Analysis of the performance appraisal impact on staff productivity in context of Sainsbury
In today’s business environment where employee retrenchment rate is growing high, in that case the HR concept i.e. Performances appraisal plays an important to solve such problem as this method helps to assess an individual employee job performance and productivity in regards to the certain pre-estimated criteria and organization objectives (Bilgin, 2016).
However, performances appraisal process contributes efficiency for both organization as well as employees in the form of bring improvement in the individual performances which directly influence the organization productivity. It is found that every employee wants to attach with that firm which offers great value in a way of personal development.
So this HR concept proves to be useful for the organization growth. Besides that, there are various methods that has included in performances appraisal. Likewise, 360 degree method is widely used by organization in order to define the individual its strength and weakness. Other than that, organization is followed the performances appraisal method based on nature and size of business (Falcone et al., 2015).
This helps it to successfully execute it and generate the benefits from such one.
In a similar manner, the competitive retail sector give rise to the problem of employee retention to a longer time becomes a critical point. Moreover, the efficient employee performance is important to offer quality service to customers and develop the organizational profitability.
Thus, it can be stated that performances appraisal system is significant for the retail industries in order to monitor and strategically analyze the performances of individuals and accordingly encourage them to bring efficiency in the performances level.
In-spite of such benefits, there are various organization that does not adopt the performances appraisal system due to existences of some challenges such as high costing, lack of top management supports and capital availability. Such business is more SMEs that ignore this concept and faced the problem of employee turnover at greater extent.
Additionally, this research proposal addresses this problem through analyze whether performances appraisal is proved to be effective for staff productivity in context to Sainsbury.
Performance appraisal system (PAS) is considered as a critical component of human resources management function in the retail business. Likewise, there is a firm which used this method for motivating the employees to perform better.
This is done through set the benchmark and based on this, the judgments has been made. In this, the quality performances standard and firm monitoring process has a major role in terms to implement successfully the performances appraisal plan.
So such challenges the firm faced to properly incorporate the PAS into business operations (Samuel et al., 2014). Other than that, the steps of performance appraisals system is absent especially for small business in the retail sector.
The reason behind this is cost investment over the setting of performances standards, develop a monitoring process and prepare the training session for making an improvement. So such areas are completely ignored by the firm in respect to address the problem of staff low morale and high turnover rate.
This research study aimed is to help the firms to solve such problem by analyzing that Performance appraisal method contributes toward the employee productivity for the retail firm like Sainsbury.
Moreover, this research study addresses the critical understanding about the significances of performances appraisal for staff improvement in a both practical as well as theoretical manner. Other than that, this study also act as a base for future researcher in order to make a brief study related to this topic.
Moreover, this research report also proved to be effective in term to create awareness among the new or existing firm about the advantages of using the PAS along with some limitation. Thus, this study also supports the researcher to address various problems like cultural diversity issue with this research study.
This is because performances appraisal process helps the different culture people to clear about the roles and responsibilities which they need to perform (Sanyal & Biswas, 2014). Thus, this research study proves to be efficient to solving various research problems.
3.0 Research Aim & Objectives / Research Questions
The aim of this research is to analyze the performance appraisal impact on staff productivity in context to Sainsbury. This purpose may help the firms to understand that how much performances appraisal system contributes productive result for both organization as well as employees.
In respect to research topic, the challenges and limitation will also consider in order to critically analyze this HR concept (Chadwick et al., 2015). Other than that, this study aim also undertakes positive and negative aspect of performances appraisal in case of small or big retail firms. These areas help the researcher to properly evaluate the effectiveness of PAS impact over the staff productivity.
In regards to achieve the research aim, there are following research objectives that need to be addressed efficiently & effectively:
- To assess the factors facilitating the need of performance appraisal
- To determine the impact of performance appraisal on staff productivity
- To recommend the effective approaches for better performance appraisal for the improvement on staff productivity
Research Question
For achieving the research aim & objectives, for that it is very important for the researcher to address the research questions in order to attain the best reliable outcome.
Question 1: What are the factors that facilitate the performance appraisal need?
Question 2: What is the impact of performance appraisal on the staff productivity?
Question 3: What are the recommended approaches that develop performance appraisal process and improve the staff productivity?
4.0 Justification and potential output of the research
This research output could proves to be significant for various other sectors such as retail, food and clothing industries as such sector have direct connection with customers by including greater involvement of employees. So in such areas, there is major impact of this research output.
It occurs in the form of create awareness about the significances of performances appraisal method to a greater extent (HassabElnaby et al., 2012). Likewise, there are still various small firms which ignore this process due to involvement of high cost and time.
