UNIT-5

Performance appraisal can be defined as the process of evaluating the performance of an

employee & communicating the results of the evaluation to him for the purpose or rewarding
or developing the employee.

According to Edward Flippo “Performance appraisal is the systematic, periodic & an

impartial rating of an employee’s excellence in matters pertaining to his present job & his
potential for a better job.”

OBJECTIVES OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

1) Work – Related Objectives:-

a) To asses the work of employees in relation to job requirements
b) To improve efficiency
c) To help management is fixing employees according to their capacity,
interest, aptitude & qualifications.
d) To carry out job evaluation.
2) Career Development objectives:-
a) To asses the strong & weak points in the working of the employees &
finding remedies for weak points through training.
b) To plan career goal
c) To guide the job change with the help of continuous ranking.
3) Communication:-
a) To provide feedback to employee’s so that they come to know where they
stand & can improve their job performance.
b) To clearly establish goals i.e what is expected of the employee in terms of
performance & future work assignment.
c) To develop positive superior – subordinated relations & thereby reduce
grievances.
4) Organisational Objectives:-
a) To serve as a basis for promote or demotion
b) To serve as a basis for wage & salary administration & considering pay
increases & increments.
c) To serve as a basis for planning suitable training & development programme
d) To serve as a basis for transfers of termination in case of reduction in staff
strength.

METHODS OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

Performance appraisal methods can be classified into two. They are:-

 1) Traditional methods
2) Modern methods

Traditional methods:- It is also known as Traits approach. It is based on the evaluation of

traits in a person.

A) Graphic Rating Scale:- This method of appraisal requires the rater to rate the
employee on factors like quantity & quality of work, job knowledge, dependability,
punctuality, attendance, etc.
Rating Scales are of two types viz
a) Continuous rating scale
b) Discontinuous rating scale.

In continuous order like 0,1,2,3,4 & 5 & in discontinuous order, the appraises assigns the
points to each degree.

QUANTITY OF Unsatisfactory poor Fair Average Good Excellent

Work
0 1 2 3 4 5
CONTINUOUS RATING SCALE

ATTITUDE

No Interest Indifferent Interested Enthusiastic Very

Enthusiastic

DISCONTINUOUS RATING SCALE

Advantages:-

i) It is easy to understand, easy to use & permits a statistical tabulation of scores of

employees.
ii) Ratings are objective in nature.

Disadvantage:-

i) A supervisor may tend to rate his men high to avoid criticism from them.
ii) The choice of employee behavior categories – the important might ones get
missed out & irrelevant ones may get included.

B) Ranking Method:- It is otherwise called as Straight ranking method. It is the simplest &
old method of merit rating. Every employee is judges as a whole without distinguishing the
rates from his performance. A list is then prepared for ranking the workers in order of their
performance on the job so that an excellent employee is at the top & the poor at bottom.

Advantages:-
  It permits comparison of all employees in any single rating group regardless of the
types of work.
 It is suitable only when there are limited persons organization.

Disadvantages:-

 This method only tells us about & not the actual difference among them.

C) Paired Comparison method:-

Under this method, the appraiser compares each employee with every other
employee, one at a time. For example, there are five employees named A, B, C, D & E. The
performance of A is first compared with the performance of B & a decision is made about
whose performance is better. Then A is compared with C, D & E in that order. The same
procedure is repeated for other employees. After the completion of comparison, the results
can be tabulated, & a rank is created from the number of times each person is considered t o
be superior.

Advantages:

It is applicable in small organizations.

It helps employer to set priorities where there are conflicting demands on employee’s
resources.

It makes easy to choose most important problem to solve or select solution.

Disadvantages

1. Where priorities are not clear to employees

2. May not have objective data.

D) Forced Distribution method:-

It is developed to prevent the raters from too high or too low. Under this method,
the rate after assigning the points to the performance of each employee has to distribute his
ratings in a pattern to conform to normal frequency distribution.

BELL

SHAPED CURVE

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES
 10% 20% 40% 20% 10%

Excellent

Good

Average

Below
Average

Unsatisfactory

Advantage of forced distribution methods are:

The problem of different appraisers using different parts of the scale is avoided.

It eliminates or reduces bias.

It is simple to understand and very easy to apply in organizations.

Disadvantages:

It leads to low morale and low productivity.

This scale does not have any descriptive statement that defines employee behavior.So there is
no clarity in terms of evaluation.

E) Checklist Methods:-

The checklist is a simple rating technique in which the supervisor is given a list of
statements or words & asked to check statements representing the characteristics &
performance of each employee.

There are 3 types of checklist method. They are:-

i) Simple checklist method:- under this method, a checklist of statements on the traits of
the employee & his or her job is prepared is two columns – viz as ‘Yes’ & ‘No’
columns. All that the rater (immediate superior) should do is tick the ‘Yes’ column if
the answer to the statement is positive & in column ‘No’ if the answer is negative.
The HR department assigns certain points to each ‘Yes’ ticked. Depending on the
number of ‘Yes’ the total score is arrived at

Table :- Checklist for Operaors

Yes No
1) Is the employee really
interested in the job
2) Is his or her
 attendance satisfactory

ii) Weighted Checklist Method:- It involves weighting different items in the checklist,
having a series of statements about an individual, to indicate that some are important
than others. Weighted performance score is compared with the overall assessment
standards in order to find out the overall performance of the employee.
Advantages:
The jobs being evaluated based on descriptive statements which would reflect both
effective and ineffective behaviour.
Disadvantage:
It is expensive and time consuming
It becomes difficult for manager to assemble, analyse and eigh a number of
statements.
iii) Forced Choice Method:- In this, the rater is given a series of statements about an
employe. These statements are arranged in blocks of two or more, & the rater
indicates which statement is most or least descriptive of the employee. Typical
Statements are:
*) Learns fast ----------- Works hard
*) Work is reliable ------------ performance is a good example for
*) Absents after-------------others usually tardy

As in the checklist method, the rater is simply expected to select the statements that describe
the rate. Actual assessment is done by the HR department.

Advantages : Absence of personal biases because of forced choice.

It is comparatively easy

Disadvantages – Statements may be wrongly framed.

Statements may vary from time to time.

F) Critical Incident Method:-

The appraiser makes a note of all the critical incidents that reflect the performance or
behavior of the employee during the appraisal period. These are recorded as & when they
occur & can demonstrate either positive or negative traits or performance. At the end of the
appraisal period this records forms the basis for evaluation of the performance of the
employee.

