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Individual Assignment
Performance Management (HRM 544)






Prepared for
Mr. Zainul Md. Diyar




By
Nurulain binti Mokhtar
2012569287
NBMHF5E




4
th
May 2014






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1. a) List five (5) errors that are likely to be made in rating performance, and state whether
each error is intentional or unintentional.

Leniency error
Leniency error is the tendency of a supervisor to rate an employee with higher rating.
Leniency is intentional error cause by the raters desire promote certain employee or
favourite employee in their department, to impress the manger on their staff or
subordinate performance, to avoid confrontation with employees, encourage employees
or to avoid creating a writing report for poor performance.

Severity error
Severity error is the opposite of leniency error. In severity error, a supervisor tends to
rate an employee lower than what her performance. Severity is an intentional error
cause by supervisor desire to give lesson to the person, to make the person leave the
company or build poor record for the person because of do not like the person.

Halo error
Halo error is an unintentional errors that occurs when a rater have tendency to rate all
aspects of performance based on the observance of one traits. Mean here, if an
employee received high scores in one dimension, she / he will receives a high scores in
all dimensions. For example, physical appearance often impacts the perception a
manager may have of a subordinate. Therefore, because an employee is physically
attractive, this individual may receive all high scores throughout the performance
appraisal system.

Stereotype error
Stereotype error is unintentional error which occurs when raters let stereotypes
influence their rating. For example, an employees age, education or gender may
predispose managers to think they will perform well in others. Managers need to keep
an open minded and be even handed in the opportunities they provide staff. Managers
also need to base their ratings and observed performance rather than using their

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impression about a persons strengths and weaknesses that are based on personal
characteristics.

Primacy error
Is an intentional error that occurs when rater selection is made based on
information that was presented earlier rather than later in a process. For example,
in rating communication skills the supervisors give more weight to incidents
involving communication that took place toward the beginning of the review period
as opposed to incidents taking place at all times.

b) As a human resource manager at ABD Sdn. Bhd., a large accounting firm, you are to
implement a new developmental plan. Design the form that you would use to
implement this new program. Ensure that it contains all of the elements of a good
developmental plan.

**(Kindly refer to the attachment at the back)



c) Illustrate five (5) possible dangers of a poorly implemented performance management
system.

Increased turnover
If the process is not seen as a fair process, employee may leave the company because of they
feel unsatisfied with the system that have been implemented. Employee also will feel
demotivated and either will leave the organization or become unproductive when doing their
work until they find the new job.

Lower self esteem
Employees self esteem may be lowered if feedback given to them is not correct. Therefore,
the employee will become demotivated and will not perform while doing their work.

Wasted time and money
Performance management system is the system that cost a lot of money and quite a bit of
time. If the is poorly designed and implemented, company will lost a lot of money and waste
time. This is not efficient.

Damage relationship
If the system implemented is not efficient, the relationship among people involved may
damage. For example, relationship between managers and subordinate will not going so well
and the subordinate will dislike their manager.


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Decreased motivation to perform
Employee motivation will be decreased because they feel they are not appreciated. Therefore,
the employee performance will also decrease.

2. a) Discuss the reasons why employees often perceive performance appraisal system
negatively.

Rating Bias
Employees dislike performance appraisal because managers do not always rate them on
objective criteria. Employees react with reduced job satisfaction and turnover. Rating bias
occurs with the contamination of appraisal ratings by non-performance related factors. Prime
examples include person characteristic bias (race, gender and age), personal relationship
contamination (liking or disliking), and failing to gather a representative sample of
performance.
Poor Communication during Formal Feedback Sessions
With competing priorities, managers can be unprepared or insufficiently trained for the
inherent challenges to providing candid informal and formal performance feedback. This
occurs when managers save up examples of poor performance for the performance appraisal
interview and surprise employees with poor ratings. This type of rater behaviour diminishes
employee satisfaction with the appraisal process, creating the opposite effect of eroding the
appraisal systems intended benefit of motivational and productivity improvement. When this
occurs, low performance ratings, unsupported by clear and specific performance evidence,
frustrates the employee and creates a perception of unfairness, a prime motivation for
grievance and lawsuits.

