Trends and Challenges - HR Management

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Discuss existing trends and challenges in HR management. Address the following:
a. Discuss how a complete performance management system differs from the use of annual performance appraisals.
Performance appraisal is a method of evaluating the employee's job performance in qualitative as well as quantitative measures. On the other hand performance management begins when a job is defined and ends when the employee leaves the company.
Winston & Creamer defines performance appraisal as "Performance appraisal is an organizational system comprising deliberate processes for determining staff accomplishments to improve staff effectiveness." 1
Performance measurement is the process of assessing progress toward achieving predetermined goals. Performance management is building on that process, adding the relevant communication and action on the progress achieved against these predetermined goals.2 performance appraisal is like rewarding the employee on the basis of how he performed and improving that. Performance management involves setting up goals whereas performance appraisal means evaluating individual performance and giving feedback.
Performance management is like a backbone of an organization or a foundation on which a company's success relies on. It sets up a stage, an environment where employees can act to their best potential. Performance appraisal is just recording the performance and giving a feedback which may or not be positive. Performance appraisal may lead to misleading results due to personal favorites, self reference criteria, or too high expectations or standards. Performance management is more like a performance development plan and as compared to performance appraisals it's more acknowledged among managers. It's easier to set up a system where the employee grows, improves rather than judge the employee. Performance management eliminates the performance appraisal or annual review as the focus and concentrates on the entire spectrum of performance management and development issues. Employee performance development, training, cross-training, the provision of challenging assignments and regular performance feedback are included in an effective performance management system.3
Performance appraisal is a short term evaluation as compared to performance management which lasts as long as the employee is working in the company which may vary from one month to years down the line.
A performance management system comprises of everything from recruitment & selection, training, assessment, appraisal, individual development & career transition, to organizational development. One can say that performance appraisal is the sub set of a performance management system having a much wider scope.
Simply put, Performance management helps organizations achieve their strategic goals, whereas, performance appraisals is all about individual accomplishment. Performance management harnesses the past performance data and helps in achieving the newly set goals, performance appraisal on the other hand just looks upon the current performance and not the past performances. The main purpose of performance management is to link individual objectives and organizational objectives and bring about that individuals obey important worth for enterprise. Additionally, performance management tries to develop skills of people to achieve their capability to satisfy their ambitiousness and also increase profit of a firm contrary to just appraising the present achievement of individuals which motivates employee to perform better.
In the end one can conclude by saying that performance appraisal is a driving force for an employee to achieve more whereas performance management system is the provision to do the same.
REFERENCES
1. http://filebox.vt.edu/users/dgc2/staffinghandbook/perfappraisal.htm
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_management
3. http://humanresources.about.com/c/ec/14.htm
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_management
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_appraisal
6. http://humanresources.about.com/od/performanceevals/a/performancemgmt_2.htm

b. Discuss the advantages of managing turnover in organizations.
Movement of individuals into, through, and out of an organization is termed as turnover. Turnover can be statistically defined as the total number (or percentage) of separations that occurs over a given time period. The turnover rate is an important indicator of the morale and health of an organization.

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