Employee Performance
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 Background of the Study
Employee performance is a crucial backbone to business success and no business with underperforming employees will be strong enough to survive against the competition. Issues of performance and reward are central to the discipline of HRM given that they underpin the effort-reward exchange in the employment relationship. Their operation at the individual, group and organizational levels, however, renders them complex and often contradictory. All major stakeholders – managers, workers, trade unions, shareholders and customers – have an interest in performance and reward but each also has their own agenda which may conflict with that of other stakeholders. Added layers of complexity exist in the form of contextual influences emanating from society, the economy and government. Organizations seeking to deal with performance and reward at a strategic level must grapple with the tensions arising from these multiple goals and influences. This makes the area ripe for investigation and the researcher, therefore, seeks to deal with performance and reward which demonstrate the diversity of interest.
If an employee knows that he does not perform as well as expected and has the skills required to make a clear improvement, it might be that he lost his motivation at some point in his career. The might have been overlooked for or refused a promotion and he might then feel underpaid and undervalued. Or he might just not see the point of working any harder as they have to. In these cases, it is important to understand the employee by having a close relationship between employees and manager. Only by understanding the employee’s motivational needs it is possible to take the right steps. Some employees strive under praise, others react stronger to negative enforcements such as ‘performance discussions’. Some employees are only motivated by money and if a pay increase cannot be justified or is not possible, a department reward
INTRODUCTION
1.0 Background of the Study
Employee performance is a crucial backbone to business success and no business with underperforming employees will be strong enough to survive against the competition. Issues of performance and reward are central to the discipline of HRM given that they underpin the effort-reward exchange in the employment relationship. Their operation at the individual, group and organizational levels, however, renders them complex and often contradictory. All major stakeholders – managers, workers, trade unions, shareholders and customers – have an interest in performance and reward but each also has their own agenda which may conflict with that of other stakeholders. Added layers of complexity exist in the form of contextual influences emanating from society, the economy and government. Organizations seeking to deal with performance and reward at a strategic level must grapple with the tensions arising from these multiple goals and influences. This makes the area ripe for investigation and the researcher, therefore, seeks to deal with performance and reward which demonstrate the diversity of interest.
If an employee knows that he does not perform as well as expected and has the skills required to make a clear improvement, it might be that he lost his motivation at some point in his career. The might have been overlooked for or refused a promotion and he might then feel underpaid and undervalued. Or he might just not see the point of working any harder as they have to. In these cases, it is important to understand the employee by having a close relationship between employees and manager. Only by understanding the employee’s motivational needs it is possible to take the right steps. Some employees strive under praise, others react stronger to negative enforcements such as ‘performance discussions’. Some employees are only motivated by money and if a pay increase cannot be justified or is not possible, a department reward