So this enhances the risk of firm. But this study clearly demonstrate the individuals about the effectiveness of this method and how it contribute towards solving the major problem of current business environment such as low employee retention, poor employee performances and low employee morale etc.
thus, this helps the firm to realize the importance’s of performances appraisal system and start incorporating in its business with the proper implementation. Besides that, this study also guides the business to successfully execute it and achieve the benefits of this process.
In addition to this study, this research work support other researcher to make an understanding about this topic based on practical and theoretical manner (Singh et al., 2012).
However, the study also assists the researchers in regards to make more research work in future. This area allows the future researcher to successfully reach towards the outcome. Furthermore, it is found that retail business are more labor intensive and its survival is solely depend upon the effectiveness of human resources management activities.
For example, the UK study showed that retail business is failing to achieve the skilled workforces due to which talent human resources easily switch towards that firm which provide them more personal development opportunities (Faisal Ahammad et al., 2015).
This research study is able to guide the retail firms about the implementations and significances of performances appraisal process for addressing the problems related to the low employee performances and efficiency to perform the particular task.
Furthermore, the UK reports stated that there is huge competition exist in retail firm like Sainsbury, Tesco, Adidas and Asda etc. that’s why they always focus on the human resources for achieving competitive advantage.
But in current scenario, it is found that Sainsbury is struggling in regards retain the employees as there is employee turnover rate is growing in rapid manner. In such case, this research report could assist the firm to take appropriate decision and solve various problem related to human resources. This manner, the research study contributes significances to different areas.
5.0 Conceptual framework and hypothesis development
5.1 Performance appraisal definition and use
For every organization, it is very important to use the performance appraisal process in order to evaluate the employee productivity to a large extent. According to Ogbonnaya et al. (2016), performance appraisal is an effective process which consists of different process such as evaluation of job, pre interview and post interview appraisal.
The performance appraisal focuses continuously on the subject interest and found important for the human resources management to manage the human resources within an organization. In simple word, Mone & London (2018) also labored that performance appraisal is a periodic evaluation process that helps in measuring the performance and efficiency of an individual under some expected parameters.
Conceptual framework
(Sources: Hémery et al., 2014)
In addition to this, Cardy &Leonard (2014) depicted that performance appraisal is defined as participative process instead of the judgmental review because appraisal process is done for different purposes like for career development or professional development and that are somewhere linked with the incentives, recognition and compensation respectively.
The use of performance appraisal found to be used in a constructive manner and that also help in developing better understanding related to adjustment which are required for the improving the staff productivity. On the other hand, Khan et al. (2017) clearly stated that performance appraisal is used for identifying the areas of strengths, weaknesses and opportunities that can provide benefit to the organization as a whole.
5.2 Impact of performance appraisal on staff productivity
The impact of performance appraisal found to be positive on the staff productivity and that provides the benefits to the appraisers, company and appraisee. In the research study of Raza et al. (2017) clearly determined that performance appraisal process is done with a motive to identify the staff strengths and efficiency within an organization and for that appraisal process creates both positive and negative influence on their performance and productivity.
Within an organization, there is high level of competition observed which develops competition among the staff members in regards to achieve the high position (in form of promotion), increment, reward and recognition, etc. The improvement in the staff productivity is very much important for the organization for that use of the effective performance appraisal process is needed.
At the same time, Gruman & Saks (2011) also stated that providing the employee with the reward and recognition within an organization creates a positive impact on their performance because this reward system motivates them to perform better and accomplish their assigned tasks successfully.
In oppose to this, Agyare et al. (2016) also argued that reward and recognition is like a complex situation because this system makes one employee happy and other dissatisfied because staff found management decision biased which affect adversely on their performance.
The influence of performance appraisal on employee increases the dissatisfaction among them and that affect negatively on the performance of the organization in the competitive environment.
Faisal Ahammad et al. (2015) also discussed that multi-cultural environment in an organization creates a negative impact on the staff productivity because there are staff members who are not comfortable working with the different culture staff member.
This multi-cultural difference create challenge for the human resource management and that result into the increase in employee turnover and absenteeism, sickness, more leaves and health problem, etc.
On the other hand, Mwema & Gachunga (2014) depicted that developing multi-cultural environment creates a positive impact on the performance because employee learn about new culture, its values & belief which encourages them to work together and develop high productivity.
5.3 Performance appraisal method in context to Sainsbury
There are different performance appraisal methods such as 360-degree appraisal, Management by Objectives (MBO), Behavioral Anchor Rating Scale (BARS), Critical incident method and Cost Accounting Method.
These performance appraisal methods are mixed of traditional and modern methods and that creates a huge influence on the evaluation of the company and employee performance. Karim et al. (2012) also explained that an effective performance appraisal system should be open and fair and that clearly help in identifying the strengths and weaknesses which affects the productivity of the employees.