Advantages:

The critical incident method has the advantage of being task-focused. It focuses on the
essential duties of an employee’s job and how well she performs those duties. It is based on
direct observation by the manager and not second-hand accounts.
In this approach, managers gather information over time. They keep a log of positive and
negative incidents, recorded at the time they occurred. So, the annual performance appraisal
is not overly influenced by an employee’s most recent accomplishments or problems.

It is an effective relationship building tool because the manager must spend more time in
the work area observing and interacting with employees, rather than in her office. This
gives her the opportunity to get to know each worker, to provide coaching and guidance;
and to get feedback on what is working well and what is not.

In addition, the critical incident log provides the required performance or behavior
documentation necessary for a manager to take disciplinary action with an employee.

Disadvantages:

It delays the giving of feedback: In order for feedback to be truly effective (whether the
feedback is positive or negative), it should be linked as closely as possible to the behavior in
question. With critical incidents, a greater emphasis may be placed on gathering data and
tallying it than actually using it to inform, educate, and motivate employees.
All satisfactory and unsatisfactory behaviors are not equal: Throughout the year, a person
may display many excellent behaviors but only one unsatisfactory behavior. In that case, her
pile of satisfactory behaviors would be much greater than her pile of unsatisfactory behaviors.
But weighing the number of satisfactory behaviors against the number of unsatisfactory ones
can lead to an erroneous conclusion if the one unsatisfactory behavior cost the company its
best client, or its computer system, or its line of credit.
Although managers should engage in managing by wandering around, the critical incident
approach can cause managers to spend too much time on the floors:If the manager is
constantly wandering around with his employees, the employees can start to feel as though
the team is being micromanaged.
G) Essay or Free Form Appraisal:-

This method requires the manager to write a short essay describing each employee’s
performance during the rating period. Questions or Gudelines are provided to the appraiser,
based on which he analysis & describes the employee’s performance.

Advantages:

It is far less structured and confining.

It permits appraiser to examine almost any relevant issues or attributes of performance.

Open ended and very flexible.

Freedom to expression.

Disadvantages:

Time consuming and difficult to administer

It is subjective and as a consequence it is difficult to compare and contrasts the results of

individuals.
H) Group Appraisal:-

All employees are appraised by a group of appraisers. This group consists of the
immediate supervisors of the employee to other supervisor’s who have close contact with the
employee’s work, manager or head of department & consultants. This method widely used
for purposes of promotion, demotion & retrenchment appraisal. Eq:- Blue Star

I) Confidential Report:-

Assessing the employee’s performance confidentially is a traditional method. The

superior appraiser the performance of his subordinate based on his observations, judgment &
intuitions.

Advantages:

The evaluation is disclosed only as per requirement.

There is high possibility of biasement.

Disadvantages:

II Modern Methods:-

Modern concerns use the following methods for the performance appraisal:-

A) BARS (Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales):-

BARS concentrates on the behavioral traits demonstrated by the employees instead of his
actual performance.
These are three steps in implementing a BARS system. They are:-
i) Determination of relevant job dimensions by the manager & the employee for each
job dimension.
ii) Identification of behavioral anchors by the manager & the employee for each job
dimension.
iii) Determination of the scale values to be used & grouping of anchors for each scale
value, based on consensus.

Example:-

Dimension: Planning & Organising Anchors

Scale Value

5[ ] Excellent Develops a comprehensive plan, documents well, obtain approval &

distributes to
All concerned.
4[ ] Good Lays out all plane.
3[ ] Average Revises due dates as project progresses & investigate customer complaints
2[ ] Below Average Poor plans & unrealistic time schedules are common
1[ ] Unacceptable Fails due to lack of planning & is not interested in improving.
B) Assessment Centre:-
An assessment centre is a central location. Where the managers may come
together to participate in job related exercises evaluated by trained observers. The principle
idea is to evaluate managers over a period of time, by observing & later evaluating their
behavior across a series of select exercises such as role-playing in basket exercises, etc.
Advantages and Disadvantages of BARS

Focus is on desired behaviors

Scale is for each specific job Time consuming to set up

Desired behaviors are clearly outlined

C) Human Resources Accounting:-

It deals with cost of & contribution of human resources to the organization. Cost
of & contribution of human resources to the organization. Cost of the employee includes cost
of manpower planning, recruitment, selection, placement, induction, training, development
wages & benefits, etc. Employee contribution is the money value of employee service which
can be measured by labour productivity or value added by human resource.
Cost of human resources may be taken as standard. Employee performance can
be measured in terms of employee contribution to the organization.

Advantages:
1. Human resource accounting will give the cost of developing human resources in the
business. This will enable the management to ascertain the cost of labour turnover also.
There may be a high labour turnover and management may not take it seriously in the
absence of cost figures of human resources. Though it is not possible to eliminate labour
turnover but in case the cost of labour turnover is high then management should try to reduce
it as far as possible.

2. The investment on the development of human resources can be compared with the benefits
and results derived. There may also be a wasteful expenditure on human beings which could
have been avoided. Efforts should be made to control avoidable expenditure.
The company can develop its own managerial cadres by recruiting and training executives. It
can also hire already trained persons. The cost of both the methods can be compared and
suitable alternative should be adopted. This type of analysis will be possible only if
expenditure on human resources is treated as an asset. So, HIRA allows the analysis of
expenditure on human asset.

3. The return on investment can realistically be calculated only when investment on human
resources is also taken into account. The return on investment may be good because there is
an investment on human beings. On the other hand, a low investment may be the reason of
low investment on human asset. So, ROI can give accurate results only when expenditure on
employees is treated as an asset.
4. It will help management in planning and executing personnel policies. The management
will be helped in taking decisions regarding transfers, promotions, training, retirement,
retrenchment of human resources, etc.
5. It can be seen whether the business has made proper investment in human resources in
terms of money or not. If the investment is excessive then efforts should be made to control
it.
6. Human resources accounting will help in improving the efficiency of employees. The
employees come to know of the cost incurred on them and the return given by them in the
form of output, etc. It will motivate employees to increase their worth.

Disadvantages of HRA:

There is no proper clear-cut and specific procedure or guidelines for finding cost and value of
human resources of an organisation.

The period of existence of human resource is uncertain and hence valuing them under
uncertainty in future seems to be unrealistic.

There is a fear that HRA may dehumanize and manipulate employees.

