Performance Management: Sources, Advantages, and Disadvantages

This report delves into the advantages and disadvantages of various information sources used in HR performance management. It explores the roles of supervisors, peers, subordinates, self-evaluation, and customer feedback, examining their respective strengths and weaknesses. The report emphasizes the importance of employee involvement in the selection of evaluation sources and the need for a comprehensive evaluation across all performance dimensions. It also discusses the application of 360-degree feedback systems and the potential for biases within different evaluation methods. The report further incorporates a theoretical framework, links to academic articles, and debates on different perspectives to provide a well-rounded analysis of effective performance management strategies. The employee should be involved in selecting which sources their evaluation comes from and there has to be evaluation on all the performance dimensions as in time, quality, quantity of the performance. When employees are involved they will have a higher acceptance of their evaluation results and they will feel that the system is fair. There are different people who you should consider to provide performance information for the employee.

Question: Advantages and disadvantages associated
with the variety/different sources of information for
effective performance management.
Include in your answer theoretical framework, build
linkage with examples, link articles, elaborate in your
own words, examples to show theory and practice, be
able to link to other topics, then external academic
articles where you make a debate on 2 articles one
with and one against and what do you think in your
opinion you agree with have evidence to support
your answers.
HR performance management:
Sources
Answer:
The employees should be involved in selecting which sources their evaluation comes from
and there has to be evaluation on all the performance dimensions as in time, quality,
quantity of the performance. When employees are involved they will have a higher
acceptance of their evaluation results and they will feel that the system is fair.
There are different people who you should consider to provide performance information for
the employee.
1. Being evaluated by a Supervisors:
 Advantages are:
- They can evaluate performance vs. strategic goals
- Make decisions about rewards
- They are able to differentiate among performance dimensions
- Supervisors are viewed as exclusive source in some cultural contexts
 Disadvantages:
- Supervisors may not be able to directly observe performance
- Evaluations may be biased, if a supervisor likes an employee, he can give him a
high rate and if not the other way around, in other words it could be unfair.

Although there are certain disadvantages, but the employees must essentially be evaluated
by the supervisors, as it would help to review the employee performance and creativity,
personal skills and adaptability, which in turn creates an atmosphere of healthy competition
among the employees and better the work output (Fuchsd and Prouska. 2014). Moreover, as
according to the case study, the performance appraisal of the employees is enclosed in the
hands of the supervisors to have an objective analysis.
2. Being evaluated by a Peer:
 Advantages are:
- Is to assess team work
- Peers are well equipped to rate other team member’s performance since they
would work closely with them on daily basis.
 Disadvantages:
- Possible friendship bias, basically if you’re in a conflict with the person
you’d rate them low.
- Discriminating
- Context effects/ environmental factors can affect their decision on
rating. Example if he’s stressed.
Peer reviews according to the researchers contribute positively in managing the employees.
Since, the evaluations are made anonymously, there is lesser chances for biasness and uphold
the honesty among the workers. Further, it also motivates the employees. Positive notions
from the fellow workers increase the teamwork attitude and output of the employees. They
are fond to be focused more on the output of the team rather than their individual output.
They also get the energy to compete and perform well. It also gives an essence of acceptance
among the workplace. Further an unbiased opinion of the fellow workers contributes
positively in the employee appraisal, however, maintaining anonymity in the evaluation form
is very important as it will reduce the subjectivity among the employees (Mache et al. 2015).
The organization that the case study talks about, do not practice such kind of evaluation
system which is negatively impacting up on the work output of the organization as a whole.
3. Being evaluated by subordinates:
 Advantages:
- Accurate when used for developmental purposes, so to see if the employee has
developed in performance.
- Good position to assess some competencies.
 Disadvantages:
- Inflated when used for administrative purposes
- Many face retaliations, so maybe the evaluator is having payback, therefore
confidentiality is a key here so they don’t even talk about the employees rating
because its private information for them.
In most of the cases it is seen that the subordinates have a negative attitude towards their
fellow seniors. There are varied opinions among the researchers regarding this kind of
evaluation. While some believe it contributes positively, others believe that the subordinated
have a generalized and biased attitude towards their seniors (Gonos and Gallo, 2013).
However, in most cases it contributes positively if only the organization has a systematic

