Effectiveness of Performance Reviews - Research Proposal Example

Effectiveness of Performance Reviews (Student’s name) (Institution’s Name) Executive Summary The strategic plan and the job description usually set out the expectation of the organization on every employee. This obligates every staff within the workplace to work towards achieving the spelled out aims and goals. The context of developing this research builds on the current desire by most organizations to engage in such reviews for purposes of building a strong staff base. There has been an increase in the adoption of this practice especially in regards to the bid to increase the general performance and expectations of organizations. A lot of concern has been directed to the need to enhance the efficiency and performance of the staff. This, therefore, necessitated the adoption of this practice across several organizations making it a relevant issue worth investigating in this study. This paper focused on coming up with a draft proposal of how to establish and learn the effectiveness of conducting performance reviews within organizations. The aim of the paper was to come up with various suggestions of how best to conduct this research and establish its significance in the modern corporate world. It, therefore, entailed analyzing studies from other scholars, suggesting the best research procedures necessary to complete the study and also realizing the various limiting factors and strengths of coming up with such a study. Contents Executive Summary 2 INTRODUCTION 3 Context of the study 5 Theoretical framework 5 Goal Setting Theory 6 Expectancy Theory 7 Control theory of performance 7 Assumptions of the research 8 Research Questions 9 RESEARCH CONFIGURATION 11 Research Design 11 Sampling 11 Gathering and recording the data 12 Data Analysis 14 Timeline of the study 15 Strengths and limitations of the research 16 Conclusion 17 References 18 INTRODUCTION Every organization is usually focused on delivering its objectives, aims and achieving the best out of its resources. The human resource is one of such essential and significant components in the life of an organization. Usually, most organizations tend to focus on building a strong staff capacity with the aim of realizing the full potentials and maximizing the abilities of the staff. One of the ways of achieving this goal s through engaging in performance reviews as a follow up of what each staff does in the organization. Performance reviews represent the procedures performed to establish conformity of the staff activities to the set-out objectives or diversion from such objectives (Bird, 2015). Organizations engage in performing this activity on a timely basis for purposes of tracking the functions and roles of the staff within the organization. Usually, there has been a need across several organizations to establish their performance on a timely basis, and investigation of the performance of the staff has been part of the entire process. Performance reviews are normally done to gauge the level of performance or participation of the employees within the organization in regards to their expectation as outlined in the job descriptions. Every job has specific expectations, and the employees are normally tasked with the need of meeting such expectations. In such cases, some employees may work successfully and meet their work expectations. On the other hand, some may fall short of their expectations due to reasons such as lack of proper knowledge on the task, lack of sufficient resources, and lack of training among many other reasons. The process of performance reviews tends to investigate the reasons behind such two scenarios (Bertino & Bell, 2017). Therefore, many organizations have adopted the use of performance reviews as the best strategy to determine the need for any training of the employees or finding out how to enable the employees to improve their delivery. It’s an essential process especially in the modern world where every organization is highly determined on better returns and achievements from their staffs. This proposed study on determining the effectiveness of performance reviews acts as a breakthrough in helping the organization determine the efficiency of the staff. The draft takes the perspective taken in this research is an academic analysis seeking to determine the solution of a problem. I take the position of an academician seeking to determine the best solutions for the problems by determining the effectiveness of performance reviews in the organizations. Context of the study This draft proposal seeks to be contextualized within the modern organizations which usually rely heavily on the human resource factor for purposes of their activities. In many instances, the human resource factor plays a vital role in determining the efficiency of activities and the kind of returns that are received by an organization. Besides, every organization uses resources to maintain the staff and would, therefore, be expecting returns from their investments. This can only be achieved in the wake of a performance review or appraisal process (Kinley & Kinley, 2016). Many organizations have not appreciated and understand the relevance and the effectiveness of engaging in these reviews. This explains why many have not successes in benefiting from these practices or why some organizations have not succeeded in implementing the performance reviews. The study proposal would, therefore, be placed in the context of enforcing understanding of how effective these performances are to the modern organizations and also how to effectively implementation these performance appraisals. The high demand by the modern organizations for an effective system of control and monitoring of the staff is a clear justification of the need and the context of placement of this intended study. Theoretical framework In the past years, less attention was given to the specific activities conducted by every