D) Management By Objective:-
Management by objective is a process whereby the superior & subordinate
managers of an organization jointly identify its common goals, define each individuals major
areas of responsibility in terms of results expected of him & use these measures of guides for
operating the unit & assessing the contribution of its members.
Four Steps in MBO process
1) It is to establish the goals each subordinate is to attain.
2) Setting the performance standards for the subordinates.
3) Actual level of goal attainment is compared with the goals.
4) Establishing new goals & possibly new strategies for goals not previously attained.

Advantages and Disadvantages of MBO are:

Open communication
Many only work for some types of job
Employee may have more “buy- titles
in”
E) Psychological Appraisal:-
 It focus on future potential & not actual performance. Industrial psychologist are
employed for conducting the appraisal.
The appraisal normally consists of in depth interviews, psychological tests,
discussions with supervisors & a review other evaluations.
The psychological appraisal results are useful for decision making about
i) Employee Placement
ii) Career Planning & development
iii) Training & Development
F) Results Method:-
Organisation of the contemporary periods evaluate employee performance based
on accomplishments they achieve rather than based on the behavioural factor/traits.
Employee accomplishments include sales turnover, number of units produced, & number of
customers served, number of complaint settled & the like.
G) Balance Scorecard:-
It was developed by Robert Kaplan & David Norton. It brings the linkages
among financial, customer, processes & learning.

Balance Score Card may be defined as follows:

Balances Score Card is an approach which seeks to provide a balanced and comprehensive
framework for judging an organization’s performance from perspective like financial
perspective, customer perspective, business and production process perspective and learning
and growth perspective; so as to assist management in controlling the organization in a
modern and unique way.

The Concept of BSC could be depicted by means of the following diagram:

The Balance Score Card: Translating Strategy into Action

Following is a brief account of the four perspectives of analysis which are the core aspects of
BSC:

(i) Financial perspective:

The financial perspective indicates whether a company’s strategy and operations add value
for shareholders.

(ii) Customer perspective:

The customer perspective considers the business through the eyes of customers. It indicates
whether and to what extent the company is meeting the expectations of customers.

(iii) Business and production process perspective:

This perspective focuses attention on the performance of key internal processes which drive
the organization.

(iv) Learning and growth perspective:

Learning and growth perspective considers organization’s potential future performance;

directing attention on the basis of all future success the organization’s people and
infrastructure. In each of these four perspectives, the managements set certain goals and
performance measures through which the attainment of these goals may be judged.

Following is an example of goals and performance measures set in each of these four
perspectives:

An Example of Goals and Performance Measures Set In Each of these Four Perspectives

Point of Comment:

As a matter of fact, all the four perspectives comprised in BSC are interrelated and inter –
dependent. For example, the main goal in financial perspective is profitability. Now,
profitability is possible only when customer’s perspective meets the goal of customer
satisfaction; as it is only satisfied customers, who lead to sales, and profits for the
organization.

Again, the organization can satisfy customers when its internal key processes function
efficiently and economically. Finally, successful performance of internal key processes is
much dependent on the learning and growth perspective i.e. the rate or speed at which
learning is growing in the organization.

Hence, this score card is called a Balance Score Card, as it seeks to balance various
perspectives to give a comprehensive view of organizational successful functioning, in the
competitive environmental scenario.

Advantages of BSC:
Following are some advantages of BSC:

(i) BSC adopts a balanced and comprehensive approach for judging and controlling an
organization’s performance; by setting objectives and performance measures in four key
perspective viz. financial, customer, business and internal processes and learning and growth.

(ii) BSC facilitates communication and understanding of business goals and strategies, at all
levels of an organization.

(iii) BSC brings organization’s strategy and vision, to the centre of management focus; so
that management may never deviate from these.
(iv) BSC integrates financial and non-financial goals and performance measures into a single
system – a thing which traditional controlling techniques never consider.

Limitations of BSC:
BSC approach to controlling suffers from serious limitations, some of which are as follows:

(i) BSC bases its approach to analysis around four perspectives (viz. financial, customer,
business and production processes and learning and growth) only. In fact, there may be many
more perspectives more important than these e.g. managerial development perspectives,
social responsibility perspective and so on. As such, the so called Balanced Score Card really
turns into an imbalanced and imperfect score card.
(ii) BSC is a vague concept and approach, to controlling an organization’s success; as there
are neither any set of standard goals nor any set of standard performance measures, for each
of the four perspectives, which from the core of BSC.
(iii) BSC just considers organizational performance from four perspectives. It suggests
nothing about what should be done to better performance in each of these perspectives. Its
job, it seems, is just counting casualties, after the battle is over.

H) Managerial Appraisal:-
Harold Koontz has developed a concept of managerial appraisal i.e appraising
managers as managers. According to this concept, the managers attain organizational
objectives by performing the basic managerial functions Viz. planning, organizing, leading,
motivating, staffing & controlling.
360 Degree Performance Appraisal:-
The employee’s performance is evaluated by his supervisor, his peers, his
internal/external customers, his internal/external suppliers & his subordinates.

Peers

Customers Feedback Suppliers

To
Employee

Subordinate

Advantages of 360-degree feedback

Brings people together

360-degree feedback, is one of the most valuable features of Agile Performance
Management. As the name suggests, it provides feedback from all angles; that is from peer
groups, to managers, to subordinates. As this communication comes from a variety of
different sources it will contain a multitude of differing opinions and perspectives, which is
of vital importance when looking for feedback. In a sense, it can be seen as more valid and
objective as it is from such a varied audience.
Identifies development opportunities
As the feedback a person receives is most likely diverse, this provides a unique opportunity to
uncover areas that may need development or open up gaps in knowledge that could be
valuable. Such feedback can then be incorporated into personal development plans. This is
very useful information that the individual may not have thought of on their own.
Core competencies adhered to
When a company introduces a 360-degree feedback as part of its performance management
system, they can do so in a manner that relates to the company’s core competencies. These
competencies reflect the organization’s standard for behaviours and interactions. When
reinforced on a regular basis, they can have an impact in shaping your company’s culture.
Making them a part of the performance management system means that individuals can
receive feedback about how they act on and exemplify the organisation’s core competencies
in their daily performance, encouraging everyone to live and breath these ideals in everything
they do.

