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Lesson#39
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Performance Management
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Performance Management
We discuss human resources management interventions concerned
with managing individual and group
performance. Performance management involves goal setting,
performance appraisal, and reward systems
that align member work behavior with business strategy, employee
involvement, and workplace technology.
A Model of Performance Management:
Performance management is an integrated process of defining,
assessing, and reinforcing employee work
behaviors and outcomes. Organizations with a well-developed
performance management process often
outperform those without this element of organization design. As
shown in Figure 52, performance
management includes practices and methods for goal setting,
performance appraisal, and reward systems.
These practices jointly influence the performance of individuals
and work groups. Goal setting specifies the
kinds of performances that are desired; performance appraisal
assesses those outcomes; reward systems
provide the reinforces to ensure that desired outcomes are
repeated. Because performance management
occurs in a larger organizational context, at least three
contextual factors determine how these practices
affect work performance: business strategy, workplace
technology, and employee involvement. High levels
of work performance tend to occur when goal setting, performance
appraisal, and reward systems are
aligned jointly with these contextual factors.
Business strategy defines the goals and objectives that are
needed for an organization to compete
successfully, and performance management focuses, assesses, and
reinforces member work behaviors
toward those objectives. This ensures that work behaviors are
strategically driven.
Workplace technology affects whether performance management
practices should be based on the
individual or the group. When technology is low in
interdependence and work is designed for individual
jobs, goal setting, performance appraisal, and reward systems
should be aimed at individual work behaviors.
Conversely, when technology is highly interdependent and work is
designed for groups, performance
management should be aimed at group behaviors.
Finally, the level of employee involvement in an organization
should determine the nature of performance
management practices. When organizations are highly bureaucratic
with low levels of participation, goal
setting, performance appraisal, and reward systems should be
formalized and administered by management
and staff personnel. In high-involvement situations, on the
other hand, performance management should
be heavily participative, with both management and employees
setting goals and appraising and rewarding
performance. In high-involvement organizations, for example,
employees participate in all stages of
performance management are heavily involved in both designing
and administering its practices.
Goal Setting
OD in Practice: Big Hairy Audacious Goals
Employees at the Generic Electric are aiming at “stretch goals.”
At GE, stretch goals means encouraging
employee teams to try for huge gains in productivity and quality
even though, at the outset, it is unclear
how they will get there, based on certainty that they will use
their ingenuity to find ways to do what they are
asked. At other companies they call these goals BHAG – big hairy
audacious goals. These are the kind of
goals that stimulate everyone in the organization to shoot for
extreme achievement. One thinks, for
instance, of the NASA moon mission. The NASA goal energized the
entire country.
One major goal that GE is striving for is called Six Sigma. This
program is the largest quality initiative ever
mounted at a U.S. corporation. Six Sigma is a statistical term
for 3.4 defects per million products.
This
translates to near-perfect manufacturing. GE began implementing
Six Sigma in the mid-1990s, when
Lawrence Bossidy, who at the time was CEO of AlliedSignal, spoke
to GE’s top management about the
concept. Bossidy had been using Six Sigma at AlliedSignal for
about five years. He had borrowed it from
Motorola. All three companies, Motorolla, AlliedSignal, and GE,
have placed, and continue to place,
substantial resources into Six Sigma programs. GE has a way to
go before it attains its goals. Currently GE
is running at three to four Sigma level. The gap between that
and a six level is costing GE between $8
billion and $12 billion a year in lost productivity and
inefficiencies. To attain a goal of Six Sigma requires
more than an edict from the CEO. It requires every employee to
get on board and “walk the talk.” For a
company the size of GE, this is a gargantuan task. Six Sigma is
difficult to understand because of its heavily
laden statistical concepts. It is even more difficult to
implement. Last year GE spent $600 million on Six
Sigma projects – mostly for the salaries of 4,000 full-time Six
Sigma experts plus 100,000 employees to
undergo basic training.
