The missing link between effective performance management and employee engagement: supervisor-employee relationships or frequency of performance feedback?

Abstract

To say that conventional Performance Management systems needs to be redesigned, seems to be stating the obvious. The critique around this process is wide spread and various organisations such as Delliote, Adobe and Dell (to name but a few) are moving away from the conventional way in which performance has been managed to date. This study has set out to assess one of the proposals thatÕs being presented as an innovative solution to managing performance. Interestingly, this proposal has already been implemented by a large multinational organisation although there is little empirical evidence to support its assumptions. The proposal that has been presented by Buckingham (2015) promises to promote Employee Engagement and provide employees with reliable performance feedback which can be used to improve performance. However, the link between Performance Management and Employee Engagement is not as straight forward and this study detailed the contradicting findings that has been presented in this regard. Based on the findings in this study, it was concluded that Performance Management systems can be employed to foster Employee Engagement although it was evident that there were other factors at play. It was also established that the quality of the relationship between a supervisor and employee was significant in predicting Employee Engagement although it did not influence the link that had been established between Performance Management and Employee Engagement. It was also shown that the frequency of Performance Management was not significant in predicting the level of Employee Engagement. The data presented in this research contributes, supports and contradicts some of the findings that has been presented in literature by experts in the fields of Employee Engagement and Performance Management. The findings in this study provides empirical evidence which could be used in the on-going process of improving and re-designing conventional Performance Management systems.