adminthat not all job stations can be automated, some still require some human presence to ensure satisfaction of the client though automation could have made it possible to totally eliminate human presence.
Most fuel companies overseas had to reintroduce minimal human presence in some fuel service stations to increase customer satisfaction.
In the foreseeable future human beings will continually play a critical role in ensuring that organisations attain their set goals.
As a result of this, human resources management is no longer just a peripheral support function but a key strategic function within an organisation.
Among the key strategic functions human resources play is the supervision of performance management.
There is a compelling need to align human resources strategy to the overall corporate strategy in order for organisations to achieve their overall corporate strategies.
For companies to meet corporate objectives, they should apply various human resources interventions ranging from identifying employees needs for training and development, counselling, performance management, staff development
Over the years authorities in the field of performance management have come up with all sorts of designs and structures for performance management. These include theories to support this such as management by objectives, stretch targets.
Most organisations are conscious of the need to undertake performance appraisal rituals once or twice a year.
However, the human’s selfish interests in most cases interfere with the partiality of the whole process. Some take the appraisals as the opportunity to settle their scores with subordinates.
Some of the scores are not work-related such as tribal differences, race, religious differences, and sexual differences on a micro level.
According to Milkovich and Boudreau (1997), there are four frequently studied errors are halo, leniency, severity and central tendency.
Halo effect
Halo error is when a general impression causes similar ratings on different dimensions, such as rating as high on job knowledge because they have social skills.
Politicians are normally available at workplaces. These are people who know how to please the bosses. They know the boss’s language and what pleases the bosses.
Leniency error
Leniency error is giving overly favourable ratings to an entire group. This is normally applied by populist leadership.
The leadership will be of the opinion that if staff members are all highly rated the management will in turn get favourable attitudes from employees.
If remuneration is linked to this method, there is a tendency to reward the lazy and non-performing employees at the expense of the high performing employees.
Severity error
Severity error is the opposite. At times managers use this process to settle their own scores with their subordinates.
Some use this process to ensure that their subordinates will never rise and to ensure that the subordinates continuously feel that their contribution is not very valuable to the organisation and they have very little entitlement to salary increments and other benefits which would change their lives.
Central tendency error
Central tendency error is incorrectly giving all ratings near the middle such as giving each member of the team between five and six.
This method tends to favour non-performers and average performers at the expense of top-notch performers. The challenge all organisations face is to eliminate bias in all these performance appraisals.
Perhaps the first step is to realise some of the errors and make concerted efforts to correct the short comings.
The writer is a Managing Consultant at CLC Training International. E-mail [email protected]
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