As the program at the GE illustrates, goals give direction and
purpose. It is difficult to imagine an
organization that does not have goal setting of some kind. In a
large and established company, goal-setting
may be a formal program as the development of an ideal model of
the organization or the implementation
of a management by objective program. On the other hand, in a
newly opened business, goal setting may
take the form of a mental image of what the business will be
like in a year and then five years from now.
OD programs rely heavily upon the goal-setting process. OD, by
definition, is planned change. In order for
that change to take place, goals need to be set to establish
what the organization will be like. And then plan
a series of steps that will move the organization to accomplish
the goals.
Goal setting involves managers and subordinates in jointly
establishing and clarifying employee goals. In
some cases, such as management by objectives, it also can
facilitate employee counseling and support. The
process of establishing challenging goals involves managing the
level of participation and goal difficulty.
Once goals have been established, the way they are measured is
an important determinant of member
performance.
Goal setting can affect performance in several ways. It
influences what people think and do by focusing
their behavior, motivating people to put forth the effort to
reach difficult goals that are accepted, and when
goals are difficult but achievable, goal setting prompts
persistence over time. Goal-setting interventions
have been implemented in such organizations as GE, 3M, AT&T
Universal Card, and Occidental
Petroleum's subsidiary Oxy-USA.
Characteristics of Goal Setting
Challenging goals produce better performance:
Goals are only effective if they are difficult and challenging.
Increasing the difficulty of employee goals, also
known as
"stretch
goals”
can increase their perceived
challenge and enhance the amount of effort
expended to achieve them. Thus, more difficult goals tend to
lead to increased effort and performance, as
long as they are seen as feasible.
Specific hard goals are better than “do your best” Goals:
Goal setting involves specifying and clarifying the goals. When
given specific goals, workers perform higher
than when they are simply told to "do their best" or when they
receive no guidance at all.
People may abandon goals if too hard:
Although goals should be difficult, people must be able to
attain or at least approach them; otherwise, they
will view the goal as impossible, become discouraged, and may
abandon it. An individual is more likely to
accept or choose a goal when there is a high expectation of
reaching it. If goals are set too high, people may
lose their motivating potential.
Participation in setting goals increases commitment and
attainment of goals:
Employees are more committed to self-set goals than to goals
assigned by a manager. It gives them
ownership.
Feedback and goals improve performance:
Information about the outcome of the performance, whether a goal
was met or not, should be included. It
is also important to include information about how to adjust in
order to accomplish the goal better.
Individual differences tend not to affect goal setting:
Goal setting programs are successful regardless of education and
position. Production workers, clerical
workers, maintenance workers, managers, all can use goal setting
successfully. CEO of Wal-Mart claims,
“There are no superstars. We’re a company of ordinary people
overachieving.”
Goal-setting in teams deserves special consideration:
Setting difficult individual goals for an interdependent team
task will likely result in poorer performance
than when a team goal is set or even when there is no team goal
at all.
A manager explicitly specifying which goal is more important can
achieve cooperation in goal setting.
Another to get cooperation is through participative goal setting
in the context of a team-building session.
Support of management is critical:
Support for goal-setting programs by all levels of management is
crucial to the success. Leaders should
maintain optimism by publicizing even small steps forward.
Supervisors should be present to encourage the
acceptance of goals by employees, help them improve their
skills, and give timely feedback on how the
goals are being accomplished. Those who accomplish goals should
be rewarded, but the rewards need to be
applied consistently.
Application Stages:
Based on these features of the goal-setting process, OD
practitioners have developed specific approaches
to goal setting. The following steps characterize those
applications:
1. Diagnosis.
The
first step is a thorough diagnosis of the job or work group; employee needs; and
the
three context factors, business strategy, workplace technology,
and level of employee involvement. This
provides information about the nature and difficulty of specific
goals, the appropriate types and levels of
participation, and the necessary support systems.
2. Preparation for goal setting.
This step prepares managers and employees to
engage in goal setting,
typically by increasing interaction and communication between
managers and employees, and offering
formal training in goal- setting methods. Specific action plans
for implementing the program also are made
at this time.