Disadvantages of 360-degree feedback

Inadequate feedback
This point is entitled ‘inadequate’; as there are many ways in which feedback can be
inadequate. As with all reviews, there is a chance that the feedback might have been filtered
or edited in some way and therefore isn’t 100% honest. This can happen often as Managers
will ask to receive (or be able to access) all feedback, even if it is not directed towards them.
This can result in people being less frank because they are aware their manager might read it.
Additionally, people often misunderstand the purpose of the 360-degree feedback exercises.
The aim of feedback is to be constructive, not personal.
Poor leadership
If a manager does not get on-board with, or is not enthusiastic about a 360-degree feedback
program, it is unlikely that it would be successfully implemented. Whatever the boss gives
importance to, gets the attention of his/her subordinates.
360 data is only helpful if it gets acted upon and used. A main reason for the failure of 360
programs is that feedback is given, but then swiftly forgotten. If no plan to implement the
feedback is made; there is no change in behaviour, and the feedback is redundant. Managers
should therefore be included in the initial discussions and recruited as 360-degree feedback
ambassadors within their teams. Training on the need to follow-up reviews with 1-on-1s and
effective goal-setting that takes feedback into account is essential.
Priorities
Too often the priority for managers using a 360 program is to uncover their teams’
weaknesses. While, this is intended to be a consequence of use, there should be more of an
emphasis on praise and positive feedback. If 360 programmes are used only to highlight
negative aspects of a team member’s work, it is likely that they will foster a negative attitude
towards the feedback culture, and then ultimately disengage from it. This leads on to the final
disadvantage; that there are not enough participants in the 360-feedback process.
 LIMITATION / PITFALLS OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL
1) Halo Effect:- The appraiser allow a single characteristic of the appraise to dominate his
judgement of the employee performance. This can result in either a positive or negative
report.
2) Leniency Effect:- This refers to the situation where the appraiser tends to give high
ratings & only positive feedback to the appraise, irrespective of his actual performance.
3) Stringency Effect:- An appraiser which feels that the rules & standards of the
organization are not strict enough, tries to be very strict in rating his appraises. This
might lead to dissatisfaction among his appraises as they would feel that the evaluation
is biased & unfair.
4) Recency Effect:- This occurs when the recent performance of the appraise dominates
the appraisal. The appraiser tends to get influenced by the performance of the employee
over the last 2-3 months of the appraisal period as it is still fresh in his memory. An
employee who has perform well for the preceding nine months but fail to maintain the
same level of performance in the last 3 months preceding the appraisal might get the
same rating as or an interior one than someone who performed well only in the last 2 -3
months of the appraisal period.
5) Primacy Effect:- The performance of the appraiser at the beginning of the appraisal
period dominate the evaluation.
6) Central Tendency Effect:- It is the tendency of the appraiser to rate most of the
appraiser in the middle of the performance scale. The appraiser gives neither high nor
low ratings & tends to give ratings in the middle of the scale to all the appraisers.
7) Stereotyping:- It involves judging someone based on the group he belongs to & the
appraisers perception of the group.

USES OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

Apart from evaluating the performance of the employee for rewards/punishment &
development, a good performance appraisal system has many other users. Some of these are
listed below.

1. Human Resource Planning: It is important to record data/information of employees

in a firm so that it is easy to identify the potentials of who deserves to be promoted or
have any area to improve. Performance appraisal also helps in revealing if there is
insufficient number of workers. An appraisal system should be designed and planned
after considering the strengths and weaknesses of the HRM of the organisation.
2. Recruitment and Selection: Through the process of performance analysis,
organisations can determine the performance potential on an applicant. Studies show
that successful employees display specific behavioral traits while performing tasks.
The data processed through performance evaluation help in setting standards for
behavioral interviews. In the process of selection, the employee rating can also be
used as a variable against which test scores are compared.
3. Training and Development: Training and development is crucial for any employee
as it acts as way to communicating what is expected and how. Performance appraisal
helps in drawing attention to these specific needs of training. For example, if an
employee’s job involves the skill of creative writing and by the process of evaluation
it reveals that he or she lacks in it or has poor knowledge about it, the employee will
 need appropriate training sessions. When managers of a firm lack the capability of
administering disciplinary action, they need the necessary training to deal with this
problem. Hence, identifying deficiencies and obstacles can be overcome by training
and development sessions which develop and improve individual’s skills allowing
them to perform better. An appraisal process does not train and develop individuals
but determines the training needed by providing data.
4. Career Planning and Development: Career planning can be described as a never-
ending cycle in which an individual sets profession goals and means to achieve them
throughout his or her lifetime. However, career development is a more formal
approach used by organisations. It involves recruiting suitable qualified and
experienced people when required. Performance appraisal can determine an
employee’s potential through assessing its weaknesses and strengths. The data is also
useful to counsel junior staff member and assisting in career plans.
5. Compensation Programs: Performance appraisal evaluations help in making
decisions dealing with wage or salary regulations. It is believed that organisations
should reward employees with increase in pay when excellent performance is
achieved. In order to increase performance, an organisation should implement well
planned and designed performance appraisal systems and award the efficient
workers. This not only increases performance but also keeps employees motivated to
achieve better in future.
6. Internal Employee Relations: Performance appraisal evaluation can provide crucial
information used in making decision about the internal employee relations i.e
promotion, demotion, transfers and dismisses etc. For example, performance appraisal
data are also used for decisions in several areas of internal employee relations,
including promotion, demotion, termination, layoff, and transfer. Also, an employee’s
performance in one job may be useful in determining his or her ability to perform
another job on the same level, as is required in the consideration of transfers. When
the performance level is unacceptable, demotion or even termination may be
appropriate.
7. Assessment of Employee Potential: Some organizations attempt to assess an
employee’s potential as they appraise his or her job performance. Although past
behaviors may be a good predictor of future behaviors in some jobs, an employee’s
past performance may not accurately indicate future performance in other jobs. The
best salesperson in the company may not have what it takes to become a successful
district sales manager, where the tasks are distinctly different. Similarly, the best
systems analyst may, if promoted, be a disaster as an information technology
manager. Overemphasizing technical skills and ignoring other equally important skills
is a common error in promoting employees into management jobs. Recognition of this
problem has led some firms to separate the appraisal of performance, which focuses
on past behavior, from the assessment of potential, which is future-oriented.

