Performance Appraisal: Textile Sector

The present study was under taken with such a task in mind and it aims at unearthing the strengths and weakness of the current performance appraisal system in textile industry Coimbatore that is prevalent in the organization that sponsored this research work.

Since organizations exist to achieve goals. The degree of success that individual employees have in reaching their individuals goals is important in determining organizational effectiveness. The assessment of how successful employees have been at meeting their individual goals, therefore, becomes a critical part of Human Resource Management. This leads us to the topic of Performance Appraisal.

This project aims at knowing ‘Performance Appraisal System” in this research has studied the work atmosphere and the welfare measures provided by the organization.

It also aims at finding out the employee’s relationship with the management.

This survey is done within the organization. The sample size is 110. The data was collected by administering questionnaire and by adopting direct personal contact method. The persons met are all employees of the industry.

Collections of data were analyzed and tabulated in a sequential manner and the interpretations are given along with the tabulation. The conclusion observations are also given in this report for the improvement of this system in the organization.

Key Words: Appraiser, Self – reliant, Appraisal, Judgmental, Distributive, Interactional

INTRODUCTION

The performance appraisal plays a vital role in identifying the productivity of workers; it also helps the company for its overall growth. It is the systematic evaluation of the performance of employees and to understand the abilities of a person for further growth and development. Performance appraisal is generally done in systematic ways which are as follows, the supervisors measure the pay of employees and compare it with targets and plans, the supervisor analyses the factor behind work performance of employees, and the employees are in the position to guide the employees for a better performance. In India, Textile Industry is one of the oldest and foremost industries and it provides tremendous opportunities for employment and huge amount as revenue. The Indian Government is also playing a major role in promoting the textile industries. Cotton is the most popular fiber and used to make clothing. Textile Industry is providing one of the most basic needs of people and it hold importance. Maintain sustained growth for improving quality of life. It has a unique position as a self-reliant industry, from the production of raw materials to the delivery of finished products, with substantial value-addition at each stage of processing; it is a major contribution to the country’s economy.

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TEXTILE INDUSTRY IN COIMBATORE:

Coimbatore is called the “South Indian Manchester”. The climate in Coimbatore city is very favorable for the development of textile industries. The easy availability of raw materials, sufficient skilled laborers, humid and soft wind prevailing in Coimbatore district are the other major factors for the development of the textile industry in Coimbatore. There are 98 textile firms in Coimbatore district in which few of the industry are taken into account for the study on the same. India has abundant natural resources in terms of availability of natural fibers like cotton, silk, wool etc. India is the third largest producer of cotton in the world and accounts for about 12% of the total world production. The availability of cheap cotton has been one of the biggest advantages to Indian exporters.

OBJECTIVES

To study about the employees’ opinion about performance appraisal.

To gain practical knowledge about the various factors that forms part of performance appraisal

To study about how they view the present appraisal method

To provide opportunities for the employee’s to express their ideas

REVIEW OF LITERATURE:

Mowday, R.T., Steers, R.M., Porter, L.M. 1979 an employee’s perception of justice in the performance appraisal process will also affect the effectiveness of the performance appraisal process. Justice is thought to have three categories, procedural, distributive, and interactional justice. In a performance appraisal setting, a lack of justice in one area is predicted to have the same effect as a violation of justice in all areas. If an employee perceives that the system processes are fair, the supervisor’s efforts to distribute rewards and punishments based on outcomes of the process, and that the employee is treated fairly, the employee’s perception of justice will be high.

Craig Eric Schneier and Richard W. Beatty, July 1979 Despite its standard practice in most public and private organizations for more than 50 years, performance appraisal still has many problems. Raters show resistance to criticizing subordinates, and the judgmental aspect of evaluating human performance is subject to both covert (subjective and individual) and overt (prejudice and bias) errors. Raters often aren’t trained in employee counseling and may be forced to conduct performance appraisals with inadequate or erroneous information about rate performance.

American Institutes for Research, Washington, D.C.: AIR, 1979 In a 1984 study in New England, 16 raters (Extension administrators designated by their state Extension director as having agent performance appraisal responsibility) completed EABRARS on 141 rural New England Extension agents.5 Reliability analysis of the total ratings indicated that EABRARS was an internally consistent, highly reliable instrument. Differences between New England agents were detected at the .05 confidence level with respect to age, subject-matter area, years of experience, and state of employment.

