The Employee Performance Management and Development System (EPMDS) in the public sector

The scope and essence of performance management

The Employee Performance Management and Development System (EPMDS) is a framework for
performance management that applies to all employees in the Department on salary levels 1 to 12
appointed in terms of the Public Service Act, 1994. As an employee performance management system,
the EPMDS is not applicable to departmental, component or team performance management or
assessment.

Performance refers to the degree of accomplishment of the tasks that make up an employee’s job (Byars
& Rue 1994:288). It reflects how well an employee is fulfilling the requirements of a job. Often confused
with effort, which refers to energy expended, performance is measured in terms of results. Performance
management is the process of creating a work environment or setting in which people are enabled to
perform to the best of their abilities. It is a whole work system that begins when a job is defined as
needed and ends up when an employee leaves the organisation. According to (Heathfield 2000:64)
many writers and consultants are using the term ”performance management” as a substitute for the
traditional appraisal system, which is completely untrue. Performance appraisals are the evaluation of
employee performance which entails carefully collecting and analysing information in order to make
decisions.

Performance management is done with the overall aim of achieving the organisation’s vision and
mission. No single individual within an organisation performs for such an organisation if their mission
and vision are not accomplished as well. The work, especially at task level, is in the hands of workers.
Managers could formulate goals and objectives having to do with the improvement in work processes. If
these are left to the workers to realise in the absence of managers it could therefore be argued that
managers are not needs to realise objectives. An effective management system sets new employees up
to succeed, so that they can help the organisation to succeed. It should be able to provide enough
guidance so people understand what is expected of them. It further provides flexibility and room so that
individual creativity and strengths are nurtured. The overall essence of a performance management
system is to provide enough control so that people understand what the organisation is trying to
accomplish.

According to the DPSA (2001), Performance management systems are aimed at optimising the potential
of current employee output in terms of quality and quantity and increasing the total organisational
performance. Employee performance management is about the management of individuals in the
organisation, an attempt to raise the level of individual employees to acceptable standards and beyond.
Managers and their teams are jointly accountable for results and are both involved in agreeing what
they need to do and how they need to do it, in monitoring performance and in taking action (Armstrong
1999:433). Performance management is initiated by first defining the specific job criteria (norms and
standards) against which performance will be measured. This is done in order to justify the rewards
given to individuals or groups, thereby discriminating between low and high performers. The process
itself defines the development experiences that the person being appraised needs to enhance their
performance in the present job, and to prepare them for future responsibilities. The essence of
performance management is establishing a framework in which performance by human resources can
be directed, monitored, motivated and refined (Mabey et al. 2004:129)

Objectives of performance management

Performance management is aimed at planning, managing and improving employee performance. The
aim of performance management is to optimise every employee’s output in terms of quality and
quantity, thereby improving the Department’s overall performance and service delivery. Employee
performance management is a broad and complicated process requiring that proper structures and
systems be put in place in order to manage performance properly. In most instances EPMDS is usually
confused with Performance Appraisal with the latter being given more attention. It is imperative that
managers and supervisors know the difference between the two. Performance management focuses on
the performance of individual employees in an attempt to establish gaps in performance. The main
objectives of managing performance are to assist employees in gearing up their performance up to
acceptable levels. It is therefore aimed at correcting poor levels of performance and motivating
employees to achieve stated objectives. Performance appraisal is a process within the EPMDS system
that brings the employer and employee face to face to assess how employees are doing in their line of
duty. According to Hook (1996:135) the following are objectives of performance management:

(a) To ensure that public sector employees know what is expected of them

(b) To inform public sector managers whether the employee’s performance is delivering the
requested set objectives

(c) To identify poor performance

(d) To improve poor performance

(e) To recognise and reward outstanding performance

(f) To increase motivation

(g) To identify training needs

(h) To aid in career planning and

(i) To provide information for HR planning

Another objective of performance management is to survey the attitude of employees. This entails
surveying employees’ vis-à-vis their job satisfaction, opinions about supervisors, operating effectiveness,
and training and development matters. Enterprises survey employee levels of job satisfaction as a
measure of executive and enterprise performance. Performance appraisals (PAs) are a formal
management system that provides for the evaluation of the quality of an employee’s performance in an
organisation. The objectives of PAs can therefore be summed up in the following manner: to provide
feedback to employees about their performance; determine which employee gets promoted; encourage
performance improvement; motivate superior performance; identify gaps in performance to establish
training needs, identify individual training and development needs and develop overall enterprise
performance.

