Orthodox and Radical Critique of Performance Appraisal and Recent Innovations in Performance Management

Essay from the year 2007 in the subject Leadership and Human Resources - Miscellaneous, University of Leeds (Leeds University Business School), course: MA HRM, language: English, abstract: Performance appraisal (PA) is a process of setting some targets for the individuals which they are required to achieve. Performance of individuals is evaluated by the process and good performance is acknowledged by rewarding them which may be financial rise in pay, popularly known as increment or upward movement in the hierarchy i.e. promotion. Traditionally PA is a straightforward process where the manager can only review the performance of his subordinates annually. However, in order to meet the increased expectations of employers, customer demand and better output, PA plays a crucial role for which it has become a part of a wider HRM strategy called performance management (PM). Traditional PA has some limitations that can be minimised by following multi-rater PA system. 360-degree feedback and balanced scorecard are playing important role as recent innovations in the PM system. These two tools are being widely used in both public and private organisations of developed countries like UK, USA, Germany, France; even in the public sectors in Bangladesh, Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) in particular. This paper aims at discussing the traditional PA system experienced with several problems which the new innovations such as 360 degree feedback and balanced scorecard have attempted to overcome.