The HR Scorecard
An HR scorecard is a visual representation of key measures of human resource department
achievements, productivity and other factors important to the organization. Factors measured
include costs, hiring, turnover, training, performance management and alignment with
corporate goals. Most HR scorecards are tied to corporate goals or strategic plans and are
designed to track and measure the efficacy of human resource activities and enable managers
to make targeted investments in HR and organizational structures. Scorecards include current
data and comparisons to previous time periods, such as the previous quarter or year, and
historical data to show improvements toward goals.
Costs
Human resources costs that are measured and reported on through scorecards include
adherence to budgets, recruiting costs to attract and hire staff and costs of benefits such as
group health insurance. Tracking costs through scorecards enables managers to plan human
resources goals and expenditures and control costs in specific areas and set realistic budgets.
Hiring
Hiring is tracked in human resources scorecards by numbers of employees hired by
department, business unit or location. Hiring goals, position vacancies and time to fill
positions are other hiring indicators tracked in scorecards. This information gives managers a
way to see how well human resources fulfills the company’s need for new personnel, and
where HR may benefit from extra resources to increase or improve hiring practices.
Turnover
Turnover is the rate at which a company gains and loses employees and is commonly
compared to the rate of industry turnover. Turnover costs companies money to recruit staff
and in lost productivity and low morale amongst other employees. High employee turnover
indicates employees are unhappy due to issues such as work environment, lack of
opportunities, management conflict or compensation. Low employee turnover indicates
employee satisfaction, making lowering turnover a significant goal.
Alignment with Corporate Goals
Businesses use human resources scorecards to measure human resources processes and
effectiveness, and to align human resources with corporate goals and strategies. Human
resources scorecard practices involve both financial and nonfinancial aspects, measuring
actual costs as well as other areas of value such as turnover rate and what it means and
performance management data. Scorecards must measure elements that are in corporate goals
and strategy to be a tool for alignment. For example, if a key corporate goal is to improve
customer service in the upcoming year, customer service training and customer service
staffing should be part of the human resources scorecard.
The Six-Step Model for Implementing HR’s Strategic Role :
Ulrich et al. discuss a seven step model for formalizing the strategic role of HR. They are summarized
below:

Defining Business Strategy:

HR managers should focus on implementation of strategy. By doing so, they can facilitate
discussion about how to communicate the firm’s goals throughout the organisation. When
strategic goals are not developed with an eye towards the implementation detail, they tend to
be too generic and abstract. These vague goals will tend to confuse employees and they
would not know how exactly to implement the strategies. The important thing for HR
managers is to state the goals in such a way that the employees understand what exactly their
role in the organisation is and thus the organisation knows how to measure success in
achieving these goals.

Building a case for HR as a strategic asset:

Once a firm clarifies its strategy, HR professionals need to build a clear case for the strategic
role of HR. In concrete terms, they must be able to explain how and why HR can support the
strategy. It is important to look at as much of case histories and internal as well as external
research while going through this phase. Although it is not wise to imitate others, one can
learn a lot by looking through past experiences of others. Basically, the direct impact on the
HR systems’ high performance characteristics is non-linearly related to the increase in market
value. This is because in the lower ranges of performance, increase in market value is
basically because HR stops making mistakes it used to make in the past. It is almost like it is
getting out of the way and avoids blunders and wrong practices that worsen the situation. In
the middle range of performance, HR starts consolidating its efforts. It is learning from its
mistakes and in the process does not actually add much to the market value of the employees
and the company, but once a certain threshold is crossed indicating that the firm has adopted
the appropriate HR practices and implemented them effectively, the market value soars
exponentially. This is mainly because the HR system starts getting integrated into the overall
strategic system of the firm. Basically, the firms must consolidate the appropriate HR policies
and practices into an internally coherent system that is directly aligned with business
priorities and strategies that are most likely to create economic value. This can lead to
significant financial returns to the company. It is this plan that must be made concrete and
shown as a strong case to make senior management believe in HR’s potential.

It is important to note however, that simple changes in an HR practice do not make a

difference. The HR measures describe the whole HR system and changing the system to cross
the threshold mentioned above needs time, effort, insight and perseverance since results are
not directly proportional. This clearly indicates the requirement of an HR transformation
rather than a change. It is this very character of transformation, which is difficult and time-
consuming to achieve, that makes HR a strategic asset.

Along with value creation, there must also be a strong case for HR’s role in strategy
implementation. Strategy implementation rather than strategy content separates the successful
from the unsuccessful firms. It is easier to choose an appropriate strategy than to implement
one.

This once again shows the strategic nature of HR’s role in performance improvements.
Successful strategy implementation is driven by employee strategic focus, HR’s strategic
alignment and a balanced performance measurement system. The most important HR
performance driver is a strategically focused workforce. Effective knowledge management
combined with the above-mentioned factors creates a strategically focused organisation.

Creating a Strategy Map:

The first two steps clarify the firm’s strategy. This paves the way for the implementation
process. But, before this is done, the firm must get a clear understanding of its value chain.
The value chain is the complex cumulative set of interactions and combinatorial effects that
create the customer value in the products and services of the firm. It is important that the
firm’s performance management system must account for each of the links and dependencies
in the value chain. The Balanced scorecard framework refers to this process and creating a
strategy map. These are basically diagrams that show the links in the value chain. It shows
how different components in different layers interact. It is what provides managers and
employees the big picture of how their tasks affect the other elements in the firm and how it
affects overall strategy. This process should involve managers from all over the organisation,
not just HR. The broad participation is required to improve the quality of the strategy map. It
also allows each member of the team who is an expert in his or her domain to provide his or
her own insights into what is accomplishable. The following questions have been identified
as the key ones to be asked during the strategy map creation process.

• Identify the critical strategic goals from the generic ones.

• Identify the performance drivers for each goal.
• Think about how one can measure progress towards these goals.
• Identify barriers to the achievement of each goal.
• Recognise the employee behaviours needed to ensure that the company achieves its goals.
• Identify missing employee competencies and check if HR is providing the necessary
competencies.
• Finally, decide what needs to change.

These basic questions generate a wealth of information about how well a firm’s HR has been
contributing to the success of the organisation. Along with these discussions, it is useful for
the company to conduct surveys within the organisation to identify the extent to which each
employee understands the organisational goals. Once the whole picture of the firm’s value
chain is highlighted, the firm can then translate the information into a conceptual model using
language and graphics that make sense to the members of the organisation. The model should
then be tested for understanding and acceptance amongst the leaders and the employees.

The strategy map essentially contains predictions about which organisational processes drive
firm performance. The company can validate these hypotheses only after achieving the goals
set for each of the performance drivers and then measuring their impact on overall firm
performance. The graphical nature of the strategy map helps the senior management as well
as the employees have more confidence in the strategy implementation plan.