Nemeroff & Wexley, 1979 study shows that employees are likely to feel more satisfied with their appraisal result if they have the chance to talk freely and discuss their performance. It is also more likely that such employees will be better able to meet future performance goals. Employees are also more likely to feel that the appraisal process is fair if they are given a chance to talk about their performance. This especially, when they are permitted to challenge and appeal against their evaluation. Proper feedback has to be given about their performance to the appraises.

Robert M. Guion, the State of the Art, November 5-6, 1982, pp. 3-4Twenty years ago, nearly all civil servants in the central government of OECD member countries were paid according to service-incremental salary scales. This is not to say that civil servants previously lacked performance incentives. Promotions, and especially those into senior management, were rigorously controlled, serving partly as an incentive but partly also as a way of ensuring the independence of the public service with regard to the executive and thus its ability to serve governments of different political persuasions. Remuneration has been seen as an alternative or a complementary incentive to promotion. Socio-economic pressures have led to the need for types of incentives other than “promotion” to strengthen performance management.

Craig Eric Schneier and Richard W. Beatty, May 1988 To try to rectify some of the problems, Smith and Kendall developed Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales, better known as BARS. The BARS format deals with measurable behaviors, not personality, provides raters and rates with clear statements of performance goals, and is based on a specific, thorough job analysis. Using BARS, raters focus on specific rate behaviors. These behaviors are compared to specific examples (job dimensions and anchors developed from the job analysis) that provide concrete benchmarks for making appraisal judgments. BARS are mainly used to measure the behaviors of rates.

Dulewicz (1989), “a basic human tendency to make judgments about those one is working with, as well as about oneself.” Appraisal, it seems, is both inevitable and universal. In the absence of a carefully structured system of appraisal, people will tend to judge the work performance of others, including subordinates, naturally, informally and arbitrarily.

This study, by Heneman, Greenberger & Anonyou (1989) reported that in groupers are subordinates who seem to be favored by their supervisors. In their relationship with the boss, they enjoy “a high degree of trust, interaction, support and rewards.”

Tsui, A.S. & O’Reilly, C.A. 1989 most studies focus on the performance appraisal where the supervisor evaluates his or her employees. In this paper, based upon two research projects, we look at both sides of the coin. In one study subordinates evaluated their supervisors, in the other one the focus was upon supervisors’ perception of their subordinates. The contribution aims to determine whether age-related stereotyping plays a significant role in performance appraisals. In both studies, it was determined whether the assesses age is negatively related with the assessor’s view on his or her competencies. Age is taken into consideration for appraisal rating in the above study.

Longenecker (1989) argues that accuracy in performance appraisal is impossible to achieve, since people play social and political games, and they protect their own interests. “No savvy manager…”, says Longenecker, “… is going to use the appraisal process to shoot himself or herself in the foot.”Accuracy in performance appraisal is a major drawback to the system.

Recent research (Bannister & Balkin, 1990) has reported that appraisees’ seem to have greater acceptance of the appraisal process, and feel more satisfied with it, when the process is directly linked to rewards. Such findings are a serious challenge to those who feel that appraisal results and reward outcomes must be strictly isolated from each other. Rewards and work performance are directly linked with each other.

METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY:

The study was more of a descriptive in nature and it was the survey research design that was used in, by taking a sample of elements at one point of time. The researcher adopted this type of research design to systematically gather the information from the respondents for the purpose of understanding and predicting some aspects concerned with the performance appraisal system in their organization.

The sample unit of the study was 110 employees of Textile Company in Coimbatore

Primary data: Primary data has been collected through a structured questionnaire.

Secondary data: Secondary data has been collected from the books, journals, project reports and Internet.

Data was collected through structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was divided into three parts

First section dealt with the queries relating to the personal details of the employees

Second section dealt with the queries relating to the awareness about performance appraisal

Third section dealt with queries relating to views about the present appraisal system.

TOOLS FOR ANALYSIS:

The primary data for the study was collected through structured questionnaire and has been analyzed using percentages and represented by pie charts and bar diagrams are used wherever necessary. Mean score value has also been used.