member or staff within an organization. The attention has been as a result of the need to enhance and to produce the best returns from the employees and also to monitor the achievement of the objectives set out by these organizations. In the modern times, much attention has been shifted to the human resource factor in the organization. The following is the theoretical framework which is suitable for learning on the effectiveness of engaging in the performance review activities; Goal Setting Theory One of the theoretical backgrounds of the intended and proposed research is referred to as the Goal Setting Theory. This theoretical perspective drawn and postulated by Edwin Locke asserts that the individual goals which have been set up and modeled by every employee greatly determine their performance in the organizations. Usually, there are overall aims and objectives as captured in the strategic plans used by the organizations. However, the individual staffs or the employees have a role to play in the general performance of such an organizations (Stapleton, 2016). The employees normally set out their individual goals. Whenever they achieve these goals, they tend to be more motivated and improve their performance in the organization. However, their performance reduces whenever they fall short of meeting their targets and goals as set out. The study intends to capitalize on this theory so as to be able to determine the effectiveness of engaging in reviewing the performance of the individual employees. There has been much concern about the need to motivate and improve performance across the modern organizations. The knowledge on the effectiveness of engaging in performance reviews would, therefore, be able to establish its efficiency in determining specific and overall performance standards. Expectancy Theory The expectancy theory has been one of the theoretical models which best explains the fact that performance is pegged on expectations and motivations. The theory postulated in 1964 by Victor Vroom asserts that the kind of performance and behaviors of the employees is usually modeled by the expectations of satisfactions existing I the organizations. The individual goals have been argued as most critical in influencing and dictating the behavior modeled by the employees. Therefore, most staff members tend to model their behavior to enable them achieves their goals. However, the concept of performance is highly influenced and determined by expectation (Kessler, 2009). The study intends to apply this theoretical model to establish how the performance reviews would be essential in building on the expectation and satisfactions of the employees. The need to promote better and more effective performance depends on the existing motivating factors and the levels of expectations from the employees. Therefore, the study will; capitalize on learning how effective the reviews on performance integrated the concepts of expectations and modeled behavior of the employees within the organization. Control theory of performance The other theoretical justification for engaging in such research is referred to as the control theory. This theory focuses on the performance within the world place. The postulation of this theory was centered on the belief that performance is a controlled process and is subject to a lot of control measures. The belief was further built on the knowledge that unmonitored performance is likely to slow down and eventually fail to meet the objectives as outlined. The management has the responsibility of guiding the human resource factor by the set-out objectives and strategic goals of the organization (Saini & Bhaker, 2015). Whenever the performance is out of controlled, then there occur very little chances of success in such an organization. This theory, therefore, builds on the belief that performance management is an important and vital component of the organization. The research will be founded on this theoretical belief and will seek to determine how effective the reviews have been in regards to enforcing performance management. This is in line with the need to adhere to the set-out objectives and aims within the organization. Assumptions of the research The first assumption will be the consideration of any general organization for the study. There is no predetermined case of an organization, and this study will look at how effective the performance reviews would be to the general organizations within the modern society. The other assumption will be based on the use of any of the recommended or accepted performance review techniques as applied in the process. There will be no specific technique or tool of review advocated for, and therefore the efficiency of the process will be regarded by the general techniques used. Lastly, the study will make an assumption that the performance reviews conducted are periodic and give the best result of the employee performance at a particular moment. The reliability and the timeliness of the performance reviews will be assumed to be highly upheld. Therefore, the need to determine the efficiency of these reviews will not be devoid of the weaknesses of the approaches sued such as lack of reliability and lack of timeliness as expected in a normal process of a performance review. Research Questions 1. How does the performance reviews help in identifying areas which require adjustments in the part s of the employees? 2. How does the review enable the organization to determine the best compensation criteria and motivation method to use on the employees? 