Performance Management & Employee Motivation

This assignment delves into the crucial relationship between effective performance management and employee motivation. It utilizes a case study of Aussie Healthy Foods, a company facing issues with its new performance assessment system. The essay analyzes how the new system's complexities negatively impact employee productivity and compliance with established performance management theories. The assignment suggests solutions by combining traditional and advanced evaluation methods, emphasizing the importance of consistent feedback and motivation strategies beyond annual reviews to drive organizational success.

Running head: PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note

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Introduction
In the current worldwide scenario, every successful organization understands and knows
the ways to achieve a better productivity and performance in terms of achieving a higher
competitive advantage with the successful implementation of its managerial tools within the
organization. Every organization is fundamental in the achieving of its goals under the
collaborative efforts of the employees and the responsibility of the management to handle the
operations of the organization (Van Dooren, Bouckaert & Halligan 2015).
This essay deals with the fundamentals and the strategies to manage the performance of
the employees, within the organization. This essay further investigates the implications related to
performance management in an organization that come from the employees as well as the
measures to amplify the efficiency of performance management in the organization. In order to
help understand the fundamentals and the theories of performance management, a case study
been cited to add influence to the topic in concern. The case study of Aussie Healthy Foods has
been adopted to help understand the topic in a lucid manner.
The purpose of the essay is to understand the principles and theories of performance
management with reference to the case study as well as critically analyze the performance
management of the same organization taking suggestion from the performance management
principles and theories.

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Organizational background
Aussie healthy foods is one of the known food manufacturer of healthy edible items that
includes breakfast cereals, beverages, sandwich spread, diary and meat alternatives since the year
of 1980. The headquarters of the same are located in Melbourne, Australia and the organization
has been performing under the influence and guidance of CEO Ms Carter, for the past ten years.
Critical analysis of Performance management of Aussie Healthy Foods
Under the circumstantial evidence and performance of the organization, the organization
had been performing strongly for the past ten years. In order to amplify the productivity the
organization made a decision to reconstruct the performance management design that involved
the setting up of annual goals, by the employees (Cinquini et al. 2013). The employees are
subjected to midyear check under the managerial supervision with a yearly assessment of the
performance to a decision of the necessary increment in the remuneration of the deserving
candidates. With a motive to enhance the performance, the management began conducting a
quarterly feedback session from the employees. From a feedback email with respect to the new
system, it was analyzed and concluded that the employees were dissatisfied with the new system,
which was burdening and time-consuming, due to the frequent exchange of feedbacks and
reviews (Hvidman & Andersen 2013).
With reference, to the theories of performance management the strategies that has been
applied is totally rational since the performance of the employees can only be maintained with a
well established communication system to help the managers understand and evaluate the
performance of the employees (Rabl et al. 2012). In terms of annual increment of the

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remuneration or appraisals of the employees a quarterly feedback session is indeed one of the
necessary means to categorize the performing employees with the underperforming ones. The
means of deriving the feedbacks from the employees, managers and the closest colleagues are
the methods of assessing the performance and are categorized under the upgraded system of
performance management evaluation process. This system deals with the process of self-
evaluation of the performance by the employees themselves and feedbacks are gathered from
peers and direct reports. The process is conducted annually along with quarterly evaluation or
assessment using objective measurable criteria.
Although, this process of performance management is more updated and effective, this
process of assessment can be often perceived as an extra burden, as seen in this case study. The
reason being this process is time consuming and lumbering due to frequent exchange of
feedbacks and reports from the employees and their opinion towards the peers. Often the
employees have a tendency to work according to the traditional method of work and performance
assessment, they tend to develop a withdrawal from the more upgraded system of assessing the
performance. Since the organization has been operating from a longer time, it can be presumed
that the employees working in the organization have also been in the organization for a longer
duration. They might have developed a familiar sensitivity concerning the traditional method of
performance evaluation that was once used for the assessment of the performance. With the
newer implementation, the employees began facing difficulties regarding it, assuming that the
process requires more time for inputting the feedback and breaking the spontaneity of their daily
production, thus affecting their performance.
As per the case study, if it can be assumed that all the employees were performing under
the Goal setting theory of performance management but based under the circumstantial evidence

