Evaluating Performance Management Systems

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Module 3: Evaluating Performance Management Systems

Depending on your experience in healthcare, and other fields as well, you may be familiar with a performance management system or primarily with one aspect of assessing performance, the annual performance review. As a critical distinction from the annual review, performance management goes beyond a list of skills to rate or expected behaviors to check off, to a larger consideration of goals to reach and specific improvement strategies to implement.

Gaining understanding and perspective on a nurse executive’s role in performance management is the purpose of this Module 3 Assignment. To help inform your thinking and both the opportunities and challenges of performance management, you will gain firsthand information through an interview with a nursing professional whose responsibilities include those you will assume as a nurse executive.

Follow the guidelines for this Assignment as provided in the overview documents. You are encouraged to give yourself adequate time to reflect on your interviewee’s responses, the better to support you in assuming this aspect of the work of a nurse executive.

To Prepare:

Review the Learning Resources on performance management for support in preparing for your interview with the human resources nurse manager.

Access and review the Performance Management System Interview Guidelines and Questions document for guidance on selecting a nurse executive to interview, and on planning, conducting, and analyzing the interview responses.

Note: You are required to complete and submit Page 2 of this Guidelines document in a Word file identified as “Interviewee Profile and Confirmation Signature.” Be sure to obtain the full signature of your nurse executive interviewee to confirm the individual’s participation. Initials and/or only first or last name are not sufficient.

Access and review the Performance Management System Interview Matrix Summary Template. Consider how you can use this matrix to help organize information and conclusions from your interview.

When you have completed the interview, reflect on the results, including background information on the professional, the healthcare organization, and performance management system. As needed, follow up with your interviewee by phone or e-mail to clarify answers and conclusions.

Assignment:

Part 1: Interview Matrix Summary

Complete the Performance Management System Interview Matrix Summary, provided with the Assessment materials, to create a visual summary of the information gathered through your interview with the nurse executive.

Part 2: Interview Reflection

In a separate Word document, write 2–3 pages that reflect on the interview and your overall impressions. Include the following points in your reflection:

· Briefly describe the professional you interviewed, including title, years of experience, and his/her healthcare organization (e.g., size, location, special services). Note: Be mindful of your interviewee’s privacy in the details you provide.

· Explain the concept of “performance management” that guided your interview and the interviewee’s responses.

· Evaluate the healthcare organization’s performance management system for effectiveness, drawing on the interviewee’s assessment and your own observations and conclusions.

· Describe characteristics and/or factors that stand out to you as contributing to the system’s strengths and weaknesses.

· Describe actions, strategies, or approaches that you would recommend to address weaknesses in the system.

Module 3 Assignment

Performance Management System Interview Matrix Summary

Complete this matrix to summarize information from your interview with a nurse executive on the performance management system for the individual’s healthcare organization. Identify the nurse executive’s unit/department that is the specific focus of your evaluation.

Characteristics/Factors

Performance Management System for [specify nursing unit]

System Features

Employee Evaluation Criteria

Sources of Evaluation Criteria

How Criteria Communicated to Employees

How Components of

Performance Management

Are Interconnected in the System

How Information Collected, Maintained, Consolidated, and Summarized on Employee Performance and Retention

Technology Integration in the System

Privacy Protections

System Analysis

How System Supports

Employee Development

How System Supports

Employee Retention

Use of Peer Reviews/

Multisource (360 degree)

Feedback and

Effectiveness

How Training Used to

Enhance Employee Performance

and Retention

How Training Used to

Support Managers That Evaluate Performance

Mechanisms for Employee

Input on the System

System Evaluation

How Well System Supports Employee

Performance Growth and Development

How Well System Supports Employee Retention

Performance Management

System Strengths

Performance Management

System Weaknesses

Overall Conclusions

Module 3 Assignment Performance Management System Nurse Executive Interview

Planning and Arranging the Interview

For your Module 3 Assignment, you will interview a nurse executive in a healthcare organization. Keep these qualities in mind in identifying the professional to interview:

· The nurse executive may not have an official human resources (HR) title but should spend a significant amount of time leading, coordinating, or participating in HR–related functions.

· Specifically, the nurse executive must be involved in implementing the performance management system in a healthcare organization for his/her unit or department (i.e., obtains performance information, consolidates it in some form, and works with employees on improvement strategies).

· You should have a relationship with the nurse executive that is professional but the individual should also be comfortable speaking honestly with you (i.e., in the same setting, the individual should not be a direct report; or consider other current or previous associations that could discourage candid responses).

· This should be the first time you interview the individual for any Walden University Assignment.

· Look for a nurse executive in a specialty unit (e.g., neonatal, critical care, nurse anesthetist, etc.), so that the individual can speak to specific performance requirements beyond general nursing criteria (e.g., compassion, attention to detail, technical training).