3. Setting of goals.
In this step challenging goals are established and methods for goal measurement
are
clarified. Employees participate in the process to extent that
contextual factors support such involvement
and got the extent that they are likely to set higher goals than
those assigned by management.
4. Review.
At this
final step the goal-setting process is assessed so that modifications can be
made, if
necessary. The goal attributes are evaluated to see the goals
are energizing and challenging and whether they
support he strategy and can be influenced by the employees.
Goal-Setting Model:
A goal setting program in an organization requires careful
planning. As shown in the figure, the first three
factors in goal-setting process are establishing the goal,
achieving goal commitment, and overcoming
resistance to goal acceptance.
Goals can be established in a variety of ways. Best way is to
set by joint participation between the
employee and the supervisor. This method often leads to employee
commitment, a crucial ingredient in
effective goal setting.
Goal commitment can be achieved in a variety of ways. Trust in
upper management, support by
management, and an effective reward and incentive system are all
helpful in commitment. Competition
between employees may be useful in some cases, but managers
should be careful designing competitive
situations, especially in interdependent situations. Employees
may become so involved in competing with
one another, that they lose sight of the goals.
Resistance to goal acceptance can be overcome by several
methods, and a combination of methods will
likely result in a more successful goal-setting program.
Providing special training for employees in new
techniques and procedures and providing rewards and incentives
can encourage goal acceptance.
Participation in setting goals can lead some employees to accept
goals.
Goals should be specific, measurable, and compatible with the
goals formulated at higher levels of the
organization. As an example of goal setting Bell Canada’s
telephone operators are required to answer calls
within 23 seconds and Federal Express customer agents are
expected to answer customer questions within
140 seconds. Both goals were considered very difficult when
initially set, but employees eventually met and
exceeded these goals.
A period of performance follows upon the setting of specific
performance goals during this time, managers
must be prepared to provide support. To achieve specific goals,
employees may require training or
additional resources, such as new equipment or information.
Managers may need to work with employees
in developing action plans. Finally, managers should provide
timely and objective feedback when the goal is
completed.
The results of the employees’ performance can be beneficial or
negative. The benefits may incur to the
organization or the individual. When individuals successfully
meet a goal, they feel competent and
successful. Better performance and pride in the achievement of
successes can be expected. Employees are
more likely to have clearer roles if they more fully realize the
performance expected of them. Negative
consequences can be expected when the goals are not achieved.
This is most problematic in situations
where specific and measurable goals could not be set.
Figure 53: Goal Setting
Management by Objectives:
MBO is a specific technique used by organizations to set goals.
It is a process aimed at the integration of
individual and organization goals. MBO may be defined as a
system of management set up to help in
planning, organizing, problem-solving, motivating, and other
important managerial activities. It involves the
participation of subordinates and their managers in setting and
clarifying the goals for subordinates. A
leading MBO consultant defines it as a process whereby the
superior and subordinate managers of an
organization jointly identify common goals, define each
individual’s major areas of responsibility in terms
of results expected, and use these measures as guides for
operating the unit and assessing the contribution
of each of its members. The goals of this approach include
improved performance, more communication
and participation, higher morale and job satisfaction, and a
better understanding of the organization’s
objectives at all levels.
MBO approaches goal-setting on the assumption that people have
higher-level needs for competence and
achievement, and want to satisfy these higher-level needs in
their work. In addition, people will work harder
and perform better if they participate in setting goals they
have to achieve.
An MBO program often goes beyond the one-on-one,
manager-subordinate relationship to focus on
problem-solving discussions involving work teams as well.
Setting goals and reviewing individual
performance are considered within the larger context of the job.
In addition to organizational goals, the
MBO process gives attention to individuals' personal and career
goals and tries to make those and the
organizational goals more complementary. The target-setting
procedure allows real subordinate
participation in goal setting, with open, problem-centered
discussions among team members, supervisors,
and subordinates.
Steps in MBO Process:
There are six basic steps in implementing an MBO process.