Benefits of Performance management

Managing employee performance ensures that employees understand the metrics and standards upon
which they are evaluated, thereby promoting a sense of fairness and equality. It supports meaningful
formal and informal performance reviews based on goal accomplishment and competency attainments.
PM also provides a framework for ongoing coaching and development to improve future performance
and productivity requirements. It fully integrates goal setting and compensation which provide a
completely secure authorisation and flexible workflow. Performance management help the
organisation to focus on results, rather than behaviours and activities.
It aligns organisational activities and processes to the goals of the organisation.

Challenges of performance management

Measuring productivity in the public sector is not an easy task because various qualitative aspects have
to be considered, in addition to the output of goods and services which is only rarely quantified. The
qualitative aspects are in most cases complex and also intangible, such as the general welfare of the
community.

Armstrong (2003;64) states that there are three fundamental problems associated with performance
management:

(a) The development and understanding of characteristics and standards against which people can
be assessed objectively and consistently; which means that those who develop and use
performance review procedures must appreciate the factors affecting assessments of people.

(b) The methods of recording judgements, when the task is to choose a performance review
technique which encourages managers to set out their views within an understood framework,
but does not impose an unreasonable burden of form filling

(c) Ensuring that counselling sessions do take place between managers and subordinates which
make good use of the appraisal to show the way to improvements in performance

Problems associated with performance management are not only systems related, they are also
influenced by judgements people make about others. Assessments require the ability to judge people,
and good judgement is a matter of using fixed standards, considering the only relevant evidence,
avoiding projections and combining probabilities in their correct weight.

The need for performance management

Effective decision-making is essential in the creation of an accountable, cost-effective, and productive
organisation that delivers on its strategic goals and objectives. In a government department decision
making is central to the delivery of services. Organisations are better able to make decisions that affect
operations when there are proper performance management systems in place. Public sector managers
face increasing pressures from all sides to reduce costs, improve service levels, make progress towards
the achievement of priority outcomes, and increase accountability. In order to accomplish these
objectives, a strong vision of success is vital. At the outset, managers must clarify the vision and broad
objectives that define the desired long-term impacts policies and programs were designed to achieve.
From there they can identify and focus upon the short - and medium-term results that should contribute
to achieving those impacts and the measures that will allow progress to be tracked and reported on over
time.

With a well designed performance management system, organisations can immediately gain insight into
the manner in which employees carry out their responsibilities. Thus, managers are able to gain access
to reliable, timely information that drives better decisions. Performance management enables mangers
to monitor the progress of employees thereby affording them an opportunity to take remedial actions
where performance is deemed to be unsatisfactory. Invariably, a performance management system is
instrumental in enhancing organizational efficiencies and effectiveness, therefore impacting on
competitiveness. (Meyer and Botha 2004:360). Thus, organisational strategic goals can only be achieved
when there is a purposeful and continuous process geared towards positively influencing employee
behavior.

The nature of performance management

Performance appraisal and review is the formal, systematic assessment of how well employees are
performing their jobs in relation to established standards and the communication of that assessment to
employees. Performance appraisal may be defined as a formal and systematic process by means of
which the job relevant strengths and weaknesses of employees are identified, observed, measured,
recorded and developed (Swanepoel et al. 2003:372). Performance management is therefore used for:

(a) Identification of employee strength and weaknesses

(b) Observation of employees at work

(c) Measurement of work outcomes

(d) Recording and documentation of findings for reference purposes

(e) Development which also entail follow-ups to close identified gaps in performance

EPMDS is a broad and complicated process requiring that proper structures and systems be put in place
in order to manage performance properly. In most instances EPMS is usually confused with PA with the
latter being given more attention. It is imperative that managers and supervisors know the difference
between the two. Performance management focuses on the performance of individual employees in an
attempt to establish gaps in performance. The main objectives of managing performance are to assist
employees in gearing up performance up to acceptable levels. It is therefore aimed at correcting poor
levels of performance and motivating employees to achieve stated objectives. Performance appraisal is
a process within the EPMDS system that brings the employer and employee face to face to assess how
employees are doing in their line of duty. It is conceded that appraisal, on a systematic basis, is an
integral part of a well designed development program. This acknowledgement asserts the notion that
performance appraisal is a process within the EPMDS system. It further indicates that performance
appraisal is linked to human resource development programs. Performance management is not an
event; it is a process that requires several ongoing activities linked to each other