QUESTIONS

1.Identify and critically analyse the performance management process used by the case study organisation. In your answer you should address each of the following:

a) Critically discuss the extent to which the performance management process used by Sony Europe can be considered ‘strategic’.

b) Critically analyse 2 key components and techniques of the approach(es) taken to performance management

c) Critically discuss whether the organisation takes an ‘ethical’ approach to performance management.

d) Make 2 in-depth recommendations in order to improve the performance management process used by the organisation (with justification for your recommendations underpinned by the literature).

e) Critically discuss how the performance management processes/systems in place may need to be reviewed in a recession.

                                                           SAMPLE SOLUTION

The performance management process used by Sony Europe can be considered highly strategic for a number of reasons. Performance management is considered strategic when it is concerned with broader issues challenging a business that affect its effective function in the environment (Bento, Bento& Ferreira White, 2014). It should also feature a direction in which the business intends to follow so as to achieve even longer-term goals. Sony Europe’s performance management process can be considered strategic since in its preparation, the management considered the issues that were affecting performance despite the fact that there was already a performance management process in place (Barrick, Thurgood, Smith & Courtright, 2015). Employee feedback was considered in this preparation to help with the identification of these issues. Examples of issues discussed include; employees not feeling comfortable with the process, it was not fully addressing underperformance, and also the focus was always on immediate objectives and not on developing employees for the future. These are what the new performance management process was designed on. Aside from addressing these issues, it also focuses on long term goals. The new performance management process requires employees to create objectives basing on the SMART guideline. This guideline is effective in the creation of objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely (Bento, Bento& Ferreira White, 2014).

A strategic performance management should clearly define how managers and their followers can best work together to achieve the required results. This involves future performance planning and improvement, and not simply the retrospective performance appraisal (Bento, Bento& Ferreira White, 2014). The process being used by Sony Europe features all these factors as the managers are supposed to work with employees to create objectives. The objectives involve future planning as some are reviewed on a quarterly basis, while others have two reviews. Therefore, employees are supposed to create objectives for the whole year, and not only for the coming review period.