Performance Management

How Challenging Tasks Contribute to Promotion Decisions

Understanding why certain employees are promoted is critical at both an individual and organizational level. At the individual level, it is important to understand what factors affect career advancement. At an organizational level, a thorough understanding of what factors lead to employee success in a higher position is imperative for succession planning and managing employees. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of the various factors that contribute to promotion can be beneficial at both the individual and organizational level. Read more

The “What” and “Who” of Counterproductive Workplace Behavior (CWB)

Counterproductive Workplace Behavior (CWB) – volitional acts that harm or are intended to harm organizations or people within organizations – is a pervasive problem throughout almost all organizations.  CWB can be directed at the organization (CWB-O; can include tardiness or sabotaging the organization) or at individuals (CWB-I; can include spreading rumors or harming another’s possessions)- a distinction that helps to understand precipitating factors that lead to negative emotions. Read more

Seniority Versus Performance Based Pay Systems

Determining the foundations of a pay system can be a very difficult dilemma. In most cases, the basis of the pay system will boil down to two main options: Seniority-based pay systems and performance-based pay systems. While the decision may seem to have implications solely in the area of compensation management, an inappropriate pay system choice can lead to higher turnover rates, especially for high performers. Read more

How the Sharing of Information Affects Team Performance

Organizations increasingly utilize teams as a basis for structuring work and decision-making. A central reason for utilizing a multi-person format for making decisions is for reaching decisions of higher quality than possible by a single individual. A key ingredient to successful team-based decision-making is the sharing of information among members. How, and what, information is shared between members greatly impacts the team’s decision-making ability. Read more

Gauging Difficulty: Cognitive Factors that Affect Performance

As work tasks become more difficult, many people think that a person will generally set lower or more realistic expectations for performance progress, which should subsequently influence the level of performance success. While research has demonstrated relationships among task difficulty, performance expectancies, and performance outcomes, recent evidence is also pointing out that several cognitive factors complicate this relationship.  These factors are: Read more

Is “Effective Meeting” an Oxymoron?

We all have them. Some people organize them. Some people lead them. Some people simply attend them. Most of us dread them: meetings. Read more

The Value of Training and Selection

Human capital is the combined knowledge, skills, and other abilities of an organization’s workforce. Organizations that pay in to human resource development up front will reap the benefits of a more productive and knowledgeable workforce, as well as cost savings over time. Human capital can be broken down into two forms: Read more

Multicommunicating Effectively to Increase Productivity

In today’s fast-paced workplace, it is often common for employees to have multiple, simultaneous demands on their time.  One of the ways these demands can manifest themselves is when employees carry multiple conversations at the same time – also known as multicommunicating. Read more

Are Jobs Really Global? Job Similarities Across Countries

As companies seek to expand beyond national boundaries, one question becomes particularly relevant: is the “job” the same in different countries? Are the functions of a bank teller in the United States the same as those of a teller in Japan? When companies seek to become multi-national, it becomes increasingly important to determine if the job companies are moving from the United States (U.S.) will end up being the same job in another country. Read more

Connecting Teleworkers to the Organization

As companies and the workforce continueto change, options for working environments are also increasing. More and more employees are trading in their corner office to work from home, or telecommute. This may be a desirable option for many employees as it affords more flexibility, decreases travel time and reduces conflicts with demands outside of the organization. However, being completely separated from the office and other individuals can often lead employees to feel isolated. Read more

Sweet Revenge: Could Your Employees Be Sabotaging Your Customers?

Employees intentionally engaging in behaviors that are damaging or disruptive are often referred to as “sabotaging” the organization’s functioning. Employee sabotage typically occurs as an act of retaliation or revenge for perceived injustice. Read more

Knowing Not What One Does: Implications for Low Performers

Research has shown that, when compared to others, most people overestimate their own performance. Many, if not most, workers often say that they are above average or in the top percentage of performers. However, most people cannot be above average (i.e., only 50% can), which indicates that many people are overestimating their abilities. Read more