1. Work group involvement.
In the first step of MBO, the members of the
primary work group define
overall group and individual goals and establish action plans
for achieving them. If this step is omitted or if
organizational goals and strategies are unclear, the
effectiveness of an MBO approach may be greatly
reduced over time.
2. Joint manager-subordinate goal setting.
Once the work group's overall goals and
responsibilities
have been determined, attention is given to the job duties and
responsibilities of the individual role
incumbents. Roles are carefully examined in light of their
interdependence with the roles of others outside
the work group.
3. Establishment of action plans for goals.
The subordinate develops action plans for goal
accomplishment, either in a group meeting or in a meeting with
the immediate manager. The action plans
reflect the individual style of the subordinate, not that of the
supervisor.
4. Establishment of criteria, or yardsticks, of success.
At this point, the manager and subordinate
agree on the success criteria for the goals that have been
established—criteria that are not limited to easily
measurable or quantifiable data. A more important reason for
jointly developing the success criteria is to
ensure that the manager and subordinate have a common
understanding of the task and what is expected
of the subordinate. Frequently, the parties involved discover
that they have not reached a mutual
understanding. The subordinate and the manager may have agreed
on a certain task, but in discussing how
to measure its success, they find that they have not been
communicating clearly. Arriving at joint
understanding and agreement on success criteria is the most
important step in the entire MBO process.
5. Review and recycle.
Periodically, the manager reviews work progress,
either in the larger group or
with the subordinate. There are three stages in this review
process. First, the subordinate takes the lead,
reviewing progress and discussing achievements and the obstacles
faced. Next, the manager discusses work
plans and objectives for the future. Last, after the action
plans have been made, a more general discussion
covers the subordinate's future ambitions and other factors of
concern. In this final phase, a great deal of
coaching and counseling usually takes place.
6. Maintenance of records.
In many MBO programs, the working documents of
the goals, criteria,
yardsticks, priorities, and due dates are forwarded to a third
party. Although the evidence is indirect, it is
likely that the MBO program, as an OD effort, suffers when the
working papers are reviewed regularly by a
third party, such as higher management or the personnel
department. Experience shows that when the
working papers routinely are passed on, they are less likely to
reflect open, honest communication within
the supervisor-subordinate pair or the work group. Often they
represent instead an effort to impress the
third party or to comply with institutionalized rules and
procedures.
Figure 54: Steps in the MBO Process
Criticism of MBO:
Implementing MBO is expensive and time-consuming, and usually
entails great effort. Because of these
factors, the use of MBO has traditionally been limited to
managerial and professional employees. Obtaining
benefits whose value exceeds the costs is more difficult with
employees performing routine work at the
lower levels of an organization.
Some MBO programs encounter difficulties because management does
not recognize that proper
implementation of MBO requires improved managerial skills and
competence. Critics question whether
joint goal-setting among un-equals is possible, and whether
subordinates at lower levels are free to select
their objectives. In some application MBO may be too
quantitative, and setting objectives as explicitly as
possible may not be functional. In other MBO programs,
communication may come from the top dictating
to the bottom instead of open communication and mutual goal
setting. Thus there is also a danger that
MBO will focus only on certain aspects of the job (such as
sales) and ignore other areas (for example,
customer satisfaction).
Performance Appraisal:
Performance appraisal is a feedback system that involves the
direct evaluation of individual or work group
performance by a supervisor, manager, or peers. Most
organizations have some kind of evaluation system
that is used for performance feedback, pay administration/and,
in some cases, counseling and developing
employees. Thus, performance appraisal represents an important
link between goal-setting processes and
reward systems. One survey of more than five hundred firms found
that 90 percent used performance
appraisal to determine merit pay increases, 87 percent used it
to review performance, and 79 percent used it
as the opportunity to set goals for the next period.
Abundant evidence, however, indicates that organizations do a
poor job appraising employees. One study
found that 32 percent of managers surveyed rated their
performance appraisal process as very ineffective.
