Military Performance Management and Appraisal Systems

Introduction: Military Performance Management Overview

As a member of the U.S. military, my organization's current performance management and performance appraisal system is driven by very unique needs. It is in many ways highly bureaucratic and standardized — this is so that the requirements of the organization, rather than the personal and subjective responses of supervisors, define the ratings process. The system also has specific mechanisms for the mentorship of soldiers advancing through the ranks.

Although there are certain aspects of the Army's performance management approach that are quite specialized, I believe that any organization — including private, for-profit enterprises — could learn from its philosophy. Its strong emphasis on mentorship and performance feedback minimizes frustration with criticism and reduces candidates' sense of being unfairly judged. The process is uniform in terms of the benchmarks to which candidates are held, yet the coaching and individualized nature of the feedback is personalized for every soldier, making improvement targeted, feasible, and achievable.

Performance Management vs. Performance Appraisal

It is important to make a distinction between performance management and performance appraisal. In general, the literature supports the superiority of emphasizing performance management, although both methods may be necessary to provide employees with adequate feedback. Performance management is defined as a continuous process of "identifying, measuring, and developing the performance of individuals and teams and aligning performance with the strategic goals of the organization," whereas performance appraisal typically takes place on an annual basis, usually in the form of a review session (Aguinis, Joo, & Gottfredson, 2011, p. 503).

In my unit, depending on their grade, soldiers are given a performance appraisal on a monthly or 90-day basis by their supervisor. This frequent feedback ensures that soldiers consistently know how they are performing and can correct any problems as they arise. Although this is technically a form of appraisal, its frequency makes it function more like a performance management system. Performance management also takes the form of development counseling: all soldiers receive regular event-based, personal performance-based, and professional growth counseling on a consistent schedule. This is designed to mentor soldiers and provide holistic needs assessment on an ongoing basis.

Strengths of the Army's Feedback System

Although many employees express dissatisfaction with their performance management and appraisal systems — an estimated one in three employees find their systems to be lacking — I believe the Army's system has many unique strengths (Aguinis, Joo, & Gottfredson, 2011, p. 502). Few organizations provide feedback on such a frequent basis. Moreover, feedback is given most often to individuals during the first phases of their training, as part of their orientation into the organization. This ensures that performance expectations are established immediately and define each soldier's experience virtually from day one.

One common source of friction between managers and employees in many organizations is the frustration employees experience when what managers say does not match how employees are actually judged. In other industries, employees often complain of receiving adequate reports one year and then being criticized the following year for not improving in areas that were never flagged as needing improvement. The bureaucratic and formalized nature of the military minimizes favoritism and discrepancies between evaluations of different candidates. The evaluation process is highly standardized, and no aspect of the review can be overlooked or rushed.

Another reason employees at other organizations dislike performance management is its backward-looking nature — employees are told what they did wrong, but little constructive advice is offered on how to improve. A better system "emphasizes conversation between managers and employees whereby feedback is exchanged and coaching is provided, if needed" (Aguinis, Joo, & Gottfredson, 2011, p. 504). One reason the investment banking firm Merrill Lynch is said to have a strong performance management system is the dialogue it fosters between participants. "Under a performance management system, the supervisor and the employee agree on set goals for the employee to achieve. These goals include both results and behaviors; results are the outcomes that an employee produces, while behaviors refer to how the outcomes are achieved" (Aguinis, Joo, & Gottfredson, 2011, p. 505). Rather than a punitive system, this represents a very positive way of evaluating performance.

Counseling, Coaching, and Mentoring: The Three Pillars

The Army's system of performance management is based upon three fundamental principles: counseling, coaching, and mentoring. Counseling involves a review of the subordinate's strengths and weaknesses in performance, as well as the candidate's potential for promotion, conducted with the supervisor. While reviewing performance, the supervisor points out observed strengths and weaknesses and assists the subordinate in developing a plan of action to sustain and improve performance.

Coaching involves encouraging the subordinate to develop existing or new skills through practice at a personal level; the focus is on the candidate as an individual, not solely on the tasks that need to be completed for the organization. Mentoring involves a supervisor or a more experienced soldier providing guidance and advice to improve the soldier's experience, career, and character on a more personal level. This three-dimensional and holistic approach to performance management is designed to address every dimension a soldier will need to develop.

This holistic approach reflects the understanding that simply telling an employee what he or she did wrong is not very useful. Even telling an employee what he or she did well — while it may improve morale — is not always effective, because it does not give the worker a clear sense of how to replicate the behavior. Instead, a plan for improvement must be created in conjunction with the supervisor and the mentee. In the military, standards are so high that there are always additional benchmarks for the candidate to achieve, meaning no soldier's performance is ever so strong that he or she will simply be told to do "more of the same." The soldier will leave the performance review with a clear sense of how to build upon previous successes and, equally importantly, how to learn from past failures to enact positive changes.

Performance management must be instructive and identify future opportunities for training. It "takes into account both past and future performance. Personal developmental plans specify courses of action to be taken to improve performance. Achieving the goals stated in the developmental plan allows employees to keep abreast of changes in their field or profession" (Aguinis, Joo, & Gottfredson, 2011, p. 505).