Trends and challenges in HR management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Trends and challenges in HR management - Essay Example Timely performance management can be used to identify, measure, and develop those individuals who could be the stars of a company (Campbell & Garfinkel 1996). A system of annual appraisals works with the idea that performance should be managed at the end of a give year but the more modern version of the process looks at performance from quarter to quarter which is the process used by many Fortune 500 companies (Grote, 2002). The annual appraisal system may put a considerable time gap between the time high performance was shown and the time when the reward for the performance is received. Kerr (1996) uses the example of giving food pellets to a mouse in a cage when a button is pushed by the mouse and says that if the reward comes a year after the button was pushed, it would be difficult to readily associate the two acts Of course, quarterly appraisals or other systems that have a shorter feedback loop as compared to annual appraisals may demand more time from managers as well as the employees if 360 performance evaluations have to be used. However, compared to an annual system of performance appraisals, more timely systems can give a company the means by which their strategic HR objectives, evaluation purposes and HR needs analysis could all be met (Bretz, Milkovich, & Read, 1992). Thus the annual appraisal system may come with the advantage of less time and money invested by the company; it certainly has its own set of drawbacks which make other systems more attractive. In essence, there are two primary approaches that can be taken towards an appraisal system i.e. an approach which focuses on the behavior of the employees and an approach that focuses on the results produced by the employee. However, in real world scenarios, the methods used by companies may take elements from both approaches to create a performance appraisal system for the employees. Amongst them the two more popular ones remain