It Management

Performance appraisals are essential for the effective management and evaluation of staff. They help develop individuals and also improve organizational performance.

According to some information that I gathered from talking to some colleagues in the human resources department, on yearly basis, St Jude medical develops performance goals with input from employees, customers and our Board of Directors.  This is an interactive process that starts in September and is completed in December of each year. Upon setting the goals and requirements, a follow up is made throughout the year and on a monthly basis, supervisors are responsible for updating employees on the status of the business and their individual performance goals using one on one meetings with the manager every two weeks. This is done to ensure that all employees are meeting the company goals, and are also performing as expected.

The annual performance appraisal forms are designed to evaluate performance against goals and expectations using a rating scale from one to five where by a rating of 1 indicates unsatisfactory performance. A rating of 5 indicates performance that consistently exceeds established goals. The form also has room for comments though not mandatory. Employees who have unsatisfactory performance at the semi-yearly review will receive a performance improvement plan outlining appropriate training, coaching or disciplinary action that could some time lead to getting fired. The course of action is based on information obtained during the performance review process

We use rating committees and subordinate appraisals and web based systems as some of the approaches, depending on a particular department. The web-based system helps remote and traveling managers maintain access to the forms and the data they need to evaluate their staff. It’s also available to all the employees for access.

There are a number of issues that surround my work place that I have witnessed as an employee during my period of stay. Much as there are programs that have been designed to help people improve their skill set and achieve their goals, most managers I have worked with are biased, as a result they put little effort into making individuals get better rather than working towards having them fired (my opinion). Faced by that, I would recommend that the organization creates and administers a fair and consistent system of acknowledging merit no matter what position a person holds in the company. People always want to know that their work is being noticed and appreciated. This is lacking and I feel it can be a very motivating tool to the underperforming workers as one of the performance management techniques.