The Performance Management System - An Indian Perspective

Post Globalization, when there was heavy rush of companies from across the globe to set shops in India to take advantage of huge market, there was obviously a wake-up call to the Indian corporates to spruce up and start working “searching for cutting-edge over the competitors”. This search for cutting edge led most of them to realize that all other competitive variables being same among the players, the only determinant variable they can bank upon is “Employee Performance” which not being indexed to any “rated capacity” like in a machine, can indeed be harnessed and cultivated to any organizationally designed objective realization process. That being so, Performance Management turned out to be the most researched area of Human Resource Management. But the first goal in this research was how to define performance and then try to measure it since it is a well-recognized fact that what cannot be objectively measured cannot be improved. It was also agreed that once taken to empirical heights, Performance Management System (PMS) should be the only benchmark for administration of any compensation and reward mechanism in any organization. Thus having been choreographed to play the centre-stage role in the survival and growth dynamics of companies, standardizing performance and recording the same on objective lines became the key.