Employee Engagement- Human Resources Management- Essay Assignment Solution

HR Management Essay Assignment

Essay Topic

In this assessment students must write a 1500-word essay on one of the following topics:

1. Employee engagement is a global issue, with levels of below 30percent being reported globally. Discuss what factors contribute to employee engagement and how HR can take a strategic role in enhancing employee engagement.

• Define employee engagement, referring to related terms such as job satisfaction, motivation and other related concepts.
• Outline the factors which may have contributed to the reducing levels of employee engagement in the current work environment this will include demographic factors and also workplace factors.
• Outline and discuss how HR can strategically contribute to the assessment and effective management and enhancement of employee engagement to contribute to organisational goals and outcomes.

2. What is HR’s role in performance management and performance appraisaland how can this role assist organisations to achieve strategic goals?

• Explain the key characteristics of performance management and performance appraisal making a clear distinction between these.
• Discuss the challenges associated with these processes from managers and employees perspectives
• Indicate how these processes can contribute to organisational goals and outcomes
• Outline and discuss the role of HR in these processes and ways in which HR can make a contribution to the achievement of strategic goals through these processes.

3. Downsizing aims to achieve greater organisational efficiency by job elimination however there are often negative outcomes from a poorly designed and implemented policy and approach.

• Define and explain what the downsizing strategy is referring also to alternative strategies.
• Outline the processes required when downsizing is implemented referring to legislation and requirements in regard to the protection of employee rights.
• Discuss how downsizing can be implemented and the challenges which can be faced by organisations in terms of employees both those who are retrenched and those who remain. Clearly explain the negative effects of poorly implemented downsizing policies in the short and long term.
• Throughout discuss the role of HR in this process and how the HR role can effectively assist the implementation of organisations strategic goals whilst also considering the needs of each of the relevant stakeholders in this process.

The precise wording and scope of the essay should be discussed and agreed with the subject coordinator by the end of Week Eight.

Students are required to undertake the following in conducting students analysis:

1. Refer to and apply relevant models, concepts, theories and literature in the field of human resource management.
2. Students are expected to incorporate relevant research and theory from the broader human resources literature (e.g., journal articles and/or books), not just the text and course materials (in addition to other sources, students r reference list should include a minimum of three journal articles)

Introduction

Performance Management and Performance appraisal are two most significant parts of Human Resource Management. These are the activities that are performed by Human Resource manager so as to fill the gaps between expected performance and actual performance of employees’ .Thus, the central theme of the essay is to make a distinction

between these two activities and their functions. It will also focus on examining the contribution of these activities in achieving the goals of an organisation and how these activities support strategic decision making to achieve strategic goals. It is a duty of HR to keep pace among all these activities and while doing that there are several challenges faced by them. In this way this easy would examine all those challenges by undertaking background study, critical analysis, impact of concepts, applicability of the concepts, literature survey and utilisation of theories and models.

Background

Performance Management is the term that is simply used to manage the performance of employees in an organisation. It is the set of those activities that ensure that there is a consistency in meeting the goals in an effective manner in the organisation. It helps in identifying the employees’ performances and then matching these performances with desired performance for achievement of goals (Waal, 2014).It focuses on performance of whole

organisation, performance of a department, or performance of an employee. It is also known for aligning resources, employees and systems with priorities and strategic objectives. Performance appraisal that is also known as merit rating is a traditional method of evaluating the contribution of individuals and groups in an organisation (Esen et al., 2015). On the basis of this evaluation they are appraised. Both the concepts are totally different from each other but many people use them synonymously. There are a number of differences in both the concepts that are described below:

In this way performance Management and performance appraisal have same objectives but their functions and characteristics are totally different.

Arguments for and against Performance Management and Performance Appraisal

Performance Management and performance appraisal are integral part of any organisation and there is no doubt on their integrity. There are a number of benefits of these concepts to an organisation. With the help of these techniques an organisation is able to achieve its strategic goals. There are many benefits such as financial gain in terms of increase in sales, reducing costs, stopping projects overruns, etc. (Zheng et al., 2012). It also helps in motivating employees by means of incentive plans, employee engagement, bonus payment, professional development, etc. Except for this it also improves management control by means of responsiveness towards management needs, displaying data relationships, complying with legislative requirements, well documented communication process, etc. (Pestonjee et al.,2015). In this way there are a number of benefits of these two concepts in an organisation. But many people argue that these concepts are merely time and resource consuming. There are many biases being associated with these concepts and due to that it leads to de-motivating the employees in organisations. There are several limitations of it such as Halo effect, horn effect, stereotyping, self-serving bias of appraiser, problem of average rating, etc. (Tutytens & Devos, 2012)due to all these factors the results of appraisal are not correct and it ultimately leads to nullifying the whole process.

