Will Humans perform better if appraised by Machines ?

Author- Rashmi Singh

Why does an organization want E-performance ?

High competence

High congruence

High commitment

Cost effective……….. Uff, these jargons !!! Transformation. Demand of the day.

Three things that can happen:

You Think, Think and Think !   Quite entertaining actually !!

But do you THINK?

Of course, you are just another Thinker !!

What do you Think :

What do you think of your own performance?

What do you think of the ratings given?

What do you think of the feedback generated?

What were the circumstances that you over performed or under- performed?

With Automated Performance Appraisal Software

Performance Appraisal Software has given freedom from dreadful paperwork, managing leaves, attendance, holidays, absenteeism, training etc.

This robust software has initiated a silent but powerful revolution in the HR department by helping a smooth transition from a total manual job to fully automated process. A standard Employee Appraisal System enables the organizations to seamlessly align their corporate outlooks with that of the employees. Now, equipped with this tool, the HR manager can fill the appraisal forms, prepare the questionnaire via online medium and forward them to the selected employees and receive them in the same way.

Easy ain’t it !!

Performance appraisal software saves HR Management's time significantly over manually maintained records. Managers can more easily communicate business strategies, plans and produce measurable targets for their employees that will support specific and overall company objectives. It provides management the tools of individual performance measurement so they can identify and cultivate top performers for further development and establish a pay for performance compensation plan.

Automated appraisal systems helps to maximize Return on Talent Investment.

How do they do it ?

Performance Management Module enables monitoring each employee's performance, picking up the flaws and finding the areas for which the concerned employees need to be trained.

The whole system automates the task of chalking out, implementing, tracking, and evaluating a robust appraisal process in systematic and confidential way for ensuring best results.

The methodology adopted and parameters evaluated by organisations to measure employees' performance varies greatly. Employee Performance Appraisal System is designed to agile  and flexible to enable companies define the desired fields and parameters associated with the process as and when required . This ensures flawless and more accurate mapping of employee-wise role to their Key Performance Indicator and Key Resource Area.

Automated appraisal systems, can evaluate your employee in absolute terms and compare his performance with other employees doing the same job. It is widely believed that competition always motivates employees to enhance their performance significantly. The resulting evaluation identifies the best as well as weak employees and distinguishes them for performance appraisal.

Performance Appraisal System as a module can have a 360° appraisal process, managing Appraisal Managers and complete database having external appraisers, standard/customized templates etc. The matured HRMS (Human Resource Management Software) having all the functionalities and all data in structure form provides lot of analytics part to evaluate the employee performance.

How does it help?

1.     With an increase in the completeness, accuracy, and appropriateness of information gathered

2.     Plenty of feedback, a relatively higher level of organizational control, and a greater ability of the organization to judge performance

3.     Increase in the importance of quantitative measures in the evaluation and thereby increase in the importance of the evaluation itself

4.     Higher quantity of work output and a corresponding increase in productivity

5.     Increase in the level of stress, a decrease in satisfaction, and a decrease in the quality of relationships with peers, supervisors, and senior management.

What do we achieve ?

Enhanced capability to control the quantitative aspects of individual performance

Without Automated Performance Appraisal Software

Ok, so you can Think !!

But do you FEEL?

Of course, you are just another HUMAN !!

What do you FEEL?

If everything is automated, what are humans needed for?

Feel, how will you react to a feedback given by a machine?

How will you feel if continuously monitored by your system?

Whom do you trust, people or machines?

Are we forgetting the Human aspect to the whole thing???

Although e- performance appraisal can have several benefits, but can technology replace aspect that can only be human?

Lets refer to the 5th point again :

“increase in the level of stress, a decrease in satisfaction, and a decrease in the quality of relationships with peers, supervisors, and senior management”

How about a dialogue !  Words can heal numbers cant !!

Employee Motivation and all those theories to enhance performance!!

Extensive use of numerical performance feedback seems to create a more competitive environment which may decrease the quality of social relationships between peers and between supervisors and subordinates.

Does an employee needs to be measured for everything. How will you perform in a controlled environment and continuous monitoring ??  I will run away :D

Most likely, any computerized performance monitoring may result in a workplace that is less satisfying to many employees.

Will this kind of system not highlight the negatives or negative ratings rather than the positives?

A computerized performance monitoring system may provide an increase in the amount of quantitative feedback and minimize the emphasis given to subjective information in performance evaluations. Reducing the emphasis on subjective measures may improve performance evaluations only to the extent that job performance can realistically be measured using numerical counts. On the other hand, many aspects of an individual’s work may not lend themselves well to numerical measurement. One simple example is the thoroughness with which a claims investigator processes a claim. Strict use of numerical counts leads to the undesirable attitude portrayed by the comment, “When in doubt, pay out!”

Lets review it with the Model of Performance Monitoring. How do you implement the Expectancy Model of extrinsic motivation, (perceived increase in productivity) since the outcome of performance should be given as feedback to the employees and to be tied to a reward structure?

Behavioural aspects of performance measurement. How can you apply the Behaviourally Anchored Rating System to the organization and get behavioural based scores. Can a automated system anchor human behavior?

It might be still easier to give employee ratings and create an organization based Performance Bell Curve. But can a machine give individual feedback and restore the fact that it has to be taken positively by the employee.

Infact, there might be a need for a more comprehensive model of performance monitoring and control systems. Which works simultaneously with human intervention as and when required. It may include:

the flow of performance related information in the organization, the process whereby managers use this information, employees response to the process of measurement, the type of feedback and its subsequent influence on behavior, and potential changes in the underlying social structure of the organization, identify human behavior and response to situations, measure their actions and reactions to activities, measure employee work interest areas, measure there approach towards work, employee enthusiasm and so on.

Fairness of these Automated Performance Monitoring Systems would purely depend on researchers’ ability to gather “sensitive” data on individual performance, process all sensitive and non- quantitative and subjective data/ information to accurately access the employee performance, gather individual reactions to performance monitoring systems, and organizational monitoring and control decisions.

How fair is this fairness, only future can tell !!               

Some references from googlebaba.com, rest is original :)

----------------