Performance review practices influenced by social media platforms

Performance Review

I totally agree with the statement that managers who have regular conversions with their employees will definitely know where their employees stand hence performance evaluation maybe unnecessary. Through such regular conversions, their subordinates would appreciate their essential functions in that particular organization. They will list their major responsibilities beginning with the most important one going down to the least important. Through the conversation the manager will gauge whether an employee understands the job duties and responsibilities; whether they posses sufficient skills and knowledge required to perform given responsibilities effectively; whether they understand and promote that particular organization's mission and values; and whether they are making some deliberate effort to stay abreast with new developments. With regard to organizational skills, the interaction between an organization's management and their employees will make the management be in a position to gauge the employees' ability to prioritize workload and manage information flow. The conversations will also put the manager in a position to evaluate whether employees pay attention to detail and accuracy, demonstrate thoroughness and completeness. The conversations will help gauge the employees' dependability and reliability. This far it will be ascertained whether they are punctual and regular in attendance; complete their work satisfactorily while meeting commitments, working independently, handling change, and staying focused under pressure. The conversation will make it easier to know whether individual employees have good communication skills. This can be ascertained by looking at how effectively they listen and respond to issues that have been raised, their ability to make effective oral and written communication that is easy to understand, and how they interact with others (Columbia Theological Seminary, 2007). Other performance factors that can be seen through such conversations include constituent service skills and other levels of professionalism. The former is exhibited by employees' ability to build relationships with the members of the constituency and the way in which they deal with confidential information. Are they capable of maintaining discretion? All these will save the manager the agony of doing a performance evaluation.

Many organizations conduct their performance review annually. However, with the advent of social network performance review, employees can get feedback on how they perform on a regular basis. The constant feedback is taken differently across the generations (LaManna, 2012). The new generation (generation Y) sees feedback as an opportunity to learn and grow because it is an away of measuring themselves, while the older generations (veterans and the baby boomers) and the boomers look at the feedback given as judgment handed down on them. The generation X'ers likes it when they get constant feedback on their performance. Waiting for quarterly or yearly reviews is alien to them. The baby boomers and generation X'ers are more comfortable waiting. The social network performance reviews help the generation Y improve at their jobs, especially those working in high pace environment like in an IT firm. Social media performance review uses social media tools. Considering that the veterans are not so technologically savvy, using social media performance review cannot be the best way to provide feedback to them because they like it when documents are dictated to them, they only read e-mails in their offices, prefer using library as opposed to using the web. The veterans hardly use their phones. Despite the fact most of documents that the baby boomers use are prepared by their associates, their performance can be reviewed using the social media tools because they use the web albeit restrictively. Their access to e-mail is limited to the office. Using social media tools to review performance of the generation X'ers can be effective bearing in mind that this generation frequently uses mobile and laptop. They also use the web to research and review. Up to this end, the feedback on job performance of this generation can be done on regular basis. This also applies to the generation Y (United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund, n.d.).

The statement "the biggest payoff of these social network style tools may prove to be better performance by the boss" justifies the time and cost of implementing the social media performance review tools because the use of web based and mobile-based technologies has taken performance review to the next level. It has literally transformed the performance appraisal process. The social media tools have proved to be handy in the sense that it helps in satisfying dissatisfied employees who are not happy with the duration it takes to get feedback on their performances. The social media tool provides employees with frequent and detailed feedback about their performance as opposed to waiting up to the end of the year for such feedbacks to be given. Because such tools are automated, the users can make comments and provide public recognition to their team mates. In fact, the managers and staff can comment on the performance of their peers in public and private forums on a regular basis (McGregor, 2007). Because of public recognition, the employees get motivated and highly engaged. A motivated team will perform their duties exceptionally well and hence enhance the output. Enhanced output implies bigger sales returns. The returns from the sales can be used to leverage the cost of implementing the social media performance review tools.