Identifying HR deliverables within the strategy map:

HR creates much of its value at the points of intersection between the HR system and the
overall strategy implementation system of the organisation. Thus, to leverage this to the
maximum possible extent it is important that there is a clear understanding of both sides of
this intersection.

In the past, HR managers lacked the required amounts of knowledge about the business side
and general managers did not fully understand the HR side. It is HR’s responsibility to depict
HR deliverables including performance drivers as well as HR enablers in the strategy map of
the firm. Performance drivers such as employee competence, motivation and availability are
very fundamental and so it might be difficult to locate these precisely on the strategy map. It
is important to identify those HR deliverables that support the firm-level performance drivers
on the strategy map. The focus should be on the kind of strategic behaviours that depend on
competencies, rewards and work organisation. E.g. Employee stability improves R&D cycle
time, the latter being a firm-level performance driver. Thus, employee stability becomes an
important HR enabler. Once this enabler has been identified, the firm can design policies
such as bonus schemes etc. that would encourage R&D staff to continue working for the firm.

Aligning the HR architecture with the HR deliverables:

The above-mentioned steps encourage the top-down thinking approach, whereby strategy
decides what HR deliverables the firm needs to focus on. It is also important to consider how
the HR system made up of the rewards, competencies; work organisation etc. needs to be
structured to provide the deliverables that are identified in the strategy map. This step
enhances the value creation aspect of the firm by aligning the HR system with the firm’s
larger strategy implementation system. For this, internal alignment and external alignment are
important. Internal alignment refers to the aligning components within the HR system.
External alignment refers to the alignment of the HR system with the other elements in the
firm’s value creation process. These two are not isolated processes. They are closely related.
Internal alignment is necessary but not sufficient in itself for external alignment to occur.
Basically, highly cohesive HR strategies will work as long as they are aligned well with the
overall strategy of the company. It will fail if it is not periodically reshaped so as to align it
with the overall strategy. However, for a particular fixed overall strategy, all firms need an
internally aligned HR strategy in order to achieve the overall goals. Misalignment between
the HR system and the strategy implementation system can destroy value. In fact, the wrong
measurement system can have the exact opposite effect than intended.

Designing the Strategic HR measurement system:

The above steps guide the development of the HR architecture and lay the groundwork
necessary to measure the performance relationship between HR and the firm’s strategy. The
next step is to design the measurement system itself. This requires a new, modern perspective
on measuring HR performance. It also requires HR to resolve several new technical issues
that it might not be familiar with. To accurately measure the HR-firm performance
relationship, it is imperative that the firm develops valid measures of HR deliverables. This
task has two dimensions. Firstly, HR has to be confident that they have chosen the correct HR
deliverables. This requires that HR have a clear understanding of the causality in the value
chain for effective strategy implementation. Secondly, HR must choose the correct measures
for those deliverables. During this process of developing the HR scorecard, the firm might go
through several stages of increasing sophistication. The first stage is normally the traditional
category of measures. These mainly include operational measures such as cost per hire,
activity counts etc. These are not exactly strategic measures. In the second stage, HR
measures have a strategic importance but they don’t help much in making a case for HR as a
strategic asset. Firms may declare several people measures such as employee satisfaction as
strategic measures and these might be included directly into the reward systems. In this stage,
there tends to be a balance between financial and non-financial measures but there is less of
an agreement on how exactly they combine together to implement the strategy. These are
normally hasty decisions and the firms might have not gone through all the previous steps
mentioned above. The next stage represents a transition point whereby the firm includes non-
financial measures such as HR measures into its strategic performance measurement system.
The links between the various measures are also identified i.e. they are placed appropriately
in the strategy map. The HR measures now actually track HR’s contribution to strategy
implementation. In the final stages, the HR measurement system will enable the firm to
estimate impacts of HR policies on firm performance. If the value chain is short and the
strategy map is relatively simple, the complete impact of HR on the overall performance can
be measured. For more complex value chains, the impact can be more accurately measured
on local segments or sectors of the strategy map. These local impacts can then be assimilated
to give a good measure of the total impact on the firm’s performance. Thus, each level of
sophistication of the measurement system adds value to the non-financial measures and
forces in the firm and enables a better performance appraisal.

Implementing the strategy by using the measures:

The previous step completes the HR scorecard development process. The next step is to use
this powerful new management tool in the right way. This tool not only helps the firm
measure HR’s impact on firm performance, but also helps HR professionals have new
insights into what steps must be taken to maintain HR as a strategic asset. It helps the HR
professionals dig deeper into the causes of success and failure and helps them promote the
former and avoid the latter. Implementing the strategy using the HR scorecard requires
change and flexibility as well as constant monitoring and re-thinking. The process is not a
one-time event. HR professionals must regularly review the measures and their impacts. They
must review the HR deliverables identified as important and see to it that the drivers and
enablers and internally as well as externally aligned. Special reviews of the HR enablers must
be conducted as these have the maximum direct impact on specific business objectives.
Enablers that do not tend to play a positive role should be replaced.

Benefits of the HR Scorecard

The HR Scorecard offers the following benefits:

• It reinforces the distinction between HR do-ables and deliverables: The HR measurement

system must clearly distinguish between the deliverables that influence strategy
implementation and do-ables that do not. Policy implementation is not a deliverable until it
has a positive effect on the HR architecture and creates the right employee behaviours that
drive strategy implementation. An appropriate HR measurement system will encourage HR
professionals to think both strategically as well as operationally.
• It enables cost control and value creation: HR is always expected to control costs for the
firm. At the same time, HR has to fulfill its strategic goal, which is to create value. The HR
scorecard helps HR professionals balance the two and find the optimal solution. It allows HR
professionals to drive out costs where appropriate, but at the same time defend investments in
intangibles and HR by outlining the benefits in concrete terms.
• It measures leading indicators: Just as there are leading and lagging indicators in the overall
balanced performance measurement system, there are drivers and outcomes in the HR value
chain as well. It is thus important to monitor the alignment of the HR decisions and systems
that drive the HR deliverables. Assessing this alignment provides feedback on HR’s progress
towards these deliverables and lays the foundation for HR’s strategic influence.
• It assesses HR’s contribution to strategy implementation: The cumulative effect of the HR
Scorecard’s deliverable measures provides the answer to the question regarding HR’s
contribution to firm performance. All measures have a credible and strategic rationale. Line
managers can use these measures as solutions to business problems.
• It lets HR professionals effectively manage their strategic responsibilities: The scorecard
encourages HR managers to focus on exactly how their decisions affect the successful
implementation of the firm’s strategy. This is due to the systemic nature of the scorecard. It
provides a clear framework to think in a systemic manner.
• It encourages flexibility and change: The basic nature of the scorecard with its causal
emphasis and feedback loops helps fight against measurement systems getting too
standardised. Standardisation is good for things that don’t tend to have a dynamic nature but
firm performance is a dynamic phenomenon. Every decision needs to be taken based on the
past and future scenarios. One of the common problems of measurement systems is that
managers tend to get skilled to obtain the right numbers once they get used to a particular
measurement system. The HR scorecard engenders flexibility and change because it focuses
on the firm’s strategy implementation, which constantly demands change. With this
framework, measures simply become indicators of the underlying logic that managers accept
as legitimate. It helps them look at the bigger picture and since there are no perfect numbers it
makes it easier for managers to change direction when needed.