Consequently, a growing number of firms have sought ways to
improve performance appraisal. Some
innovations have been made in enhancing employee involvement,
balancing organizational and employee
needs, and increasing the number of raters. These newer forms of
appraisal are being used in such
organizations as AT&T, Raychem, Levi Strauss, Intel, and
Monsanto.
The Performance Appraisal Process:
Table 18 summarizes several common elements of performance
appraisal systems. For each element, two
contrasting features are presented, representing traditional
bureaucratic approaches and newer, highinvolvement
approaches. Performance appraisals are conducted for a variety
of purposes, including
affirmative action, pay and promotion decisions, and human
resources planning and development. Because
each purpose defines what performances are relevant and how they
should be measured, separate appraisal
systems are often used. For example, appraisal methods for pay
purposes are often different from systems
that assess employee development or promotability. Employees
also have a variety of reasons for wanting
appraisal, such as receiving feedback for career decisions,
getting a raise, and being promoted. Rather than
trying to meet these multiple purposes with a few standard
appraisal systems, the new appraisal approaches
are more tailored to balance the multiple organizational and
employee needs. This is accomplished by
actively involving the appraisee, co-workers, and managers in
assessing the purposes of the appraisal at the
time it takes place and adjusting the process to fit that
purpose. Thus, at one time the appraisal process
might focus on pay decisions, another time on employee
development, and still another time on employee
promotability. Actively involving all relevant participants can
increase the chances that the purpose of the
appraisal will be correctly identified and understood and that
the appropriate appraisal methods will be
applied.
The new methods tend to expand the appraiser role beyond
managers to include multiple raters, such as
the appraisee, co-workers, and others having direct exposure to
the employee's performance. Also known
as 360-degree feedback, this broader approach is used more for
member development than for
compensation purposes. This wider involvement provides a number
of different views of the appraisee's
performance. It can lead to a more comprehensive assessment of
the employee's performance and can
increase the likelihood that both organizational and personal
needs will be taken into account. The key task
is to form an overarching view of the employee's performance
that incorporates all of the different
appraisals. Thus, the process of working out differences and
arriving at an overall assessment is an
important aspect of the appraisal process. This improves the
appraisal's acceptance, the accuracy of the
information, and its focus on activities that are critical to
the business strategy.
Table 18
Performance Appraisal Elements
Elements Traditional Approaches High-involvement Approaches
Purpose Organizational, legal fragmented Developmental
Integrative
Appraiser Supervisor, managers Appraise, co-workers and others
Role of appraise Passive, recipient Active participant
Measurement Subjective
Concerned with validity
Objective and subjective
Training Periodic, fixed, administratively
driven
Dynamic, timely, employee or
work-driven
The newer methods also expand the role of the appraiser.
Traditionally, the employee is simply a receiver
of feedback. The supervisor unilaterally completes a form
concerning performance on predetermined
dimensions, usually personality traits, such as initiative or
concern for quality, and presents its contents to
the appraiser. The newer approaches actively involve appraisers
in all phases of the appraisal process. The
appraiser joins with superiors and staff personnel in gathering
data on performance and identifying training
needs. This active involvement increases the likelihood that the
content of the performance appraisal will
include the employee's views, needs, and criteria, along with
those of the organization. This newer role for
employees increases their acceptance and understanding of the
feedback process.
Performance measurement is typically the source of many problems
in appraisal because it is seen as
subjective. Traditionally, performance evaluation focused on the
consistent use of pre-specified traits or
behaviors. To improve consistency and validity of measurement,
considerable training is used to help raters
(supervisors) make valid assessments. This concern for validity
stems largely from legal tests of
performance appraisal systems and leads organizations to develop
measurement approaches, such as the
Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS) and its variants. In
newer approaches validity is not only a legal
or methodological issue but a social issue as well; all
appropriate participants are involved in negotiating
acceptable ways of measuring and assessing performance.
Increased participation in goal setting is a part of
this new approach. All participants are trained in methods of
measuring and assessing performance.
