Verified Document

Human Resource Management Term Paper

Coaching as an Alternative to Reviews in Performance Appraisal Human resources is an area fraught with the most complex issues facing corporations today. From the Americans with Disabilities Act to the Equal Employment Commission to sexual harassment training, human resources departments have gone from storing file folders with employees' remaining vacation days to the most critical wing of an organization.

Perhaps the oldest human resources duty that stays within the department today is performance appraisal. Human resources manages and selects the manner in which bosses evaluate employees at an organization. The procedures involved impact not only salaries and promotions, but form the very fabric of the organization. Are employees motivated, productive and happy? The answer to those questions most often lies within performance appraisal methods. In fact, it is not at all a stretch to comment that performance appraisal governs whether an organization is successful at all.

The problem lies in the history of performance appraisal. From eons ago, bosses simply called employees into their offices to accost them with their errors.

Sometimes, these conversations would encompass yearly salary increases, and not much more. Slowly, these conversations evolved into yearly reviews. Generally, reviews were held once a year, and again listed the errors made by an employee, although sometimes praise was thrown at the employee too. Salary discussions and benefits discussions routinely became part of the reviews.

The inherent problems with reviews were -- and continue to be -- numerous. First, the boss talks to the employee from on high: For instance, the rhetoric is quite similar to this dramatization: "I am your superior, therefore I will tell you what you are doing wrong, and you will simply accept my criticism sans comment." This is problematic for so many reasons. First, the boss often really does not know what the employee does on a day-to-day basis. Second, the employee is immediately on the defensive, and continues to be so throughout the review. This defensive posturing extends most often throughout...

As foot soldiers who fight on the ground floor or on the front, depending on one's analogy, employees generally have the best ideas on how to improve performance, attitude, and bottom line results and financials for an organization. Moreover, they at least have a better idea than does the boss of their own strengths and weaknesses. They know best how they can contribute to the organization, and know even better how they are not, and cannot, contribute nearly as well.
Enter coaching. Coaching, in many progressive or frontier companies, replaces reviews entirely. Coaching begins with the premise that employees and bosses are equal on the plane of life; bosses simply have a broader position at a particular organization. Coaching occurs at least twice a year, rather than once a year for reviews, and maybe occur more frequently.

Each time a coaching session is begun, three steps are involved. All are written and recorded. The first step asks the employee herself to evaluate her performance. It starts with the question, "What have I done for you lately?" In other words, allow the employee to begin first with what he or she feels he or she has accomplished since the last coaching session: what he or she has contributed to the corporation.

The purpose of this particular way of starting is manifold. First, the employee is not at all on the defensive. The first opportunity the employee has to speak -- which is the start of the session, as in the first coaching session, the boss does not really speak but to encourage the employee to vent his thoughts -- the employee is forced to say something good about himself. Note that in a traditional review, the employee is forced to defend his least satisfactory performance immediately.

Not only does this remove the defensive posturing, it actually, in…

Sources used in this document:
Bibliography:

http://www.managenius.com / http://www.accel-team.com/human_resources/coaching.html

http://www.ideasandtraining.com/Employee-Coaching-Programs.html www.knowledgepoint.com/hr/lbwhite.html
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Human Resources Management
Words: 2782 Length: 8 Document Type: Research Paper

Human Resources Management If what is learned in an important college or university course is not put to use in some pragmatic way -- or understood in the larger social context -- then that learning may be viewed as meaningless time spent. No doubt there is a percentage of students that are simply going through the process of education, working for a degree that will open doors and lead, hopefully, to

Human Resource Management
Words: 1319 Length: 4 Document Type: Research Paper

Human Resource Management "America's possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands: youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention. My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it -- so long as we seize it together…" (President Barack Obama, Inaugural Address, 1/21/2013). The job of a human relations manager in the 21st

Human Resource Management
Words: 1459 Length: 4 Document Type: Book Report

Human Resource Management: Ethics and Employment (Pinnington, Macklin & Campbell, 2007) covers those ethical issues that often come up in regards to employer-employee relationships, such as the rights and duties owed between employer and employee. The book is broken down into three parts. The first part is Situating Human Resource Management. The contributors in this part talk about the potential for conflict in the end relationships between employees and employers.

Human Resource Management
Words: 1674 Length: 4 Document Type: Research Paper

Human Resource Management Job analysis Job Design and considerations Job design is the arrangement of work in organizations. The arrangement assist employees as well as the organization meet objectives. An effective job design satisfies employees in organizations since it prevents dissatisfaction arising from repetitive work. It also assists organizations by preventing employees from alienation. Additionally, job designs improve on the productivity of an organization. Job designs, however, need to consider the following aspects in

Human Resource Management in the
Words: 693 Length: 2 Document Type: Reaction Paper

In the hierarchical configuration it also augmented the working hours but decreased the pay in poor working conditions, increased the social distance between employee and employers and increased bureaucratization of all factors, resulting in an increase in monotony. Because of these factors personnel management began to get a lot of attention. The function of HRM has become even more important since 1980. There has been an absolute transfer from

Human Resource Management
Words: 870 Length: 3 Document Type: Case Study

Human Resource Management Workers, Jobs & Job Analysis Case: ROWE and Flexible Work and Success at Best Buy Explain how a ROWE-type program would fit in organizations where you have worked. Explain why it would work or would not work. Current employee U.S. Army ROWE-type program would not work in the Army because of the following: *Deployments require you be at work 24/7 because there is no place to go in Afghanistan or Iraq. * When

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now