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(Locke & Latham 2013). However, the employees were unable to comply with the Expectancy
theory of performance management, to some extent (Griffin 2013). This can be due to the
alteration in the methodology of assessing the performance that needs frequent feedbacks from
the employees and their co-workers, which was considered to be over loading in nature. Since
the company has it individual requirement of achieving a better productivity, the failure to
successfully comprehend and comply with the new assessment system led to a higher cost due to
the elevated time consumption and lesser productivity that could have been achieved by effective
time management by the employees. Whereas the other companies have effectively reduced their
cost using the same principle and methodology under consideration that perhaps they were able
to comply and familiarize themselves with the new assessment systems, to help themselves
assess their own productivity and successfully meeting the two theories of Performance
management.
Solutions for mitigating the crisis related to performance management
The crisis that came up according to the case study can be mitigated by strategically
improvising the performance management methodology. The organization used to follow the
tradition method of assessing the performance that was gradually replaced by an upgraded
assessment system that was criticized by majority of the employees due to the setbacks. The
probable solution for re-designing and refining the performance management system is to make
it more flexible and create a systematic combination of the two methods, the advance and the
traditional methods (Rolstadas 2012). The newer methods and the use of advanced technologies
is an advantage but a few alterations can be done in terms of the assessment (Austin 2013).
Process like, the assessment by the supervisor and non-requirement of reviews from the others,

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can be helpful in terms of lessening the burden on the employees and effectively managing the
time to increase the production as well as the cost cutting (Bogetoft 2013).
With affirmation regarding the topic, it can be justified that effective performance
management and motivation are the primary dynamics to drive the employees to perform
efficiently and effectively in an organization. Employees or the workforce is one of the key
elements of the organization, which is the active in the performance of the organization. The
fluctuations in the performance of the employees affect not the individuals but the organization
as a whole as well.
The foremost strength of performance management lies in the application of motivational
incentives to the employees to drive them or encourage them towards a invisible and redirected
goal. It can be suggested, that the use of smaller incentives is manipulating for the employees
who are unwilling to perform due to the belief of getting lesser appreciation and incentives for
the efforts contributed to the work, apart from the annual appraisals that are subjected to the
factor of probability (DeNisi & Smith 2014). To improve underperformance and inefficiency of
the employees, contribution of assistance as well as flexible work practices and defining the roles
can be encouraging (Awadh & Alyahya 2013). The supervisor should have proper knowledge
and training to handle underperformance issues efficiently and understand the ways of
motivating the employees, keeping awareness about their respective needs and demands. The
well management of the organizational protocols, resources and better facilities could also be
beneficial in terms of keeping the employees motivated, thus directing the organization towards
higher productivity (Jelali 2012).

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Conclusion
With the help of this essay, it can be concluded that effective performance management
and motivation are the primary dynamics to drive the employees to perform efficiently and
effectively in an organization. Based on the case study, the employees of Aussie Healthy Foods
company was facing crisis in terms of the new system of the performance assessment. The new
methods of providing feedbacks to the supervisor for the assessment was criticized since it was
considered to be time consuming and burdening, thus affecting the productivity of the
organization as well. This method was partially affecting the compliance to the theories of
performance management. In order for successfully mitigating the rising concern the suggestion
of combining the traditional and the advanced methods of evaluation is crucial in altering the
rigidity of the methodology and lessening the burden from the employees. The effective method
of motivation and minimal incentive appraisals apart from the annual evaluation and appraisal
can be effective to motivate and redirect the employees towards better productivity, in turn
benefitting the organization in terms of higher productions and reducing the cost.

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References
Austin, R.D., 2013. Measuring and managing performance in organizations. Addison-Wesley.
Awadh, A.M. & Alyahya, M.S., 2013. Impact of organizational culture on employee
performance. International Review of Management and Business Research, 2(1), p.168.
Bogetoft, P., 2013. Performance benchmarking: Measuring and managing performance.
Springer Science & Business Media.
Cinquini, L., Mitchell, F., Nørreklit, H. & Tenucci, A., 2013. Methodologies for managing
performance measurement. The Routledge companion to cost management, pp.360-380.
DeNisi, A. & Smith, C.E., 2014. Performance appraisal, performance management, and firm-
level performance: a review, a proposed model, and new directions for future research. Academy
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Griffin, R.W., 2013. Fundamentals of management. Cengage Learning.
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