Performance management: an introduction

Hello, I'm Sue Hutchinson and until recently I was an Associate Professor of HRM or Human Resource Management at the University of West of England. Performance management is one of my areas of research, in particular, the study of how people management practices impact on organisational performance through employee attitudes and behaviour.

I'm the editor of this series of talks on performance management. In this introduction to the series, I'm going to consider what we mean by performance management. The activities and practices we normally associate with performance management, who's responsibility should it be in the workplace, and the importance of context. I'll also consider why performance management is such a critical organisational activity and some of the challenges of design and practice, and there are many. These are all themes that are developed in the later talks.

Performance management is an ambiguous term with many different definitions and meanings, ranging from the very simple to the more complex. For some people, it has become synonymous with a single activity, the performance, appraisal or review. If you have worked, this may indeed be your view of what performance management means, but for others, it is a much broader concept associated with a range of interrelated people management or HR activities, which impact on employee performance. On this slide here, is a recent definition from the CIPD or the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, which is the professional body for HR professionals. You'll see it describes performance management as seeking to maximize the value that employees create. So, employees are viewed as an important resource which can add value to organisations through their attitudes and behaviours, and ultimately performance. Performance management seeks to improve employee performance in line with the organisation's objectives. This suggests that performance management can be viewed as a strategic tool to help organisations deliver their aims and goals. The last sentence tells us that it is not a single activity, such as performance appraisal, but a group of practices that should be approached holistically, implying that the practices are interrelated in some way. You'll come across other definitions and interpretations in your readings, but this one provides a useful understanding of performance management for this series of talks.