Warranty Conditions
Do you want your reinvented performance management program to work? According
to researchers David N. Ammons and Stephen E. Condrey, you will need to
clearly spell out and meet certain warranty conditions. While the concept
of warranties is well understood in the marketing of consumer products
(i.e., the conditions the consumer must meet for the productcar,
television, etc.to work properly), it also applies to performance
management.
Under Warranty. If you purchase a
television, the manufacturer will provide a warranty against defects in
material and workmanship. The warranty will not be honored, however, if
the television is abused or misused. If you adhere to the warranty conditions
and a product does not work, the manufacturer will honor the warranty.
Likewise, a performance management program will be successful only when
implemented in an environment with certain characteristics present, that
is, with certain "warranty conditions" met. If the organization fails
to meet and maintain those conditions and the program ends up misused
or misapplied, the program "won't work" to produce meaningful results.
The same bad environment would defeat any new efforts.
Seven Warranty Conditions.
In an article entitled "Performance Appraisal in Local Government: Warranty
Conditions" published in the Spring 1991 issue of Public Productivity
and Management Review, researchers Ammons and Condrey say that for any
performance management system to have a fair trial, an organization must
meet seven warranty conditions, which are:
- Commitment to careful selection and conscientious development of employees.
Organizations must commit to selecting employees who have a reasonable
chance of success in their work and to providing additional development
opportunities to increase their skills. Using performance feedback to
point out deficiencies in employees who have little aptitude or training
for their jobs is unlikely to produce productive workers.
- Commitment of thought and action across organizational levels. Organizations
require employees and supervisors who know what their managers expect
of them, and managers who are attuned to both organizational goals and
priorities and the needs of their workforce. Performance appraisal by
itself cannot create order where none exists.
- An organizational culture that makes performance management a key
supervisory responsibility. Organizations must make goal setting and
feedback a core element of supervisory responsibility and devote the
resources necessary to prepare supervisors to carry out their responsibility.
An attitude that the feedback process interrupts more important duties
can doom any appraisal system.
- Commitment to conscientious and objective discrimination of performance.
Organizations must have open and explicit methods and criteria for distinguishing
among levels of performance. If formal appraisal does not exist or is
meaningless in its application, the distinctions that are made will
often be obscure and a source of employee dissatisfaction.
- Positive relationships between performance and rewards. Organizations
must use timely and meaningful monetary and non-monetary rewards to
send a clear message to employees that their achievements are appreciated
and recognized. In the absence of such a relationship, employees may
feel their efforts are of no significant consequence.
- Commitment to extraordinary action on exceptional cases. Organizations
must take appropriate actions on both extremes of performance. Employees
whose performance is excellent should be recognized through promotions
and rewards. Poor performers should be counseled on their deficiencies
and removed if necessary. Failure to take such actions invalidates any
performance management system.
- Upper management that is attentive to the process and products of
performance appraisal. To be credible, a performance management system
requires visible reinforcement of its importance by upper management.
If the executives of an organization ignore the system or appear to
be cynical about its worth, it will become a paper shuffling exercise.
Agencies planning to revise a performance management program would do
well to include as part of their preliminary process assessing and developing
their warranty conditions as they apply to their organizations. While
a program cannot solve deep-seated institutional problems, or drive the
revitalization of an agency, warranty conditions help focus an organization
on setting performance management within a larger framework of supportive
conditions for change.
Originally published in February 1995.