Use at least four scholarly sources, and remember to demonstrate a thorough understanding of the READ and ATTEND sections in your essay. Cite your sources in APA format.

For the questions below, select an organization with which you are familiar. It could be your current employer, former employer, or an employer of someone you know.Think about the textbook reading about Purposes of Performance Management Systems, 15 Characteristics of an Ideal Performance Management System and Performance Management and the Nature of Work and Organizations Today.Answer the following two questions:

1. Describe which of the 15 characteristics of an ideal system are present in the selected organization. Provide examples of each and describe them.
2. Identify two characteristics of an ideal performance management system that are absent or almost non-existent and discuss the implications for the effectiveness of the system. Conversely, identify one characteristic that is clearly present in the system and discuss the impact that the existence of these prevalent characteristics has on the effectiveness of the performance management system.

Read the Case Study on pages 34-35 about "Performance Management at Network Solutions, Inc. and answer the following two questions:

3. Based on the description of the system at Network Solutions, what do you anticipate will be some advantages and positive outcomes resulting from the implementation of the system?

4. Based on the description of the system at Network Solutions, what do you anticipate will be some disadvantages and negative outcomes resulting from the implementation of thesystem?

Case Study

Consider the following scenario: Sally is a sales manager at a pharmaceutical company. The fiscal year will end in one week. She is overwhelmed with end-of-the-year tasks, including reviewing the budget she is likely to be allocated for the following year, responding to customers' phone calls, dealing with vendors, and supervising a group of 10 salespeople. It's a very hectic time, probably the most hectic time of the year. She receives a phone call from the human resources (HR) department: "Sally, we have not received your performance reviews for your 10 direct reports; they are due by the end of the fiscal year." Sally thinks, "Oh, again, those performance reviews.... What a waste of my time!" From Sally's point of view, there is no value in filling out those seemingly meaningless forms. She does not see her direct reports in action because they are in the field, visiting customers most of the time. All that she knows about their performance is based on sales figures, which depend more on the products offered and geographic territory covered than the individual effort and motivation of each salesperson. And based on her own experience, she thinks that little will happen in terms of compensation and rewards, regardless of her ratings. These are lean times in her organization, and salary adjustments are based on seniority rather than on merit. She has less than three days to turn in her forms. What will she do? In the end, she decides to follow the path of least resistance: to please her employees and give everyone the maximum possible rating. In this way, Sally believes the employees will be happy with their ratings and she will not have to deal with complaints or follow-up meetings. Sally fills out the forms in less than 15 minutes and gets back to her "real job." There is something very wrong with this picture, which unfortunately happens all too frequently in many organizations and across industries. Although Sally's HR department calls this process "performance management," it is not.

Performance management is a continuous process of identifying, measuring, and developing the performance of individuals and teams and aligning performance with the strategic goals of the organization. Let's consider each of the definition's two main components in more detail: Continuous process. Performance management is ongoing. It involves an ongoing process of setting goals and objectives, observing performance, talking about performance, and giving and receiving ongoing coaching and feedback.' Alignment with strategies goals. Performance management requires that managers ensure that employees' activities and outputs are congruent with the organization's goals, and consequently, help the organization gain a competitive advantage. Performance management therefore creates a direct link between employee and team performance and organizational goals, and makes the employees' contribution to the organization explicit.