Rater Errors
Employees often realize when managers are not giving them accurate ratings. Many
managers dont want to deal with conflict, so they often give employees undeserved high
ratings (researchers call this leniency tendency). Another mistake managers make is to give
employees average ratings (central tendency). Sometimes managers impose unreasonably
high performance standards, which can demoralize and discourage employees. So, while
consistently high ratings rob employees of the intrinsic achievement and satisfaction for a job
well done, harsh ratings reduce motivation by setting impossible performance standards. The
major cause of these rater errors is a lack of training. Untrained raters are more likely to
commit more performance appraisal mistakes, thereby eroding employee confidence in the
performance appraisal system.
Poor Informal Feedback
In general, employees like to receive feedback. They want to know how they are doing. As
leaders, communication is the building block of trust. Employee surveys consistently show
that employees desire more frequent, specific and timely feedback than the typical manager
provides. Employees can be aggravated when feedback sessions are superficial, rushed or
even interrupted.

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b) Why has there been considerable focus on organizations to implement good
performance management? Explain, with relevant examples, what makes a good
performance management system.

Strategic congruence
The system should be congruent with the unit and organizational goals. For example, is there
have any clear link among individual, unit and organization goals

Context congruence
The system should be consistent based on the culture of the organization, region and country
in which the organization is located. For example, performance management system in the
subsidiaries is more likely to differ from those in the headquarters as difference in power
distance increase between countries.
Thoroughness
The system should be through regarding four dimensions:
1. All employees in the organization should be evaluated including the top management
and managers.
2. All job responsibilities should be evaluated and not be excluded from the evaluation.
3. The evaluation should include with the entire review period not just the few weeks or
months before the review begins.
4. Feedback should be given on positive performance aspects as well as those that are in
need of improvement.
Practicality

System that are too expensive, complicated, time consuming and convoluted will not be
effective. Choose good and easy system to make other people in organization easy to
understand. Example, performance data are entered via user friendly software.

Meaningfulness
The system must be meaningful. The standards and evaluations conducted for each job
function must be considered important and relevant. Other than that, Performance assessment
must emphasize only those functions that are under the control of the employee. Evaluations
of performance management must take place at regular intervals and at appropriate moments
and the system should provide for the continuing skill development of evaluators.
Specificity
A good system should be specific and it should provide detailed and concrete guidance to
employees about what is expected of them and how they can meet these expectations. For
example, provide a concrete employee improvement agenda


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Identification of effective and ineffective performance
The performance management system should provide information that allows for the
identification of effective and ineffective performance. The system should allow for
distinguishing between effective and ineffective behaviors and results. For example, the
system used can help distinguish employees at different performance levels.

Reliability
A good system should include measures of performance that are consistent and free from any
error. For example, if there have two supervisors provided ratings of the same employee and
performance dimensions the rating should be similar.

Validity
The measures of performance must valid by referring to the fact and do not include irrelevant
performance facets. For example, the measures of performance are not contaminated or
deficient.

Openness
Openness is really important for good management systems. For example, all
communication between superior and subordinate is based on fact and honesty. The
communication between people involved is clear.
Standardization
Good system is standardized. This means that performance is evaluated consistently cross
people and time. For example, performance is evaluated consistently across people and time


3. Discuss in detail, the steps that must be taken before a performance management system
can be implemented.

There are 2 important steps must be taken before performance management implemented.
First, there is a need to have a good knowledge of the organizations mission and
strategic goals. Knowledge of the organizations mission and strategic goals is a result of
strategic planning. Strategic planning allows an organization to clearly define its purpose or
reason for existing where it wants to be in future, the goals it wants to achieve and the
strategies it will use to attain these goals. After that, the goals will be cascade downward to
the department for them to setting the departmental objectives to support the organizations
mission and objectives. The cascading will continue downward until each employee has set
their goals which are compatible with the organizations goals.


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Secondly, before the performance management implemented is to understand the job
in questions. Such as what tasks need to be done, how they should be done, and what KSAs
are needed. This can be done through job analysis. Job analysis is a process to determine the
key components of a particular job including activities, tasks, products, and processes. The
task and KSAs needed for the various jobs are typically presented in the form of job
description, which summarize the job duties, needed KSAs and working condition particular
job. Job analysis can be conducted through observation, questionnaires or interviews. Data
are collected from job incumbents and their superiors. An important component of a good job
analysis is rater training.