Performance Management Systems Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Performance Management Systems - Essay Example The tools to help manage and track performance management across organizations have been in place for considerably less time. In fact, most of the oldest of those in use today have only been on the market a little longer than five years. Systematizing the performance management systems has its benefits. Taking into account the case of Saba's Enterprise Performance solutions, it offers the following advantages: First, it focuses people on strategic initiatives, such as responding to new competitors, launching a product, or investing in a new line of business. The identification of strategic initiatives and making it visible across the organization shapes the goals and the competencies required for each individual in the organization. Beneath these are operational objectives that focus on what you need to do to achieve strategic aims. Prioritizing these will identify key areas of activity and areas where additional effort or resource will be directed to deliver improvement. Operational priorities will influence the decisions that managers make on a yearly, monthly and even daily basis. Second, it helps organizations execute on their business strategy by focusing people on strategic initiatives resulting to goal alignment of individual activities and organizational goals. One of the biggest challenges that organizations face in developing their personnel for maximum business gains is aligning development efforts with the organization's goals. In a recent survey by Bersin & Associates, 60% of training managers indicated that their biggest challenge was to be sure their efforts were aligned with the company's business strategy. In fact, the idea of performance management is to combine the viewpoints of the organization, the individual, and the environment. Third, it offers performance assessment capabilities designed to increase the productivity of individuals and the overall organization. Top performing organizations combine performance and improvement in a single agenda, often establishing a senior management group with responsibility for both. These groups, sometimes including executive portfolio holders, take responsibility for: regularly monitoring and acting on key performance indicators that reflect corporate priorities, setting standards for performance and expectations of when action needs to be taken identifying tolerances for performance , asking challenging questions about performance , ensuring that there are robust action plans to address under-performance, redirecting resources where necessary , following up planned actions, ensuring they have led to improvement , and sending out a clear signal that performance and improvement are being taken seriously at the highest level. Lastly, it focuses learning resources on organizational and competitive goals. To be successful today, organizations must focus on understanding who they are and where they want to go (the vision and mission), setting clear expectations of the outcomes to be achieved by the organization (goals and objectives) and describing how people should perform their roles to deliver the vision, mission and goals (the competency system). Having a clear direction and defined outcomes doesn't seem to be sufficient to drive