Learning and Development Vs, Performance Management

        Learning and Development Vs. Performance management

Learning and development

●● Respect individual rights for dignity, selfesteem, privacy and autonomy.

●● Recognize that it is necessary and legitimate to provide individuals with learning opportunities that enable them to gain the knowledge and skills required to perform well in their jobs and develop their potential. But note that individuals should still be allowed autonomy to choose the extent to which they pursue learning and development programmes beyond this basic requirement.

●● Accept that while the organization has the right to conduct learning and development activities that enhance performance, individuals also have the right to be provided with opportunities to develop their own knowledge, skills and employability.

●● Ensure that people taking part in learning events feel ‘psychologically safe’ in accordance with the view expressed by Schein (1993: 91) that: ‘To make people feel safe in learning, they must have a motive, a sense of direction, and the opportunity to try out new things without the fear of punishment.’

●● Avoid manipulating people to accept imposed organizational values.

Performance management

Introduction

Performance is concerned with how well something is done and reward is with how people should berecognized for doing it. They are therefore closely associated topics that play an important part in achieving one of the key goals of HRM – to contribute to the development of a high-performance culture. The aim of this chapter is to provide a foundation for the examination of how this is achieved through performance and reward management. Performance and reward systems need to be based on an understanding of the meaning of performance and reward as considered in the first section of this chapter. The rest of the chapter is devoted to preliminary descriptions of performance management and reward management systems.

The meaning of performance

The Oxford English Dictionary defines performance as: ‘The accomplishment, execution, carrying out, working out of anything ordered or undertaken.’ This refers to outputs/outcomes (accomplishment) but also states that performance is about doing the work as well as being about the results achieved. Performance was regarded by Bernadin et al (1995) and Kane (1996) as simply the outcomes of work; a record of a person’s accomplishments. But performance could be seen as behaviour – the ways in which organizations, teams and individuals get work done. This was argued by Campbell (1990), who defined performance as behaviour and stated that it should be distinguished from the outcomes because they can be contaminated by systems factors.

Performance management

Performance management is a systematic process for improving individual, team and organizational performance. Strategic performance management focuses on what needs to be done to help the organization achieve its business goals. The management of performance is clearly a major preoccupation in any business and ways of doing it are considered in Chapter 27. However, performance management systems are usually treated as a matter for individuals and to a more limited degree.

Objectives of performance management for individuals

The main objective of performance management for individuals is to develop the capacity of people to meet and exceed expectations and to achieve their full potential to the benefit of themselves and the organization. Performance management provides the basis for self-development but, importantly, it is also about ensuring that the support and guidance people need to develop and improve are readily available. Performance management can play an important role in rewarding employees by providing them with positive feedback and the recognition of their accomplishments.

Performance management ethical principles have been defined by Winstanley and Stuart-Smith (1996) as follows:

●● Respect for the individual – people should be treated as ‘ends in themselves’ and not merely as ‘means to other ends’.

●● Mutual respect – the parties involved in performance management should respect each other’s needs and preoccupations.

●● Procedural fairness – the procedures incorporated in performance management should be operated fairly in accordance with the principles of procedural justice.

●● Transparency – people affected by decisions emerging from performance management

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