Performance Appraisal : The Importance

4 purposes of conducting performance appraisal could be extracted from two 2 basic purposes for performance appraisal: administrative and developmental. (Refer to Fisher & Shaw 2003)

Administrative; serve as a jury, the appraiser (supervisor) is responsible for any decision made regarding:
1. For salary increment

2. Promotion purpose / reference

Developmental: serve as a helper or mentor, the supervisor is responsible :

3. To identify the developmental needs of an employee for better performance in the future

4. To observe and evaluate the development and performance of an employee are up to the predetermined standards (referring to previous performance appraisal and aim for the current appraisal).  

Promotion : What's the problem ?

4 issues in promotion may be as follow:

1. Transparency of the promotion process may be doubted. In public service for example, the outcome of annual performance appraisal is rarely shared between the supervisor and his subordinate. Supervisor avoids doing explanation on his evaluation, and when the subordinate’s colleague being promoted, whereby they have equal seniority, lots of questions and doubts would raises. Personal relationship, which may led to bias judgement.

2. Stereotype judgement is the most general issue in promotion. The general assumption of a supervisor may influence his judgement to select the right candidate to be promoted. For example, if a male supervisor have an idea of ‘female could not perform 100% as male employee does’, then he would tend to select male employee to be promoted, regardless of the performance and achievement of the female employee.

3. Political favoritism. Misjudgment may happened if the employer promote one employee not simply based on his performance, but also taking in consideration of the political party the employee was in.

4. Seniority versus ability. Promotion based on seniority has always been the argument of both the managerial and also the lower level employee. The employee who excels in work and has better achievement was wasted in the seniority system, as the system choose to promote whoever comes first in the organization, not based on whoever did well. 

RECRUIT : Internal or External?

Internal promotion or hiring new people from outside both have pros and cons to consider.

Internal promotion would lift motivation of both the promoted employee and other unselected workers to perform or work harder to show their true potential in order to get recognize  Whereas, by hiring new people from the outside, psychologically, the existing employees would feel threatened by the new comer. Although new people from outside the company may inject new ideas, innovations to the company, the cons are too much to bear. As the existing employees may feel undervalued by the organization, and led to discipline problem, disloyalty and negative productivity. 

 Internal promotion can also save resources (money, time and human resources) in conducting the staffing process by only recruiting from the inside of the organization. Hiring new people from the outside of the organization is an exhausting process, as the staffing process have to start from recruiting, which will cost a lot of money to be used on advertising to attract people. Panels of interviewer will need to be set up to help the selection process, and normally, the people applying for the job from outside the organization outnumbered the number of interviewers, usually, one interviewer have to make session after sessions of interviews. Moreover, the result of selection is uncertain, as we don’t know who will apply for the job, and did they really are who they said they are on the paper. In terms of performance and all, they are unpredictable since the organization may not held the copy of performance appraisal of the new employee, or worse, the new employee hired from outside of the organisation  does not have any working experience.

 The process of internal promotion is much simpler to undergone compared to hiring new people from outside. The organization keep its own organization chart, the number of posts which has been filled and yet to be filled are complete in hand. It is much easier for the manager to select and shift people from the inside, as he knew best who fits the job. And the existing employees keep their performance record to the organization. Hiring new people from the outside should be the last resort every manager should take if finding no right candidate (from inside the organization) to fill the post. Although recruiting from the outside can help boost up human capital, but a positive marginal productivity is not a guaranteed.

Some may say, by hiring people from outside the organization could help injecting new inspiration to the organization, as outsider see the organization at a different angle than the existing employees, hence, people from outside could bring fresh ideas and creativity to help the organization to evolve and catch up with the developing industry. But, what is more important to an organization: New ideas and creativity or the employees who know the organization best? Considering the stability of the organization in its daily operation, promoting employees from inside the organization would certainly accelerate its development. Inspiration and creativity can be obtain by sending the existing employees to advancement camp, brainstorming session and so on.

 In terms of training and orientation, the existing employee only have to go through basic job-related training and not compulsory for induction, as they've worked with the organization for some time and should know the background and objectives well enough compared to new people from outside the organization. This would help save a lot of money and unnecessary drop of production as employees who are on training are not able to produce. Hiring new people from outside the organization needs a lot of training, start from the basic – induction to the job-related training.