1) Score value = No. of respondents*score

Mean score value = score value/No. of respondents

2) Percentage value = no of respondents/total no of respondent*100

CHI-SUARE [X2] TEST:

X2 test is based on the Chi- Square distribution and it is a parametric test. It is used for comparing a sample variance to a theoretical population variance. In a non- parametric test, no assumption about the parameters of the population is made. These tests have become very popular because, they can be applied in any type of distribution, they are easy to compute and they can be used in situations when parametric test cannot be applied.

Conditions to be satisfied for applying chi-square test

Data should have been collected at random.

Items constituting the sample should be independent.

The total number of items should be at least 50.

From the chart above it is understood that most of the employees in textile industry fall under the category of the age group between 46-55 years and also most of the employees are from the under graduate background.

TABLE INDICATING THE YEARS OF SERVICE AND THE INCOME OF EMPLOYEES:

From the chart above it is clearly understood that the workers with more than 10 years of experience only earning a return of Rs. 8001 and more. The employees with more years of service are expected to perform well as they have very good experience in their work.

FACTORS INFLUENCING PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

The ranking of factors given by the respondents show that behavior with peers, dependability, behavior and attitude towards superiors, initiative, and attendance were ranked very high. They felt those factors have to be given higher weightages in the appraisal form. There are respondents who have ranked quality of work and cooperation on lower side. There were respondents who felt that all the factors in the appraisal system should be given equal weightage and there was no meaning in awarding high weightages to few factors.

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OPINION ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL RATING

The above table clearly shows that opportunities to increase job satisfaction, need of appraisal for employee, encouragement by raters and knowledge about the appraisal system, are high for employees. Assistance by organization, monetary reward unbiased assessment and satisfaction with the present system were rated average. This may be due to reasons like the employees are not given feedback about their performance since it is maintained confidentially. But the need of appraisal, knowledge about system, encouragement and opportunities to employees were rated high because they want to know about their work performance.

CHI-SQUARE ANALYSIS

GENDER AND YEARS OF SERVICE

TEST STATISTIC:

Null hypothesis (Ho): There is no significant relationship between gender and years of service.

Alternative hypothesis (H1): There is a close relationship between gender and years of service.

RESULT:

The result that the calculated value is less than the tabulated value, we accept the null hypothesis. Therefore, there is no significant difference between the gender and years of service.

MARITAL STATUS AND MONTHLY INCOME (in Rs)

TEST STATISTIC

RESULT:

The result that the calculated value is more than the tabulated value, we reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative hypothesis. Therefore there is a significant difference between the marital status and monthly income.

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS:

From the study it if found out that, most of the respondents feel that the appraisal system creates confidence and hence increase the production level of the employees which in turn will increase their income in one hand. Many employees in the textile industry are not aware of the errors that is caused by performance appraisal like halo effect, horns effect, central tendency and leniency. Majority of them have no idea about errors and its types in the appraisal system. Good training can help improve the appraisal system to prevent errors while rating. Raters are expected to observe the performance in order to judge ones effectiveness and skill in the work condition. Also the superior should avoid bias in appraising their subordinates. The system could be made open to a possible extent and discussions could be encouraged. The employees can come to know about their performance appraisal, how are they rated and what other improvements they can do to their performance. The organization might take up steps to arrange discussions and make the employee aware of how he is getting along and what improvements he needs, where and how he can best utilize his capabilities and skills. Most traditional methods emphasize either the task or the personality of the individual while making an appraisal. In such evaluations, bias always prevails. To bring about a balance the evaluation of task and personality and the modern methods of appraisal by results of MBO can be used.

Performance appraisal motivates employees and influences their productivity and ensures that they are producing at acceptable levels. Performance evaluation system could be linked to company objectives to get better results and good performance of the employees. Effectiveness of any appraisal system depends on how all the users of the system understand the purposes, accept and strive for achieving them. For designing any system, employee and managerial performance should be taken into consideration. From the study, it is found that feedback to the employees is not proper in the organization. Periodical and routine feedback can be given to the employees for their good performance in the work, which motivates the employee to enrich the relationship between the superiors and subordinates.