own experience is that many organisations do not even realise that it guides actions like promoting but also termination, in certain cases it will even align bonus schemes, it provides feedback on parts of improvement, it identifies development needs and even provides data for human resources planning. HR is able to use the concept to align the customer people needs.

Yet, come to think of it is this not like ‘big brother is watching us organisational style’?

The problem with many performance appraisals tools is that line-managers have absolute authority to evaluate their employees, which means that it is a largely subjective (!) and in many cases standards of performance are vague and generic.

So it is particularly sensitive subject as cultures high in femininity within a workforce tend to favor evaluating employee performance on softer criteria, by providing support to the team and contributing to workplace harmony. (Do you agree with this?)

If organizations just implement an appraisal tool, without checking if it aligns with the organization and environment (as they do all the time!) this will upset employees, as they feel threatened by likely negative feedback and exposing of individual weaknesses. Even though the organization would call it constructive feedback, it is still quite confrontational and therefore can be best avoided if the plan is to do it individually.

I believe that a performance management system based on team work may be most beneficial in the long term for smaller organisations, yet one needs to realise that implementing a performance programme is a huge task and it will need to be a little flexible as external environment changes will have an indirect impact on the running of a performance management programme.

In my eyes, an organisation has two options, the so-called balance scorecard which is a management system that can enable HR to clarify its vision, strategy and translate them into action. However I believe that the wheel framework which primarily measure teamwork is most likely to work with its diversity and it only requires a few adaptations.

I believe by undertaking a group performance management method it benefits by way of the common language and shared understanding.  It allows teams to develop action plans for improved team performance, creating an innovative competitive advantaged programme.

This allows each team to understand what is expected of them in terms of their role and involvement in the team.

• Advising work is concerned with giving and gathering information. It involves finding out what others are doing.
• Innovating is a key aspect of teamwork and involves challenging the way things are currently being done.
• Promoting to customers both inside or outside the organisation is also important if everyone is to continually deliver what employees want.
• Developing ensures that all ideas are molded and shaped to meet the needs of the customers.
• Organising the team so that everyone knows what they have to do, how, and when.
• Producing that ensures the team keeps on delivering the required outputs.
• Inspecting covers checks on work activities are essential to ensure that mistakes are not made.
• Maintaining ensures that quality standards are upheld and that regular reviews of team effectiveness take place.
• Linking is the activity that ensures all team members pull together.

*Adapted from Margerison and McCann’s

To work effectively an organization must regularly and objectively review ‘teamwork’,  examining work processes to ensure that the team is working creatively, that the team is effectively promoting itself to other teams.

The people team should address these by focusing on key success factors that lead to high performance within the organisation.

These can be addressed through a process posed as questions:

So it’s target is that managing team performance starts by identifying where the team is performing well and where it needs further development. 

It would be managed by the line manager with input and support from the HR. It is impediment that before rolling this programme out to the wider workforce that every line-manager receives an one day trainingon how to run this.  In addition, organisations should take the working culture into account and base the feedback on team facts, rather than on personal comments.

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