Shared Activity: Performance Management Systems and Motivation: Share Your Work Performance management systems, which typically include performance appraisal and employee development, are the 'Achilles' heel' of human resources management. They suffer flaws in many organizations, with employees and managers regularly bemoaning their ineffectiveness. (Pulakos, 2004).' You may have encountered a performance management process within your own organisation and had the same thoughts. You may have experienced the process as an annual occurrence. Rather, it should be a year-round process monitoring your progress and performance.Cultural norms will influence how the monitoring and the formal review take place, but generally, performance management processes contain three main stages – creating goals, pursuing your goals and reviewing the performance of your goals through a performance appraisal (Atkinson and Shaw, 2007). When performance management processes are instituted properly, managers and employees should be continuously interacting with all aspects of the system. Consider what might be effective and ineffective in a performance management system in which you participated and the effect that this could have had on employee motivation. Your Individual Assignment in this unit focuses on these issues. In this Shared Activity, you will have the opportunity to share an outline of your Individual Assignment with your colleagues and receive feedback prior to submitting it. You will also help your colleagues by giving them feedback on their outlines. For feedback to be most effective, it must be specific and rationalised. In other words, to provide quality feedback, you must clearly state what your feedback is and why it is important. The rationale is particularly important because it will help the person receiving the feedback understand how to apply the feedback to other work in the future. As you do this, consider how you can provide quality feedback to colleagues in this module as well as to co-workers in your profession. References Atkinson, C., & S. Shaw, (2007) 'Managing Performance', in Lucas, R., B. Lupton, & H. Mathieson (eds.) Human Resource Management in an International Context, London: CIPD, Available at: http://www.cipd.co.uk/NR/rdonlyres/D328E151-E1D2- 4F74- B8D1-3CC6AEC5BF0E/0/1843981092sc.pdf, (accessed: 9/1/13) Pulakos, E. D., (2004) Performance Management: A Roadmap for Developing, Implementing and Evaluating Performance Management Systems, Alexandria: SHRM, Available at: http://www.shrm.org/about/foundation/research/documents/1104pu lakos.pdf, (accessed: 17/12/12) To prepare for this Shared Activity: • Review the Unit Introduction and the Learning Resources, including the HR/OB Matrix. • Review the Unit 5 Individual Assignment (Performance Management Systems and Motivation) instructions. • Consider how you might outline your ideas for your Individual Assignment. Consider any useful resources you find during your library research. To complete this Shared Activity: • Construct an outline of your Unit 5 Individual Assignment. Your outline should show how you plan to organise and support your arguments, incorporating a critical perspective on the resources. Keep in mind some specific areas of performance management and how they may influence motivation, as well as how they might play out in your scenario organisation: • The performance appraisal process (goal setting, evaluating performance and conducting reviews) • Different categories and levels of employees Manager bias