3. How does the performance reviews assist in building capacity and improving productivity in the organizations RESEARCH CONFIGURATION Research Design The intended research on learning on the effectiveness of the performance review in the modern organization seeks to adopt a positivist research design. This involves the process of gathering related data and summarizing such information for purposes of better understanding. The design intends to be based on the response from a group of respondents that shall be considered in the process of gathering data. After that, the information will be discussed given the existing literature background established on performance review. The study design will, therefore, be experimental and the result received from engaging in the experiment process will build a foundation for the intended study. The key constructs to be considered while carrying out the research include the measure of deviations from goals among the employees without the reviews, compensation expectation given the reviews and also the capacity building especially faster performing the reviews. The group of the respondents considered will be reviewed after a successful engagement in the performance reviews and these measures will then be considered and how they have been met. Sampling The sampling procedure will base on the need to come up with an effective group of respondents ranging from the Human Resource Managers to the employees themselves. This is built on the foundation that the performance reviews benefit both the employees and also the managers especially in realizing the overall goals of the organization. The human resources managers to be used in the study will be ten (10) in number carefully selected from two organizations. The employees to be considered will be thirty (30) selected from two groups of the organization. The first group will be from the business organizations which are usually rooted on the principle of profit maximization from their activities. The other group will be coming from non-profit making organizations. The reason for settling on these diverse groups of both managers and employees will help generate an overall data on the effectiveness of the performance reviews across the organizations despite the purpose of such a firm. There needs to be knowledge of how essential and beneficial this practice is and how it’s beneficial across the different groups of organizations. The data obtained in this research will be used to generalize the findings to other people, or other places since the sample chosen appear to be highly representative of what happening in the modern world. The contents that the research intends to develop will be transported to all other general cases across the world and will not only be limited to my geographical location. This is possible since the sample is representative. Besides, the employees and even the managers appear to have several things in common across the world, and the kind of response received from the group to be sampled will be highly representative. Gathering and recording the data One feature of the proposed research regards its choice of a wide geographical location in which to complete the research. There are several factors which would be able to have a bearing on the response given by the different respondents such as the location of the organizations and the prevailing policies within such organizations. Therefore, the study has focused on receiving a response from a group of managers and employees scattered in firms that have branches in Asia, Africa and Europe. The method of gathering of this information will be through the interview method that will be conducted through telephone process. The choice to use the telephone means is preferred in this case since most of the respondents are located in far places and therefore the use of telephone means would be less costly. This will first be preceded by a cover letter sent with the contact information provided on the websites of the organizations. The cover letters are meant to introduce my study and seek for permission so that the research process may be granted in the respective organization for academic purposes. The two selected organizations I the Australian capital will, however, be visited physically and a face-to-face interview did one the respondents. The provided cover letter and permission to engage in this study will be beneficial in helping me get access to the facilities or organizations intended for the research The various information intended out of this research is very critical and very confidential. For example, the prevailing remuneration scales and policies of organizations have always been taking as confidential; issues which therefore need to be kept as secure as possible. The proposed study intends to undertake the ethical and safety precaution so as to prevent unnecessary access to this information. This involves the use of protected passwords for the raw data that shall be sampled from the respondents and also limiting any access to the vital information contained in the interviews results from different organizations. Data Analysis Data Analysis has been regarded as one of the most essential are while conducting a research process. It involves the use of various techniques and approaches to describe and make an understanding out of the raw data obtained from the respondents (Bird, 2015). The study intends to make use of the qualitative data so as to represent the attributes of performance reviews and its effectiveness in the organizations. Therefore, the idealistic and most effective method of analysis that will be applied involves the use of Descriptive Analysis so as to present the information in a more understandable. The descriptive analysis will focus primarily on the existing qualitative data as offered by the various respondents. Besides, some of the response expected in his study will be based on statistical information especially on areas such as percentage estimation of the performance efficiencies and improvements in the organizations. The quantitative information will be subjected to Regression Analysis so as to develop a model indicating the patterns of improvements in the organizations. Usually, regressions analysis can show the trends in regards to improvements or even decline in a particular