Applicability of Performance Management and Performance Appraisal

Performance Appraisal and performance management are applicable in all the organisations where people interact or where there is a large number of people. These concepts are applicable in health settings, schools, government agencies, social events, sports teams, community meetings, political settings, etc. In simple terms these concepts can be applied to any organisation where there is a common goal and it is required from all the members to contribute equally towards that goal (Festing et al., 2012).In this era of competitiveness, strategic goal setting and strategic decision making play a very significant role and for that purpose performance management and performance appraisal also play a very significant role.

Impact of Performance Management and Performance Appraisal

Performance management and performance appraisal are the techniques that have huge impact on employees as well as on the organisation. The impact of Performance management and performance appraisal on employees is that it increases the level of motivation, boosts productivity, enhances clarity, task responsibility and enhances teamwork (Waal, 2014). The impact of Performance management and performance appraisal on employees is that it identifies the areas of strengths, identifies training needs, helps in succession planning, effective leadership development and helps in overall goal setting of the organisation. Thus Performance management and performance appraisal have a positive impact on employees as well as the organisation.

Examples of Performance Management and Performance Appraisal

There are many examples of performance management and performance appraisal from the companies around the world. For an instance ALDI uses performance management system in such a way that every month HR holds a meeting a review performance and takes feedback from everyone. In the same way ALDI uses performance appraisal as a tool for bonus,

incentive and succession planning. The similar example is from Australian Pharmaceutical industries where MBO is used as a tool of performance appraisal and everyone aids in achieving the strategic goal of the organisation. Similarly there are many companies from different sectors such as Jetstar Airways, Mirvac group, Arrium, Bulla Diary foods, Woolmark, St. George Bank, Capital Dynamics, etc. that are using these concepts in their

organisations.

Analysis of how HR value adds or manages Performance Management and Performance Appraisal

Performance appraisal and performance management gets value added by HR. It shall be noted that performance appraisal is the activity that is totally owned by HR department of the organisation but performance management can managed by other mangers as well. So when talked about HR value it is definite that performance appraisal gets more value rather than that of performance appraisal. Performance appraisal is top-down process and thus its importance and value is more in an organisation. Performance appraisal and performance management are thus not only important to HR department but they are equally important to the whole organisation.

Relevant models, concepts, theories and literature in the field of HR

There are a number of models of performance management and performance appraisal proposed by scholars and researchers. A model of performance management comprises of three factors that are workplace technology, business strategy and employee involvement (Dusterhoff et al., 2014).This model helps in individual and group performance and this factor is related to goal setting, reward systems and performance appraisal. Thus, this model clearly shows that performance appraisal is a part of performance management systems. This model also proposes that goal setting is an integral part of individual and group performance in an organisation. The performance management model holds a very significant position in literature.

Performance Appraisal model deals majorly with five factors that area clarifying role, agree SMART objectives, monitor and support, review and evaluate and appraisal interview (Edeard & Mone, 2014). This model focuses on making performance appraisal a continuous process. In many organisation performance appraisal is not a continuous process and due to that it has to face numerous problems and this is why it is very important to make this process continuous so that the role of every employee is clear and they shall know organisational goals and work according to that.

Human Resource Management is very vast and there are a number of theories and models in it but the relevant ones are described here that are performance management model and performance appraisal model.

Supporting research and theory from HRM literature, journals, etc

The impact of Performance management and performance appraisal on employees and organisation has been a relevant topic for research in HRM literature since decades. The effectiveness of performance appraisal and performance management can never be questioned (Ramaswamy & Chaubey, 2014).There is a research that focuses on different methods of performance appraisal and utility of performance management in companies(Budworth et al., 2015).The different methods of performance appraisal are ranking method, check-list method, rating –scale method, field review, critical incident report, essay appraisal, etc. There are many companies who tend to reframe their performance management practices due to several problems in achieving strategic goals (Yao & Fan, 2015).In this way there are numerous research and theory from HRM literature with respect to performance management and performance appraisal.