The performance appraisal method that is used by Sainsbury is 360 degree performance appraisal which helps in assessing the performance of the employees by evaluating the employee input within an organization.
The use of 360 degree performance appraisal method helps in getting review regarding the individual performance from different perspectives and many people who work with him or her.
At the same time, Sainsbury is also using the behavioral observation scale as an effective performance appraisal method which manager uses for observing the performance of the employee before ranking them.
According to Jones et al. (2016), this performance appraisal method help in the observing the critical incident which are faced by the staff member and also help in assessing the behavior that exhibited by the employee during that period. However, all stated performance appraisal methods are used efficiently by the Sainsbury Company for appraising the performance of the employee.
From the above figure, it is interpreted that the use of performance appraisal method proved to be effective for Sainsbury as it is identified that firm retail sales reached almost 28 billion British pounds in financial year ending 10 march 2018. There is an increasing sale of firm which indicates that employees performances is improving day-by-day which reflects in organization growth.
5.4 Hypothesis development
Hypothesis 1: There is a positive impact of performance appraisals on the staff productivity
Hypothesis 2: There is no positive impact of performance appraisals on the staff productivity
In concern to this study, alternative hypothesis i.e., H1 will be proved in such a way that there is an effective and positive relationship of performances appraisal on staff productivity. In regards to this, different researcher study will be analyzed in order to achieve the relevant research outcome.
6.1 Research Approach and sources of data
There is qualitative research methodology uses by the researcher to collect the relevant and authentic information. Moreover, secondary methodology is effective in term to gain better understanding about the research topic (Michaelis et al., 2015).
This method also supports the study towards achievement of bulk and wide data. In regards to this, secondary method would be proven best for gathering facts related to Sainsbury Performances appraisal method which it uses to retain talent workforces. Moreover, it is important for researcher to select best method for achieving relevant data in order to reach towards positive research outcome.
In context to this study, sources of data would be the online journal articles and e-books which assist towards collecting of information regards to how performances appraisal contribute towards bring staff productivity by referring different organization example (Gichuhi et al., 2013). Thus, this methodology assists to prove the alternative hypothesis which stated that there is positive impact of performances appraisal on the staff productivity.
6.2 Proposed data collection and analysis technique
Population
The researcher will have target population is the employees who work in Sainsbury UK. The sample size of 50 employees would selected in order to identify that how Sainsbury able to appraise the performances of employees and improve the productivity.
Sampling
The random sampling method will be selected to conduct the study. In respect to this, Sainsbury employees are selected on a random basis. This is because random method allows each employee equal opportunity to get selected and become a part of research study (Choy, 2014). This method helps to gather information related to effect of performances appraisal over the staff productivity.
Variables and analysis
The objective of this study is to analyze the performances appraisal impact on staff productivity. In regards to this, the performances appraisal is independent variables and staff productivity is dependent. So the positive relationship between the variables is expected. Moreover, researcher would analyze the study through use of ANOVA test which helps to prove the alternative hypothesis. Thus, this test is best suited for proving that performances appraisal has a positive impact on staff productivity.
The study includes following:-
- Chapter 1: This report involves the research proposal in context to research topic i.e. impact of performance appraisal on staff productivity.
- Chapter 2: This chapter will address research gap in the form of identifying the significances of performances appraisal for both organization and employees.
- Chapter 3: This chapter will develop the aim & objective of research study and based on this, questions will be included.
- Chapter 4: This chapter includes the significances of research for future scenario.
- Chapter 5: This chapter involves the conceptual framework which consists of better understanding about Sainsbury performances appraisal process and its impact on staff productivity. Besides that, hypothesis is also developed based on research topic (Mackey, & Gass, 2015).
- Chapter 6: This chapter addresses the methodology in regards to collect and analyze relevant facts in order to prove the alternative hypothesis.
6.4 Budget, Project Activities and Gantt chart
The budget of this research would be $ 6000. In the development of budget, there are different activities will be underlined in order to conduct the research study in a proper manner. Here are the areas which incurred expenses.
- Literature review is the major sources of information so journal articles and e-books will be used to make a proper understanding about research topic.
- The purchase of data from various online portals.
- Secondary method includes the costing in regards to collect the information from Sainsbury employees (Flick, 2015).
- Data analysis also involves costing in the form of ANOVA test.
The budget can be demonstrated in the tabular form:-
| Activities | Estimated Amount (in $) |
| Introduction | $ 1000 |
| Literature Review | $ 2000 |
| Data collection | $ 1000 |
| Data analysis | $ 2000 |
| Total estimated budget | $ 6000 |
Gantt chart
The research proposal aim is to analyze the performances appraisal impact on staff productivity. In regards to this, secondary methodology is selected to collect the facts from e-books, journal articles etc. thus, this study could help to achieve the relevant research results.
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