Because it focuses on both objective and subjective measures of
performance, the appraisal process is more
understood, accepted, and accurate.
The timing of performance an appraisal traditionally is fixed by
managers or staff personnel and is based on
administrative criteria, such as yearly pay decisions. Newer
approaches increase the frequency of feedback.
Although it may not be practical to increase the number of
formal appraisals, the frequency of informal
feedback can increase, especially when strategic objectives
change or when the technology is highly
uncertain. In those situations, frequent performance feedback is
necessary for appropriate adaptations in
work behavior. The newer approaches to appraisal increase the
timeliness of feedback and give employees
more control over their work.
Application Stages:
The process of implementing a performance appraisal system has
received increasing attention. OD
practitioners have recommended the following six steps:
1. Select the right people.
For political and legal reasons, the design
process needs to include human
resources staff, legal representatives, senior management, and
system users. Failure to recognize
performance appraisal as part of a complex performance
management system is the single most
important reason for design problems. Members representing a
variety of functions need to be in
volved in the design process so that the essential strategic and
organizational issues are addressed.
2. Diagnose the current situation.
A clear picture of the current appraisal process
is essential to
designing a new one. Diagnosis involves assessing the contextual
factors (business strategy,
workplace technology, and employee involvement), current
appraisal practices and satisfaction with
them, work design, and the current goal-setting and reward
system practices. This information is
used to define the current system's strengths and weaknesses.
3. Establish the system's purposes and objectives.
The ultimate purpose of an appraisal system is to
help the organization achieve better performance. Managers,
staff, and employees can have more
specific views about how the appraisal process can be used.
Potential purposes can include serving
as a basis for rewards, career planning, human resources
planning, and performance improvement
or simply giving performance feedback.
4. Design the performance appraisal system.
Given the agreed-upon purposes of the system and
the
contextual factors, the appropriate elements of an appraisal
system can be established. These
should include choices about who performs the appraisal, who is
involved in determining
performance, how performance is measured, and how often feedback
is given. Criteria for
designing an effective performance appraisal system include
timeliness, accuracy, acceptance,
understanding, focus on critical control points, and economic
feasibility.
First, the timeliness criterion recognizes the time value of
information. Individuals and work groups need
to get performance information before evaluation or review. When
the information precedes performance
evaluation, it can be used to engage in problem-solving behavior
that improves performance and
satisfaction. Second, the information contained in performance
feedback needs to be accurate. Inaccurate
data prevent employees from determining whether their
performance is above or below the goal targets and
discourage problem-solving behavior. Third, the performance
feedback must be accepted and owned by
the people who use it. Participation in the goal-setting process
can help to ensure this commitment to the
performance appraisal system. Fourth, information contained in
the appraisal system needs to be
understood if it is to have problem-solving value. Many
organizations use training to help employees understand
the operating, financial, and human resources data that will be
fed back to them. Fifth, appraisal
information should focus on critical control points. The
information received by employees must be
aligned with important elements of the business strategy,
employee performance, and reward system.
For example, if the business strategy requires cost reduction
but workers are measured and rewarded on the
basis of quality, the performance management system may produce
the wrong kinds of behavior. Finally,
the economic feasibility criterion suggests that an appraisal
system should meet a simple cost-benefit test. If
the costs associated with collecting and feeding back
performance information exceed the benefits derived
from using the information, then a simpler system should be
installed.
5. Experiment with implementation.
The complexity and potential problems associated
with
performance appraisal processes strongly suggest using a pilot
test of the new process to spot, gauge, and
correct any flaws in the design before it is implemented system
wide.
6. Evaluate and monitor the system.
Although the experimentation step may have
uncovered many
initial design flaws, ongoing evaluation of the system once it
is implemented is important. User satisfaction,
from human resources staff, manager, and employee viewpoints, is
an essential input. In addition, the legal
defensibility of the system should be tracked by noting the
distribution of appraisal scores against age, sex,
and ethnic categories.
