Performance Management: Goals, Assumptions, and Resource Allocation

The Core Questions of Performance Management

Performance management seeks to answer questions relating to employee work objectives and the employee's overall role within an organization. The performance manager develops, assesses, and monitors a plan by which an employee's contributions to the organizational strategy and strategic objectives are identified, measured, and reviewed. The questions that performance management attempts to answer are: What is the role of the employee? What is the objective of the employee? How well is the employee meeting that objective? What could be done to help the employee meet the objective more effectively?

Assumptions Required for Performance-Based Management

The assumptions necessary to implement performance-based management are those conditions the employee has no control over but that might nonetheless affect the outcome of his or her work. For instance, if an employee must travel to achieve a work-related objective, it is assumed that sufficient funds are available to cover the cost of that travel. Any potential obstacle that may arise and block the employee's success is regarded as an assumption: it is assumed that the necessary measures will be in place to remove potential obstacles ahead of time so they do not factor into the employee's ability to carry out and execute tasks associated with his or her role in the organization.