Talent management can be a discipline as big as the HR function itself or a small bunch of
initiatives aimed at people and organization development. Different organizations utilize
talent management for their benefits. This is as per the size of the organization and their
belief in the practice.
It could just include a simple interview of all employees conducted yearly, discussing their
strengths and developmental needs. This could be utilized for mapping people against the
future initiatives of the company and for succession planning. There are more benefits that
are wide ranged than the ones discussed above. The benefits are:

 Right Person in the right Job: Through a proper ascertainment of people skills and
strengths, people decisions gain a strategic agenda. The skill or competency mapping
allows you to take stock of skill inventories lying with the organization. This is
especially important both from the perspective of the organization as well as the
employee because the right person is deployed in the right position and employee
productivity is increased. Also since there is a better alignment between an
individual’s interests and his job profile the job satisfaction is increased.
 Retaining the top talent: Despite changes in the global economy, attrition remains a
major concern of organizations. Retaining top talent is important to leadership and
growth in the marketplace. Organisations that fail to retain their top talent are at the
risk of losing out to competitors. The focus is now on charting employee retention
programs and strategies to recruit, develop, retain and engage quality people.
Employee growth in a career has to be taken care of, while succession planning is
being performed those who are on the radar need to be kept in loop so that they know
their performance is being rewarded.
  Better Hiring: The quality of an organization is the quality of workforce it possesses.
The best way to have talent at the top is have talent at the bottom. No wonder then
talent management programs and trainings, hiring assessments have become an
integral aspect of HR processes nowadays.
 Understanding Employees Better: Employee assessments give deep insights to the
management about their employees. Their development needs, career aspirations,
strengths and weaknesses, abilities, likes and dislikes. It is easier therefore to
determine what motivates whom and this helps a lot Job enrichment process.
 Better professional development decisions: When an organization gets to know who
its high potential is, it becomes easier to invest in their professional development.
Since development calls for investment decisions towards learning, training and
development of the individual either for growth, succession planning, performance
management etc, an organization remains bothered where to make this investment and
talent management just make this easier for them.

Apart from this having a strong talent management culture also determines how organization
rate their organizations as work places. In addition if employees are positive about the talent
management practices of the organization, they are more likely to have confidence in the
future of their organization. The resultant is a workforce that is more committed and engaged
determined to outperform their competitors and ensure a leadership position in the market for
their organization.
Principles of Talent Management

There are no hard and fast rules for succeeding in execution of management practices, if you
ask me. What may work wonders for one organization may ruin another one! For
convenience sake however there are certain principles of Talent Management that one should
follow or keep in mind.

Principle 1 - Avoid Mismatch Costs

In planning for future manpower requirements, most of the HR professionals prepare a deep
bench of candidates or manpower inventory. Many of the people who remain in this bracket
start searching for other options and move when they are not raised to a certain position and
profile. In such a scenario it is better to keep the bench strength low and hire from outside
from time to time to fill gaps. This in no way means only to hire from outside, which leads to
a skill deficit and affects the organizational culture.

Such decisions can be taken by thinking about the ‘Make or Buy’ decision. Perhaps questions
like - How accurate is the demand forecast? How long is the talent required? Can we afford
to develop? Answers to these questions can better help the talent management to decide on
whether to develop or buy talent.

Principle 2 - Reduce the Risk of Being Wrong

In manpower anticipations for future an organization can ill afford to be wrong. It’s hard to
forecast talent demands for future business needs because of the uncertainty involved. It is
therefore very important to attune the career plans with the business plans. A 5 year career
plan looks ridiculous along with a 2 year business plan.
Further, long term development and succession plans may end up as a futile exercise if the
organization lacks a firm retention strategy.

Principle 3 - Recoup Talent Investments

Developing talent internally pays in the longer run. The best way to recover investments
made in talent management is to reduce upfront costs by finding alternative and cheaper
talent delivery options. Organizations also require a rethink on their talent retention strategy
to improve employee retention.

Another way that has emerged of late in many organizations is sharing development costs
with the employees. Many of TATA companies for example sponsor their employees’
children education. Similarly lots of organizations use ‘promote then develop’ programs for
their employees where the cost of training and development is shared between the two. One
important way to recoup talent investments is spotting the talent early, this reduces the risk.
More importantly this identified lot of people needs to be given opportunities before they get
it elsewhere.

Principle 4 - Balancing Employee Interests

How much authority should the employees’ haves over their own development? There are
different models that have been adopted by various corporations globally. There is ‘the chess
master model’, but the flipside in this is that talented employees search for options.
Organizations can also make use of the internal mobility programs which are a regular feature
of almost all the top organizations.

These principles are just broader guidelines; their application varies across industries and
organizational cultures.

Performance evaluation process: 3 key steps

Step 1
In most organizations, a performance evaluation process states that an employee’s
performance is tracked every three and six months, provided, the employee has worked with
the organization continually for that tenure. The HR department can send across an online
survey for the employees to fill out regarding their satisfaction and engagement levels.

Step 2
The employee’s immediate manager will decide his/her performance quality after evaluating
the yearly performance, conducting an employee engagement survey, and eventually having a
face-to-face meeting.

Step 3
The feedback received from the online employee satisfaction survey can be kept anonymous.
This feedback can be analyzed in real-time from a centralized dashboard. On the basis of the
analysis, the manager can prepare further questions for the face-to-face performance
evaluation meeting.
For a probationary employee to be termed as a tenured employee, he/she must perform as per
their supervisor’s expectations for six months. The first six months of an employee’s tenure
are crucial as the management always has a watchful eye on them for all their contribution
towards assigned tasks, ownership skills, and punctuality in task completion.