Reward Systems:
Organizational rewards are powerful incentives for improving
employee and work group performance. As
pointed out earlier, rewards also can produce high levels of
employee satisfaction. OD traditionally has
relied on intrinsic rewards, such as enriched jobs and
opportunities for decision making, to motivate
employee performance. Early quality-of-work-life interventions
were based mainly on the intrinsic
satisfaction derived from performing challenging, meaningful
types of work. More recently, OD
practitioners have expanded their focus to include extrinsic
rewards: pay; various incentives, such as stock
options, bonuses, and gain sharing; promotions; and benefits.
They have discovered that both intrinsic and
extrinsic rewards can enhance performance and satisfaction.
OD practitioners increasingly are attending to the design and
implementation of reward systems. This
recent attention to rewards has derived partly from research in
organization design and employee
involvement. These perspectives treat rewards as an integral
part of organizations. They hold that rewards
should be congruent with other organizational systems and
practices, such as the organization's structure,
top management's human relations philosophy, and work designs.
Many features of reward systems
contribute to both employee fulfillment and organizational
effectiveness. In this section, we describe how
rewards affect individual and group performance and then discuss
three specific rewards: pay, promotions,
and benefits.
How Rewards Affect Performance:
Considerable research has been done on how rewards affect
individual and group performance. The most
popular model describing this relationship is value expectancy
theory. In addition to explaining how
performance and rewards are related, it suggests requirements
for designing and evaluating reward systems.
The value expectancy model posits that employees will expend
effort to achieve performance goals that
they believe will lead to outcomes that they value. This effort
will result in the desired performance goals if
the goals are realistic, if employees fully understand what is
expected of them, and if they have the
necessary skills and resources. Ongoing motivation depends on
the extent to which attaining the desired
performance goals actually results in valued outcomes.
Consequently, key objectives of reward systems
interventions are to identify the intrinsic and extrinsic
outcomes (rewards) that are highly valued and to link
them to the achievement of desired performance goals.
Based on value expectancy theory, the ability of rewards to
motivate desired behavior depends on these six
factors:
1. Availability.
For
rewards to reinforce desired performance, they must be not only desired but also
available. Too little of a desired reward is no reward at all.
For example, pay increases are often highly
desired but unavailable. Moreover, pay increases that are below
minimally accepted standards may actually
produce negative consequences.
2. Timeliness.
Like
effective performance feedback, rewards should be given in a timely manner. A
reward's motivating potential is reduced to the extent that it
is separated in time from the performance it is
intended to reinforce.
3. Performance contingency.
Rewards should be closely linked with particular
performances. If the goal
is met, the reward is given; if the target is missed, the reward
is reduced or not given. The clearer the
linkage between performance and rewards, the better able rewards
are to motivate desired behavior.
Unfortunately, this criterion often is neglected in practice.
Forty percent of employees nationwide believe
that there is no linkage between pay and performance. From
another perspective, merit increases in 1988
were concentrated between 4 and 5 percent nationwide. That is,
almost everyone, regardless of
performance level, got about the same raise.
4. Durability.
Some
rewards last longer than others. Intrinsic rewards, such as increased autonomy
and
pride in workmanship, tend to last longer than extrinsic
rewards. Most people who have received a salary
increase realize that it gets spent rather quickly.
5. Equity.
Satisfaction and motivation can be improved when employees believe that the pay
policies of
the organization are equitable or fair. Internal equity concerns
comparison of personal rewards to those
holding similar jobs or performing similarly in the
organization. Internal inequities typically occur when
employees are paid a similar salary or hourly wage regardless of
their level of performance. External equity
concerns comparison of rewards with those of other organizations
in the same labor market. When an
organization's reward level does not compare favorably with the
level of other organizations, employees are
likely to feel inequitably rewarded.
6. Visibility.
To
leverage a reward system, it must be visible. Organization members must be able
to see
who is getting the rewards. Visible rewards, such as placement
on a high-status project, promotion to a new
job, and increased authority, send signals to employees that
rewards are available, timely, and performance
contingent.
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