study area. There is need to establish how effective the performance reviews turn out to the organizations and this implies that the regression models will help to portray the kind of patterns of change experienced in the research. The data will, therefore, be displayed by the use of graphs to have a pictorial representation of the trends of the effectiveness of engaging in the reviews of performance across the organizations. One significant issue which will form the basis of this research regards the use of the qualitative information based on the response given ad making and making an analysis depending on the theoretical models established in the research conducted. Most of the information expected from the interview process to be conducted aim at getting the feelings of the managers and the employees in regards to the implementation of these reviews. The aftermath of the application of various models of reviews will equally be an issue of consideration during the data gathering process. The use of the qualitative information will, therefore, be subjected to a thorough description and analysis given the theoretical models established in the sections above. Besides, most of the quantitative data will be intended to show the patterns of change after and before the implementation of various models of performance reviews. The graphs will be generated from the statistical information provides. Also, the application of the regression models would be effective in determining the trend analysis and also showing the improvements which can be witnessed from the various changes in the organizations. This will be represented in a pictorial view for purposes of easy and simple interpretation. Timeline of the study The proposed study which seeks to identify how effective the performance reviews are perceived by respondents across a diverse geographical location will be conducted within the confines of the following proposed timeline; Phases Period Resources Phase 1: the data collection and gathering process 6 months $400 Phase 2: Data analysis and collation process 5 months $200 Phase 3: Data presentation 1 month $50 The division of the entire process into different phases helps in dividing the whole work and making the entire research process easy to perform. Besides, it also helps inappropriately apportioning the various resources that would be sued in the process of completion of the project. In this case, the estimation has been made on the assumption that the present conditions persist such as legal restrictions, political situations among many other prevailing factors. Besides, the expenditure estimations have been made on the currently prevailing monetary rates which are assumed to prevail further for the next 12 months. The timeline proposes the use of the different phases to have a more concise and elaborate way to manage the research process. It also intends to use the estimated costs so as to effectively complete the research process. Strengths and limitations of the research Strengths One of the strengths of this proposed research is the availability of immense literature and knowledge within the research areas. Several past studies have been done on this area. Therefore, there exists a more ample literature which offers a basis for the definition and also for the illustration of the problem statements under study. The other strength regards the existence of ample policies within the internal parlance which tend to support and accommodate the process of research especially in the organizations. Several organizations were earlier restrictive and conservative in offering a lot of information about their dealings. However, most of the countries have made this obliterated and now expects organizations to make public some of their information that would be essential for this study. Weaknesses One of the weaknesses is the levels of strain on the financial resources meant for the completion of the study. According to the proposed budget, there is much requited for purposes of collection and even analysis of data. This would imply that the researcher identifies a stable source of funds to enable the completion of the research. The limitation regards the limited scope of time available to complete the research. The topical areas are one of the broad areas in businesses and require ample literature reviews as well as a collection of ample data. According to the timeline, the research will only go for one year, and this may fail to capture some of the basic information required. Conclusion Performance reviews have regarded as important functional activities in the modern organizations. This paper focused on establishing a draft that would aid in perfuming research on this particular area. In entailed the development of the research questions, methodology, designs, and sampling and analysis procedures. Further, the draft involved the election of the best theoretical framework to aid in the study as well as identification of the essential timeline required. References Bertino, R., & Bell, T. (2017). If it's all about relationships, best to build good ones!. Professional Planner, (94), 28. Bird, H. (2015). Appraising clever people: lessons from introducing performance reviews for academics in a UK University. Industrial and Commercial Training, 47(2), 81-85. Kessler, R. (2009). Competency-Based Performance Reviews: How to Perform Employee Evaluations the Fortune 500 Way. ReadHowYouWant. com. Kinley, N., & Kinley, N. (2016). The end of performance management: sorting the facts from the hype. Strategic HR Review, 15(2), 90-94. Saini, V. P., & Bhaker, S. (2015). Exploring the dimensions of performance appraisal system in private ceramic tiles companies in India. International Journal of Education and Management Studies, 5(3), 273. Stapleton, D. (2016). Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results. Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship, 21(1), 92. Read More