Personal Development Portfolio: Performance Management
The Personal Development Portfolio (PDP) provides the framework to help you expand your
academic, professional and career development; build and sustain a personal learning network;
articulate your professional goals; and reflect on your skills through various strategies and
assessments. In this week�s PDP assignment, you will reflect on how you can apply what you have
learned about performance management in this module to your professional goals.
To prepare for this PDP Assignment:
1) Review information from the Learning Resources (Will be sent by email))
2) Review your Week 3 PDP assignment and the feedback you received from your instructor
3) Reflect on your learning in this module and how it relates to your current and/or future practice as a
HR professional
4) How do you see the concepts that you have studied applying to your professional experience?
5) What steps might you now take to aid you in the transition of applying the coursework to your
workplace?
6) How can you link what you have studied in this module with what you learned in your previous
modules?
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7) What ethical and cultural issues have you considered important in this module and how have they
impacted upon your views of Human Resource Management and business strategy?
8) Do you feel that you have improved your �key skills� (report writing, time management, etc.) as a
result of your experiences with this module?
Important Note:
Please follow the instructions and points mentioned above exactly.
Personal Development Portfolio: Performance Management
Performance management is the systematic process through which an organization
involves its staff members, as members of a group and as individuals, in improving the
effectiveness of the company in the attainment of its goals and mission (Biron, Farndale &
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PORTFOLIO 3
Paauwe 2011). This paper provides a reflection on how I may apply what I have learned as
regards performance management in this module to my professional goals.
I see the concepts which I have studied applying to my professional experience in that
I have actually witnessed them being used at my place of work on several occasions, for
instance how performance management is linked to career planning. Performance appraisal,
which is a component of performance management, is used by my organization in rating the
performance of staff members and in evaluating their contribution toward the goals and
objectives of the company. Performance appraisals at the workplace lead to the recognition of
work done by employees including myself, and mostly through the means of appreciation and
reward.
Performance appraisal also serves as the connection between the company and my
personal career goals. Feedback is communicated positively and helps in motivating the
workers and in identifying individual career developmental plans. Basing on the appraisal,
the staff member may develop his or her career goals, attain new levels of competencies and
chart his or her career own progression (Ahmed & Kaushik 2011). The other key concept
studied in the module which applies to my professional experience is the use of supportive
feedback in improving performance management systems. Regular informal feedback
exchanges between the staff members and the managers are important in enhancing the
efficacy of performance management (Dahling & O’Malley 2011).
To help me in the transition of applying the course to my workplace, the steps which I
would take include the following: firstly, I would write down each of the important lessons
from the course that I wish to apply to my place of work. Secondly, I will determine any
resources that I may need in order to effectively apply the coursework to my workplace. The
resources may include an experienced person in the workplace such as a performance
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manager or an appraiser who will guide me on how to properly apply the studied concepts
into practice. Thirdly, I will continue practicing the studied concepts by applying them
regularly on my work tasks at the place of work until I have perfected on them.
What I have studied in this module could be linked with what I learned in the previous
modules in that in all the modules, the theme of performance management has been at the
core. In essence, all the topics studied in this module and in the previous modules revolve
around the subject of performance management. In this module, I have been able to study a
wide range of topics on performance management. Some of them include the correlation
between career planning and performance management, how supportive feedbacks can
enhance performance management, the use of organizational rewards to strategically
recognize good work and improve the performance of every worker, and how performance
management helps with employee engagement. They are all linked to the previous modules in
that they are all about the subject matter of the use performance management in organizations
to improve organizational performance and attain organizational goals.
In this module, the cultural and ethical issues which I have considered vital include
the fact that ethics has to be the foundation of performance appraisal and the main goal of
ethical performance appraisals must be to give a frank and candid evaluation of the
employee’s performance (Mone et al. 2011). These cultural and ethical issues have impacted
upon my views of Human Resource Management and business strategy in that I now strongly
believe that during performance appraisals, the evaluation must be as highly objective as
possible, and performance managers should never deliberately skew the results of a
performance review for whatever reason. They should not be subjective at all. For instance,
punishments and rewards must be utilized positively because if they are utilized in a negative
way, they may affect the employee’s morale negatively. The appraiser or performance
manager should not reward a staff member that she or he likes more than another employee,
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when the other employee is in fact more qualified. Furthermore, the appraiser who rates
employees must not distort the information by employing their own prejudices or values
(Claus & Briscoe 2009). Equally important, the performance manager needs to provide
information which is valid, reliable and consistent.
On the whole, I feel that I have improved my key skills such as time management and
report writing as a result of my experience with this module. This is largely because during
the course of this module, I was able to write a number of reports as part of the assignments
given in the module, which I wrote satisfactorily and adequately enough. Being able to write
good reports was of major importance in helping me to improve on my report writing skills.
With regard to how I have improved on time management, it is worth mentioning that I
managed to complete all the assigned assignments and the reports on time, which was
essential in helping to improve and enhance my time management skills.
References
Ahmed, P., & Kaushik, MD 2011, Career Planning – An imperative for employee
performance management system. IJBIT, 4(2): 106-106
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Biron, B., Farndale, E., & Paauwe, J 2011, Performance management effectiveness: Lessons
from world-leading firms. The International Journal of Human Resource
Management, 22(6): 1294-1311
Claus, L., & Briscoe, D 2009, Employee performance management across borders: A review
of relevant academic literature. International Journal of Management Reviews,
10(23): 175-192
Dahling, J., & O’Malley, AL 2011, Supportive feedback environments can mend broken
performance management systems. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 4(3):
201-203
Mone, E., Eisinger, C., Guggenheim, K., Price, B., & Stine, C 2011, Performance
management at the wheel: Driving employee engagement in organizations. J Bus
Psychol 26(2011): 205-212
