Benchmark-Performance Management Cycle Plan. Management Essay

Performance Management Cycle Plan at IBM
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Performance Management Cycle Plan at IBM
Performance management is a crucial part of any organization’s success, especially when it comes to the optimal utilization of human resources. At International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), an American multinational company dealing with technology, performance management has been given serious considerations (IBM, n.d.). The company understands that performance management not only influences effectiveness at an individual level but also at an organizational level. For constant improvement to occur within an organization, performance management has to be present (Cardy & Leonard, 2015). For IBM, constant improvement is a necessary element of the company’s success since it works in an industry that is prone to change and constant innovation and improvement are required. Some of the key performance management needs in IBM include hiring, monitoring, goal-setting, continuous feedback, and continual employee skills development (Kiron & Spindel, 2019). All these needs fall under the performance management cycle. The performance management cycle encompasses planning, monitoring, reviewing, rewarding, and controlling to ensure that organizational goals are met (Franco-Santos & Otley, 2018). This paper aims to benchmark performance management at IBM and provide an overview of an effective performance management cycle in the following sections.
Step One: Performance Outcomes of IBM
This section assesses the performance of IBM in terms of outcomes achievement. Performance outcomes address the achievement of goals such as the number of units sold, quantity of waste reduction, and the number of sales, among others (Cardy & Leonard, 2015). Performance outcomes are crucial as they help organizations examine their progress and identify the challenges. At IBM, the key performance outcomes are; impact on client success, innovation, business results, skills growth and development, and personal responsibility to teammates (Zillman, 2016). Impact on client success is especially a key performance outcome for the department of global business services which deals directly with clients from across the world. Responsibility to teammates is meant to promote teamwork and diversity. At IBM, performance outcomes are also addressed in terms of how well the company supports the women who work there. IBM has strived to ensure that women in the workforce are increasing and that their specific needs are met so that they work in a culturally diverse and competent environment (IBM, n.d.). One of the key policies that support cultural diversity at IBM is the creation of work-life and career development programs for women.
Step Two: Employee Goal Development
To establish and achieve performance outcomes, goals and behaviors must be developed (Cardy & Leonard, 2015). This entails ensuring that the goals of the company are clear to all employees at the very beginning. IBM focuses on goal and behavior development by allowing employees to match their goals with the ongoing tasks (Zillman, 2016). Employees provide and seek feedback at least once every month, rather than at the end of the year. To achieve organizational goals, employees set individual targets, with the help of their immediate manager, and identify the actions through which those targets will be achieved. However, the current performance management system allows employees to revise their goals at any time of the year, rather than doing it just once during the annual performance review (Kiron & Spindel, 2019). Therefore, IBM relies heavily on the development of short-term goals. According to Franco-Santos and Otley (2018), developing goals and behaviors helps organizations avoid the goal-uncertainty problem, thus enhancing the achievement of outcomes. Thus, managers often have to sit down with employees and develop targets and actions that will lead to the achievement of performance outcomes.
Step Three: Provision of Support, Supervision and Ongoing Performance Discussions
Performance management is not just about developing goals and performance outcomes. It is also about providing support to employees so that they can achieve the outcomes. This step falls under the monitoring stage of the performance management cycle. It allows managers to assess the progress of employees and to offer any assistance needed (Franco-Santos & Otley, 2018). At IBM, this step is taken seriously because as stated earlier, employees are allowed to revise their goals as well as provide and seek feedback from their supervisors at any time of the year. Managers provide employees with regular updates about their milestones and achievements, rather than wait for the annual performance review (Kiron & Spindel, 2019). The idea behind this approach is to ensure that employees are not only aware of how well they have achieved their performance outcomes but also how they can better achieve them. This entails developing and applying new skills with the help of the company, especially given that the company operates in a fast-paced and exponentially changing industry (Kiron & Spindel, 2019). An effective performance management cycle plan should allow for continuous monitoring, maybe every month, so that employees are provided with assistance in case of any challenges and adjust their goals whenever they deem it necessary.
Step Four: Evaluation of Employees’ Performance
Evaluation entails assessing how good or bad the observed performance of an employee was (Cardy & Leonard, 2015). For effective evaluation, a standard evaluation process must be applied to all employees so that they can take the feedback from such evaluations positively. Effective evaluation is facilitated by e...