Via analysis of position vacancies, the supply of internal human capital should be evaluate before a manager decide on the hiring method (to hire from inside or outside of the organization). If the internal supply of human capital is low, the shortage occurred, and the best alternative for hiring would surely be by external recruit / hiring from outside of the organisation. Surplus of labor would happen if the manager tends to hire new people from the outside, whilst the internal supply of human capital is sufficient to fill the job vacancies. In conclusion, internal promotion should be applied before any manager consider to hiring new people from the outside,taking into consideration that the number of employee is sufficient to fill in the vacancy. If there are really no qualified candidates from within, then the last resort is to hire people from the outside. This situation is always faced by the manager usually when hiring experts or professionals.

Interview : Problems when conducting interviews

Interview is a process in selecting the best qualified candidate for a specific job title. There are several types of interview; among them are the unstructured interview, structured interview, behavioral interview and stress interview.

Problems that can be identifying in conducting interviews are as follow:

   1.       Limited resources. The information provided by the candidate may be falsified and inaccurate; the interviewer may not have enough resources to check on the details provided.

   2.       Unfair judgement and bias while interview may occur if the candidates are to be interview in a group. Based on one question, each candidate is giving chance to elaborate on their own point of view, personal preferences of the interviewer may lead to misjudgement and bias on the selection of the right candidate for the job. Most of the time, the interviewer would choose the one who has the same point of view as he is.

   3.       Argument between the interviewer and candidates on the issue discussed while interviewing. The interviewer intention to extract the knowledge of the candidates may lead to argument if the interviewer pushing too far and begins to argue for the fact.

   4.       Derailed from the objective of the interview would happened when the interviewer and the candidates are both exhausted from long hour interviewing session.

JD & JS : Job Description & Job Specification : The Differences

Job description and job specification are job documents which are created after the information or data of a job has been gathered and analysed. According to Brian L. Delahaye in his book “Human Resource Development”, these two documents has become the predetermined standard for the performance appraisal as a comparison point for the occupant’s behaviours and abilities.

The differences of these two documents are as follow:

  1.    The job description or best say the desk file “fail meja” is a document which contains a lot of information about the position, such as the position title, position summary, duties, tasks, and responsibilities.

The job specification lists the characteristics such as the knowledge, skill and ability required by one to fill the position, to enable him to carry out his duties and to achieve the predetermined performance indicators.

  2.   The job description contents the general information or an overview of a position. Information such as the relation of one position to the other positions is also included. Such relationship would show who the person reports to, who are the subordinates and who are they working with. Once job description was read, people would get to know what the job or position is about.

Job specification did not content such detail, but job specification would rather elaborate on ‘who and how to’ carry out the duties as said in the job description. For example, position titled ‘Kindergarten teacher’ must have the ability to communicate with children, language knowledge, ability to handle hyperactive kids, kind hearted, friendly, patient and passionate. These are all specific details which would not say in the job description. Once job specification was read, people would get to understand who can perform the job said.

  3.  The outputs expected of the position are listed in job description, and is shown as the performance indicators. But such details are not contented in the job specification; the job specification is more about the characteristics of one person who can perform the job.

Training Needs Analysis

Training as part of human resource planning which aim to help develop the employees in terms of their skills and knowledge to enable them to meet the needs of the organization. Before conducting training programs, the needs of training should be analyse to ensure the objective of the training program is parallel to that of the goals of the organization.

3 types of Training Needs Analysis are as follow:

1. Organizational needs analysis. The organization needs to evolve and expand alongside with the development of the global and to compete with others. To able to do that, the human capital of the organization should be well-trained, updated of current issues and needs of the customer. For example, if a restaurant needs to expand its business from dine-in to drive-through service, the manager should evaluate the supply of the human capital, their capability and so on, and train them on how to take order for drive-through and such.  The analysis focused on the needs of the organization, regardless of the capability of employee.

2. Task needs analysis refers to the job-based training analysis. Say a service manager is transferred to the human resource manager, his previous experience and training report would be evaluated. If needed, he would be recommended to attend human resource seminar and training to enable him to handle the job better. This analysis is necessary to prepare the existing employees well prepared for the job and lowered their anxiety when being transferred or when given new job or task.

3. Person needs analysis refers to individual needs. For example, a newly hired employee who has no experience in assembling a bicycle would be given proper training to give him adequate knowledge to enable him to perform job of assembling the bicycle efficiently in the future. Person needs analysis emphasis on the needs of an individual in the organization.

Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) 1994

OSHA 1994 refers to the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994 which was intended to ensure safety, health and welfare of all persons at all places of work.

The 4 benefits of OSHA 1994 are:
1.Reduces risks and causes of accidents.  The inspecting body would identify any hazards, dangerous occurrence, occupational poisoning and disease present in the work place and so to improve the health and safety management practices of an organization. As safety and health programs are both represented by the workers and the employer, consultation programs may also be provided to teach both the knowledge of how to identify hazards and risk and how to eliminates those risks and hazards. This would help them both (workers and employer) to prevent work related injuries, poisoning or death.

2.Monetary benefits. By complying the guidelines of OSHA, one organization (especially business based) would benefits the business. For example, Malaysia, with OSHA, foreign investor would see the seriousness of how the government  make sure the commercial buildings are well examined and inspected before letting for business, and would be please to invest. By following regulations in OSHA, one organization also saving money from reduced employees' injury, paying expensive medical bills, product loss, equipment damage, compensation costs due to death or disable, and even paying high price in renovating damaged building from fires.

3.Easing managerial task. Since OSHA 1994's philosophy is 'responsibility for safety and health in the workplace lies with those who create the risk (employers) and those who work with the risks(employees), both the workers and employers are responsible for own safety and health in the workplace as they were both educated on how to identify hazards and how to eliminate the hazards. The employees should cooperate with the employers to ensure safety and health in the workplace. Since the employees are aware of the safety and health in the workplace, the workplace become safe for them to work in, they can perform better and increase productivity over time, thus, easing managerial task.

4.Workers' health, security and welfare are protected, and employers are aware of safety and health of workers in the organization. With OSHA 1994, inspection would be done not only by officers of Department of occupational safety and health, few independence inspecting body would also assist. The employers are aware of the hazards, they would be required to eliminate the hazards, and if the hazards are unavoidable in daily production (organization which may need to work with dangerous substances), hazards sign should put on to make everyone aware of the existing hazards. If anyone in the organization ignoring the signs and causes accidents or fatal to himself, the employers would not be at fault. On the other hand, OSHA makes the employer comply with the safety and health guideline in the workplace, the employer must comply so to provide safe and healthy place for the workers to work within. If there are accidents happened, the workers would get some amount of medical assistance, or compensation. Thus, with OSHA, the safety of the workers are well guarded, and the health and welfare of the workers are well protected.

The Hot Stove Rule - Douglas Mc Gregor

Hot Stove approach by Douglas Mc Gregor shows that if the rules and penalty are clear and acknowledged clearly to all staff, a violation of rules prescribed would create some consequences as stated in the penalty, just as if someone touching the hot stove, the consequence is to burns his own hands.

Four principles of the hot stove rule in employee discipline is immediacy, warning, consistency and impersonal / impartiality.

i. Immediacy. In discipline employee, a manager should take immediate action to investigate the case and if the employee found guilty of violating the rules and standards of the organization, immediate action should be taken to punish / or penalty should be impose according to rules of the organization. And the employee should be informed of his violation and penalty soon after the manager or the authority of the organization has decided. This would prevent the case from fading away and misjudged. This as if someone touches the 'hot stove', the effect and burning sensation is immediate.

ii. Warning. Each and every employee, higher level or lower level ones should be given notice or acknowledgement of the organization's latest rules, standards and regulations. What penalty and punishment would be set to each violator should also brief to the employees as a warning. As pictured by the 'hot stove', the hot red burning stove is the warning so people would not touch it, if anyone touches it (ignored the warning), his hands would burn as the result (punishment) of touching hot stove.

iii. Consistency. The punishment / penalty for violating rules of the organization should be consistent. This would ensure that all employees are satisfied with the fair treatment and recognize that if anyone violating the rules, he/ she would get the same punishment. This would not only ensure that the employees be loyal to the organization, feel safe when working in the organization and also satisfied when being punished. The 'hot stove' would always burn one's hand if touched, the consequence is consistent, so is discipline.

iv. Impersonal /impartiality. Discipline applied to every member in the organization, regardless of what position ones in, gender, race or family background. A manager should impose the penalty or punishment of violator without bias or favorites. The punishment should be on the subject (the violation), not on the person. This is as if the hot stove, whoever touched it, burn their own hands, the hot stove does not chose to burn certain people or because of who they are, but whoever touched it, get the burn.