Performance Management Systems Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Performance Management Systems - Essay Example The tools to help manage and track performance management across organizations have been in place for considerably less time. In fact, most of the oldest of those in use today have only been on the market a little longer than five years. Systematizing the performance management systems has its benefits. Taking into account the case of Saba's Enterprise Performance solutions, it offers the following advantages: First, it focuses people on strategic initiatives, such as responding to new competitors, launching a product, or investing in a new line of business. The identification of strategic initiatives and making it visible across the organization shapes the goals and the competencies required for each individual in the organization. Beneath these are operational objectives that focus on what you need to do to achieve strategic aims. Prioritizing these will identify key areas of activity and areas where additional effort or resource will be directed to deliver improvement. Operational priorities will influence the decisions that managers make on a yearly, monthly and even daily basis. Second, it helps organizations execute on their business strategy by focusing people on strategic initiatives resulting to goal alignment of individual activities and organizational goals. One of the biggest challenges that organizations face in developing their personnel for maximum business gains is aligning development efforts with the organization's goals. In a recent survey by Bersin & Associates, 60% of training managers indicated that their biggest challenge was to be sure their efforts were aligned with the company's business strategy. In fact, the idea of performance management is to combine the viewpoints of the organization, the individual, and the environment. Third, it offers performance assessment capabilities designed to increase the productivity of individuals and the overall organization. Top performing organizations combine performance and improvement in a single agenda, often establishing a senior management group with responsibility for both. These groups, sometimes including executive portfolio holders, take responsibility for: regularly monitoring and acting on key performance indicators that reflect corporate priorities, setting standards for performance and expectations of when action needs to be taken identifying tolerances for performance , asking challenging questions about performance , ensuring that there are robust action plans to address under-performance, redirecting resources where necessary , following up planned actions, ensuring they have led to improvement , and sending out a clear signal that performance and improvement are being taken seriously at the highest level. Lastly, it focuses learning resources on organizational and competitive goals. To be successful today, organizations must focus on understanding who they are and where they want to go (the vision and mission), setting clear expectations of the outcomes to be achieved by the organization (goals and objectives) and describing how people should perform their roles to deliver the vision, mission and goals (the competency system). Having a clear direction and defined outcomes doesn't seem to be sufficient to drive

Ethnography of a Group or Community Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Ethnography of a Group or Community - Essay Example The instructor pinpoints his disappointments of the way the international students in the class are performing compared to the Americans despite of issuance of similar lectures and notes. The issue of the level of English among the foreign students comes up with the instructor indicating that some of the members require attending English classes and threatens not to mark the poorly written papers that are submitted. The instructor furthermore called on an African student called Antony, Asking whether the English he had written to answer the assessment questions is the one that Kenyans use. He claims that where he instructs students is in the United States and not in Kenya; hence, all students that come from similar places where English is a second language required to improve accordingly. American students joined the lecture explaining how the international students do not know to speak to them in a pure English and categorically the Americans in the class indicates that the do not p refer interaction with the international students.† There has been an increased interconnection of different areas of studies globally in different education sectors (Bevis and Lucas). Subsequently, many international students have enrolled in American universities following the demand of higher and high quality higher education. Researchers have indicated that more than 10 billion international students are enrolled in the American universities. However, the diversified cultural backgrounds of the international students’ lead strains in adjusting to the new environment. The environment becomes unfavorable due to factors such as the international students language constrictions, social behaviors, and cultural differences. The environment that the International students face once in a foreign country has a totally different cultural background owing to the fact that most of the students come from different geographic regions and backgrounds. Consequently, most of the int ernational students in the United States universities are prone to unique challenging situations such as probable prejudice and discrimination, language barriers and various aspects evolving from the different cultural backgrounds. The level of English proficiency for the international students is a main aspect related to how well the student will cope with the new environment. English proficiency has a great impact on the level of stress that the students face while trying to adjust to the new environment. The international students who show an improved level of English proficiency easily adapt to the new environment with ease compared to those with low English adeptness. In addition, English proficiency clearly manifests in the students’ studies results accordingly. Recently, this factor on language has had increased attention globally; leave alone in the United States, to help the international students improve levels of English fluency to avoid the depressive feelings ass ociated with limited communication with other students and instructors in the universities because of low levels of proficiency. Consequently, this raises the issue of whether the international students should attend English lectures as an additional program. Most students, in particular the international students, have a sense of feeling intimidated or perceives themselves as outcasts on advise to take English classes. These indicate that the aspect of language