HR Essay Example: Managing and Appraising Employee Performance

It is the obligation of the HR department of any company to associate their duties with the goals of a company such that a company's vision is achieved. The HR department has the obligation of developing the knowledge and skills of employees in addition to motivating them such that they can conduct themselves in ways that lead to the achievement of goals. The department puts into perspective the performance of a company and the associated competitive advantages (Tapamoy, 2008). Through the discretionary efforts, leveraging man power, and laying out the desired conduct and attitudes, the HR department contributes greatly to the performance of an organization. How the HR department handles its duties, and the influence it has on the attributes of employees may enable an organization to achieve the desired goals regarding gaining a competitive advantage, productivity and excellent financial performance. Also, by motivating employees, the department may also improve the performance of an organization. The motivation may be regarding employee benefits, rewards, increase in salary and elevation of the employment position. The idea is that employees tend to improve their performance when they feel appreciated (Tapamoy, 2008).

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Appraisals refer to assessments on the performance of individuals. The trait, behavioral, and results-based performance appraisal systems are strategies used in assessing employees' performances. The trait appraisals put into perspective work ethic, loyalty, judgment and adaptability (Tapamoy, 2008). These types of appraisals tend to be subjective, but when the traits affiliate with the type of job, then it is important to include them when conducting appraisals. The behavioral appraisals put into perspective the relationship between conduct and performance. The behavior of individuals plays a crucial when it comes to performance whereby it directly influences work performance. Nonetheless, it tends to be limited when it comes to aspects such as processing orders or achieving sales quotas. Results-based performance appraisals deal with the review and assessment of the performance of employees in regards to their respective positions. Standards are set by an organization on how the performance will be assessed and hence the appraisal is applied as per the standards (Tapamoy, 2008).

The trait performance would be the most adequate when it comes to the operations of the Maersk Customer Service- CARE Business Partner. The reason is that the associated individuals would have to relate to others on personal viewpoints adequately. The trait appraisal puts into perspective interpersonal skills such as good communication skills, reliability, and commitment.

The scales that might be incorporated when carrying out appraisals include; graphic, numeric and letter scales. As the term suggests, numeric scales involve numbers by which numbers are used to rate the performance of individuals. The numeric scale is similar to the letter scale but uses letters instead of numbers. The scales may take the form of d-very satisfied of 4-good. However, the most common scale that is used in appraisals is the graphic scale (Venkateswara Rao, 2004). A good example is a Likert scale that takes the form 1-2, 1-5, 1-4 and so forth. It entails presenting a list of desirable traits that are required for better performance such that the employees are rated basing on the traits. The assessment assists in quantifying the conduct exhibited by employees. The appraisals may include traits such as poor, fairly poor, fairly good, good and excellent against traits such as sincerity, commitment, and dependability. It is important to note that performance appraisals vary depending on the selections made by organizations. The selections may be in the form of the financial statements, customer service, in addition to accountability. In other words, the management of a company has complete control of the type of items to include in their appraisals. Either of the scales may be employed in assessing the performance of employees and need to be effectively put into use to enable improvement of performance (Venkateswara Rao, 2004).

Milestone 4

Compensating Employees

1. Maersk compensation philosophy

A compensation philosophy can be viewed as a company's formal statement that illustrates its position regarding the forms of compensation to be given to employees. Compensation philosophy is the fundamental existence behind employee salary and the foundation to back it. Human Resource Compensation philosophy is the fundamental existence of employee salary and the foundation to back it. Human Resource Managers (HRM); with input from executive managers, formulate strategic plans to support the organization. Many factors such as human capital, size, industry, financial position, etc. contribute to the success or failure of the organizational alignment (Despotidou & Prastacos, 2012).

Maersk compensation philosophy begins by ascertaining the desired goals and outcomes for a company. The philosophy takes into perspective various factors that include; a balance when it comes to direct and indirect rewards, the nature of the employee in terms of responsibility and complexity in addition to external equity versus internal focus. The factors are perceived to have the capability of making a company achieve success in its operations. The presence of a compensation philosophy in a company has a significant impact when it comes to representative conduct by which it presents the framework regarding the daily activities of a sales representative as explained in the compensation plan. The compensation plan by a company can be perceived to be among the factors present in the relationship between an employer and the employee. Therefore, the compensation level of focus should be aligned to an existing external standard (Despotidou & Prastacos, 2012).

2. Analyzing Sample Survey Value

Salary surveys refer to instruments that are used in identifying the median compensation provided to employees in a given activity. It involves the collection of data from employees such that they are assessed to establish the significance of the amount used for compensation. The assessment may include a single or more than one job positions, industries, the size of the employer of the locations (HRN Performance Solution, 2014). The surveys may be carried out by respective employers or employer associations. In other words, the salary surveys, illustrate the compensation data given to survey providers by the employers. The survey providers gather the given information and develop reports. The specificity used in the collection of data brings about accurate figures that may be used to match jobs accurately and to benchmark information. The benchmarking information obtained from the salary surveys present the following factors for determining the survey value; determining the measures of central tendency, plotting employment opportunities on the pay line present in the market, analyzing data to check if there are outliers, in addition to finding the regression factor and making predictions of the employment pay rates or analyzing the interquartile range and the percentiles. For example, given the equation;

Y = an(x) + b; where Y is the predicted pay rate, a is the slope, x is the point of job evolution, and b is the y-intercept, the regression equation will contain a, x and b values that would be used for every job included in the pay rates (HRN Performance Solution, 2014).

3. Discretionary Benefits to Maersk

Discretionary benefits can be described as voluntary benefits that are not legally necessary. The discretionary benefits to Maersk is that they contain a stable banking relationship, because of the numerous amount of distinguished assets, Maersk exhibits stable financial flexibility, in addition to the fact that its diversification will make the company capable of handling any challenge without necessarily using huge amounts of money (Despotidou & Prastacos, 2012).

References

Despotidou, L., & Prastacos, G. P. (2012). Professionalism in business: Insights from ancient philosophy. In Leadership through the Classics (pp. 437-455). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

HRN Performance Solutions, (2014). The True Value of Salary Surveys. Why Participate, Why use them? (1st ed.). Retrieved from

http://www.hrperformancesolutions.net/files/hrperf/1033/file/whitepapers/03.2014%20WhitepaperTrueValueofSalarySurveys.pdf

Tapamoy, D. (2008). Performance appraisal and management (1st ed.). New York: Routledge.

Venkateswara Rao, T. (2004). Performance management and appraisal systems (1st ed.). New Delhi: Response Books, a division of Sage Publications.