Case Study: Transition from Performance Appraisal to Performance Management

You are a passionate performance management consultant. Because of your expertise in performance management, you have been hired by the CEO of a large company to change a performance appraisal system to a performance management system. Because you are experienced in bringing about such transitions, you know better than anyone else that the success of such transitions depends heavily upon top managerial understanding of and support for the performance management system at hand. Thanks to your skills, you have managed to educate the top management of your client's firm and correct their mistaken belief of equating performance appraisal with performance management.

Despite the clarified understanding of performance management, the top management team is still a hard sell, and they remain skeptical about whether your proposed performance management system is any different or more effective than the performance appraisal system that the company has had in place for decades. To make matters worse, the prevailing attitude across all levels of the organization seems to be characterized by the commonly heard statement: "We have been doing this for a long time, and it seems to work just fine." Moreover, one of the managers has challenged your plan by voicing his concern that a performance management system might create or increase the demands (such as excessive paperwork) on managers' and employees' time and resources.

(1)Describe at least four general strategies you would take to convince the client firm that the benefits of implementing a performance management system will far outweigh the costs and difficulties associated with the transition from a performance appraisal to a performance management system.

(2)For each strategy listed, provide sufficient detail so that the firm can implement your suggested strategies