Plan for 45–60 minutes to conduct the interview. You may speak in person, by phone, via Skype, or another means that is convenient for you and the interviewee. If you record the interview, obtain the person’s permission in advance.

Confirm to your interviewee that all information obtained in the interview will be confidential. If preferred by the individual, you may identify the nurse executive and his/her healthcare organization using pseudonyms in the Assignment materials you submit.

Interview questions to guide your conversation begin on Page 3 of this document.

Note: You are required to request the individual’s signature to confirm the interview. Fill in the information on Page 2, print out the page, and obtain the nurse executive’s full signature. Scan and submit the signed Page 2 as a separate Word file with your completed Assignment.

Interviewee Profile and Confirmation Signature

Name

Healthcare Organization

Unit/Department

Job Title

Years in Position

HR-Related Responsibilities

Relationship to You/How Identified for Interview

Interviewee’s Signature:

Conducting the Interview

There are 10 sets of question that follow for examining the performance management system in your interview subject’s healthcare organization. Keep the interview focus on the nurse executive’s unit (i.e., neonatal, critical care) to obtain as detailed information as possible:

Take notes on the responses in the spaces on the right. If you record the interview, you are still encouraged to take notes on the person’s responses, as a safeguard in case there is any problem with the recording.

Questions

Responses

1. What criteria are used to evaluate employee performance within your specific unit (i.e., neonatal, critical care) in the healthcare organization?

What are the sources of information (e.g., observation, patient satisfaction) that inform the criteria?

How are the criteria communicated to employees?

1. Notes/verbatim quotes:

2. Basically, “performance management” refers to all activities carried out to manage and improve employee performance. This includes obtaining performance information and communicating this information to the employee; supervision; coaching; rewards; training; discipline; and at times, career development.

Thinking about the performance management system for nurses in your specific unit, how does the system support development and retention of desired employee characteristics and behaviors?

Note: Ask for both specific examples and comments on how well the system works.

2. Notes/verbatim quotes:

3. To what extent are the various components of performance management interconnected?

For example, is performance appraisal information used to help identify training needs for employees?

3. Notes/verbatim quotes:

4. What types of training are provided to enhance employee performance and retention?

4. Notes/verbatim quotes:

5. How is information collected, maintained, consolidated, and summarized on employee performance and retention?

What is the role of technology in this process, including ensuring privacy of employee information?

5. Notes/verbatim quotes:

6. Are peer reviews or multisource feedback (i.e., 360-degree feedback) used?

If it is/has been used, what are/were its strengths and drawbacks?

If it was tried and abandoned, why was it discontinued?

What is your overall assessment of the multisource feedback, and circumstances (if any) when it might be useful?

6. Notes/verbatim quotes:

7. What are two types of training you would recommend to help prepare managers to discuss performance with employees?

7. Notes/verbatim quotes:

8. What are strengths of your performance management system to recommend as exemplars?

8. Notes/verbatim quotes:

9. What weaknesses in the performance management system need to be addressed?

How do you know the nature of the weaknesses?

9. Notes/verbatim quotes:

10. What mechanisms are available, if any, for your employees to provide input on the performance management system?

10. Notes/verbatim quotes:

Analyzing and Reflecting on the Interview

· Reflect on the results of the interview, including background information on the professional, the healthcare organization, and performance management system.

· Consider how you would summarize information gained in the interview using the Performance Management System Interview Matrix Template and your Reflection paper to provide a thorough description of the performance management system.

· Consider strengths and weaknesses of the system, as described by the nurse executive and from your own analysis, and strategies and approaches you would recommend for addressing the weaknesses.

· As needed, follow up with your interviewee by phone or e-mail to clarify answers and conclusions. You may ask the nurse executive to review a draft of your interview summary to ensure that you captured the individual’s intent.

Completing the Module 3 Assignment

Part 1: Interview Matrix Summary

Complete the Performance Management System Interview Matrix Summary Template, provided in the Module 3 Learning Resources, to create a visual summary of the information gathered through your interview with a nurse manager.

Part 2: Interview Reflection

In a separate Word document, write 2–3 pages that reflect on the interview and your overall impressions and that include the following:

· Explain the concept of “performance management” that guided your interview and the interviewee’s responses.

· Evaluate the healthcare organization’s performance management system for effectiveness, drawing on the nurse executive’s assessment and your own observations and conclusions.

· Describe characteristics and/or factors that stand out to you as contributing to the system’s strengths and weaknesses.

· Describe actions, strategies, or approaches you would recommend to address weaknesses in the system.

Final Submission

Submit in three separate files:

· Performance Management System Interview Matrix Summary

· Interview Reflection

· Interviewee Profile and Confirmation Signature (Page 2 from this document)

References:

Fried, B. J., & Fottler, M. D. (Eds.). (2018). Fundamentals of human resources in healthcare (2nd ed.). Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press.

· Chapter 6, “Organizational Development and Training” (pp. 150–173)

· Chapter 7, “Performance Management” (pp. 174–204)