approach towards the employee relationships. In case of the said organization, since it has no
such approach, Al Brown, must incorporate a healthy employee relationship into its
organizational strategy.
4. Being evaluated by yourself:
 Advantages:
- It increases acceptance of decisions
- Decreases defensiveness during appraisals interview
- Good position to track activities during review period
 Disadvantage:
- Maybe more lenient and biased
- Having improved quality of self-appraisals
- Use comparative instead of absolute measurement systems
- Ensure confidentiality
- Emphasize the future
Self-Appraisal helps the employees to gain an understanding regarding their own work
behavior and gain knowledge about the organizational goals and policies and help them to
orient themselves towards those goals. Also, it helps them to recognize their personal goals if
aligned with the organizational goals and incorporate a competitive attitude to sustain in the
market (Cascio. 2015). Many researchers are of the opinion that many people lie in the self-
evaluation forms but this again contribute positively, as it helps the organization to recognize
the potential and competent employees. The said organization must incorporate such a
system of appraisal to exert better work from its employees.
5. Customers external and internal
 Advantages:
- Employees become more focused on meeting customer expectations.
- Disadvantages:
- Its time consuming and it costs
The basic notion of such an appraisal system is to measure the performance of the
employees. Other appraisal policies measure the quality of the workers, but this includes the
quantity. Many a researcher have given it less or no importance, but this process of appraisal
helps an organization to quantify the output of the employees as well as the output of the
organization as a whole and understand the gap in between. This also helps the organizations
to get an idea of their revenues (Noe et al. 2017). Therefore., being a service industry, the
organization taken into account must include such an appraisal policy into its orientation.
Every manager has to expect disagreements through the sources, additionally ensure the
employee receives feedback by the source.
To decrease the disagreements with the employee’s appraisal performance, ensure
employees take active role in selecting which source will rate which dimensions. The
company should assign different weight to scores by sources, depending on its importance, in
other words each thin you want to evaluate choose wisely how you divide it up in who’s
going to rate it depending on the importance of it.
Moving on to the 360-degree evaluation, this rating system is mostly used nowadays,
because since the peers, subordinates, supervisors, self, stakeholders and customer’s

external & internal are rating and giving feedback on behavior and work performance, in this
case there wouldn’t be unfairness or any biases throughout the rating because its more than
2 persons rating. 360-degree feedback is for paying rewards in return and promotions
usually. In 360-degree feedback, will lead to more confident results, although it’s a good and
bad thing for organizations because when coworkers which are the peers in rating an
employee there were a lot of incidents where the peer manipulated in the ratings. More over
peers are not trained sufficiently to evaluate an employee, therefore some companies adjust
training sessions.

References:
Cascio, W.F., 2015. Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill.
Fuchs, S. and Prouska, R., 2014. Creating positive employee change evaluation: The role of
different levels of organizational support and change participation. Journal of change
management, 14(3), pp.361-383.
Gonos, J. and Gallo, P., 2013. Model for leadership style evaluation. Management: journal of
contemporary management issues, 18(2), pp.157-168.
Mache, S., Jensen, S., Linnig, S., Jahn, R., Steudtner, M., Ochsmann, E. and Preuß, G., 2015. Do
overweight workers profit by workplace health promotion, more than their normal-weight
peers? Evaluation of a worksite intervention. Journal of Occupational Medicine and
Toxicology, 10(1), p.28.
Noe, R.A., Hollenbeck, J.R., Gerhart, B. and Wright, P.M., 2017. Human resource management:
Gaining a competitive advantage. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.