After confirmation, an immediate manager will evaluate the non-probationary employee on a

yearly basis.

EMPLOYEE COUNSELLING

Employee counselling is defined as a process which is initiated by the responsible manager or

counsellor for providing assistance to employees facing problems. It is conducted to listen,
understand problems and provide guidance, advices and suggest ways to solve them. It is
mainly to provide job related, personal and confidential help to those who are facing the
problems.

Main Characteristics of Employee Counselling are:

(a) Service offered to employees.
(b) Service is conducted in organisation.
(c) Focus is on problems faced by employees.
(d) Objective of counselling is problem solution.
(e) Employee counselling serves all concerned.
(f) Employee counselling is a continuous process.
(g) Role of counsellor is important in counselling.
(h) Half knowledge is a dangerous thing, is completed through counselling.

Importance of Employees Counselling:

Through counselling the supervisor tries to speak to his subordinates, ensure a two-way
communication, and help them grow and develop in the organisation.
The various importance of employee counselling are listed as under:
1. It provides employees with an atmosphere where they can share and discuss their
tensions, conflicts, concerns, and problems with their supervisors.
2. It is a process of helping employees to realise their full potential by making them
understand their strengths and weaknesses.
3. Counselling provides employees with the reassurance and courage to face the problems
confidently.
4. Releasing emotional tension is an important function of counselling. Release of tension
may not solve the entire problem but it removes mental blocks to the solution.
5. Counselling sessions also help employees to get an opportunity to understand the
business environment and set realistic goals for further improvements.
6. It even gives the employer an opportunity to understand the employee’s perspective and
set mutually agreeable goals for future.
7. It can even help the management decide about the need for training and development
programs to sharpen the employees skills and increase their level of confidence on the job.
8. A good counselling session generally helps in winning the trust and faith of the
employees.
9. It provides more autonomy to employees and positively reinforces their desirable
behaviour and tries to create conditions in which the employee is able to learn from his
mistakes.

The four types of employee counselling are:

Type # 1. Performance Counselling:
If the performance of an employee starts declining at the workplace, the need for performance
counselling arises. The counsellor should try to identify the underlying causes behind the
employee’s poor performance. The reasons could be office stress, unachievable deadlines,
problems in interpersonal relations with other employees, etc. After recognizing the problem,
the counsellor can advise about how to deal with it.

Type # 2. Disciplinary Counselling:

This type of counselling takes place when an employee’s behaviour falls short of the
standards expected. An employee may suddenly start picking up fights, become irritable, be
absent from work for long, etc. The counsellor should interview the employee and confront
him about his behavioural problems.
He should try to analyze all the reasons that could be causing the behavioural lapses. An
employee may be frustrated because of personal problems; high absenteeism may be due to
bullying by co-workers in the office. The counsellor may give tips on how to face the
situation and improve his behaviour.
Type # 3. Personal Counselling:
Workplace problems are not the only problems that employees face; personal and family
problems also affect their performance. Families and friends are integral parts of any human
being’s life; tension in a worker’s personal life affects his work performance adversely.
Personal problems could include sickness of a family member, marital conflicts,
dysfunctional family life, problem with children, family feuds, etc. The counsellor should
lend a sympathetic ear to the employee’s personal problems and support them in resolving
them so that the employee is able to concentrate on his job wholeheartedly.
Type # 4. Stress Management in Workplace:
Working in the modern job environment is very stressful with so many deadlines to meet and
targets to achieve. Employees may become anxious and tense due to their high pressure
workload. This not only affects their productivity on the job, but also their mental health.
It is the duty of the organization to take care of the employees’ well-being and provide them
guidelines for dealing with stress. Bigger organizations may engage experts for providing
psychiatric counselling to employees as part of employee welfare programmes.

Employee Counselling Pre-Requisites Prerequisites of Employee Counselling are:

1. Listen and Show Confidence:
Do not ignore the employee problems as trivial and listen to them. Believe in their abilities,
show confidence in their work and tell them that the organization has a lot of expectations
from them. Such trust and confidence motivates the employees to resolve issues and perform
better.
2. Focus on the Problem and not the Person:
However big or small the problem is, it is affecting performance and needs to be discussed.
But remember the real culprit is the problem and not the person. So, instead of focusing on
the employee, try to focus on understanding the problem.
3. Give Suggestions and Solutions:
After understanding the problem, try to help the person solve it. Take the employee’s opinion
about the ways the issue can be resolved. Analyse the various solutions and give suggestions.
A discussion about the solutions may actually help you figure out and eliminate the pain
point.
4. Create an Action Plan:
Some problems may warrant a series of tasks to be performed over a period of time to be
resolved. Create action plans for yourself and the colleague. Clearly note down the actions
that each party has to perform. Show active involvement to make the team member feel
comfortable with your initiatives and motivate him/her to perform to the best of his/her
abilities.
5. Follow up:

Follow up after regular intervals to see if the counselling has helped. It not only shows the
genuine interest in the well-being and performance of the team mate but also helps to identify
gaps and other issues. Moreover, follow up helps to evaluate the success of the action plan by
HR Head.
Process/Stages of Counselling Process:
1. Rapport/Relationship Building – Rapport building is the first step in counselling. It
demonstrates such essential skills as mirroring, tracking, pacing, attentive listening, and
empathizing and presents such tools as obtaining informed consent, using self-disclosure,
reflecting client feelings etc.
2. Assessment/Problem Definition – The counsellor assesses the employee’s feelings,
thoughts, behaviours, and interpersonal dynamics. It involves asking the Counselee exploring
questions.
3. Goal Setting – Third stage of the counselling process, involves focus on goal setting. It
shows how goal setting is a collaborative focus and demonstrates the use of the three Cs
choice, change, and coping in the process.
4. Intervention – It demonstrates establishing a plan for change, reviewing the goals set in
the process, and preparing for dealing with the problem
5. Termination – The counsellor assesses goal accomplishment, skills gained, available
resources and supports, and potential obstacles and looks at follow-up planning. It involves
finding alternative ways to help the Counselee.

1. Team work It requires a joint effort of the members to plan, make decisions, implement
them, evaluate them & correct them.
2. Communication Policies.It enabvles the learning process, the HRD manager should
insist the top management to formulate favourable & learning –initiative communication
policies.
3. Grievance Mechanism: Prompt settlement of employee grievances leads to job
satisfaction & satisfied employees are encouraged to enrich their resources with a view to
enhance their contributions to the organization.