Giving Feedback

1. Be straightforward by focusing on specific behaviors. Feedback should be specific rather than general.
2. Be realistic. Focus your feedback on what can be changed.
3. Keep feedback impersonal. Feedback, particularly the negative kind, should be descriptive rather than
judgmental or evaluative.
4. Know when to give feedback—make it well timed.
5. Watch your body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions. Think about what you want to communicate
and make sure your body language supports that message.
CONTROLLING & ITS IMPORTANCE
Controlling is the process of monitoring, comparing, and correcting work performance.

Control is important for three main reasons:

A. Control serves as the final link in the functional chain of management.

B. Controlling is also important to employee empowerment. The development of an effective control system may
minimize potential problems.

C. Finally, control serves to protect the company and its assets.

THE CONTROL PROCESS
The control process is a three-step process including measuring actual performance, comparing actual performance
against a standard, and taking managerial action

Step 1: Measuring Actual Performance. Measuring is the first step in the control process.

How We Measure. Measurement is frequently achieved through four common sources of information

a. Personal observation

b. Statistical reports

c. Oral reports

d. Written reports

What We Measure. What we measure is probably more critical than how we measure. What is measured often
determines the area(s) in which employees will attempt to excel.
Step 2: Comparing Actual Performance Against
the Standard.

● Comparing determines the degree of variation between actual performance and the standard.
● Of critical importance to the control process is determining the range of variation. The range of variation is
the acceptable parameters of variance between actual performance and the standard.
Step-3 Taking Managerial Action.
Although the manager might decide to “do nothing,” two additional alternatives may be taken.

Correct Actual Performance. Once the manager has decided to correct actual performance, he/she must make
another decision:

To take immediate corrective action, which is corrective action that corrects problems at once to get performance
back on track, or

To take basic corrective action, which is corrective action that looks at how and why performance deviated and then
proceeds to correct the source of deviation.

After analyzing deviations, effective managers identify and correct causes of variance when the benefits of doing
so justify the cost involved.
CONTROLLING FOR ORGANIZATIONAL
PERFORMANCE
What Is Organizational Performance?

Performance is the end result of an activity. Managers are concerned with organizational performance—the
accumulated end results of all the organization’s work activities.
Measures of Organizational Performance.

Employees need to recognize the connection between what they do and the outcomes. The most frequently used
organizational performance measures include organizational productivity, organizational effectiveness, and industry
rankings.

Organizational Productivity. Productivity is the overall output of goods or services produced divided by the
inputs needed to generate that output.

The management of an organization seeks to increase this ratio.

Organizational Effectiveness. Organizational effectiveness is a measure of how appropriate organizational goals

are and how well an organization is achieving those goals.

Industry and Company Rankings. Industry and company rankings are

often used as a measure to describe organizational effectiveness.

https://fortune.com/rankings/
Controlling for Employee Performance
Managers are responsible for making sure employees’ work efforts are of the quantity and quality needed to
accomplish organizational goals. Managers can use disciplinary actions to enforce the organization’s work
standards and regulations.

Delivering Effective Performance Feedback. Managers need to provide their employees with feedback so that the
employees know where they stand in terms of their work. When giving performance feedback, both parties need to
feel heard,understood, and respected.

Using Disciplinary Actions. To ensure that the minimum penalty appropriate to the offense is imposed, managers
can use progressive disciplinary action.
TOOLS FOR CONTROLLING
ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE
A. Three basic types of controls are used to control organizational performance:
feedforward controls, concurrent controls, and feedback controls.

Feedforward control is a type of control that takes place before a work activity is done.

Concurrent control is a type of control that takes place while a work activity is in progress.

The best-known form of concurrent control is direct supervision. Another term for it is management by walking
around, which is when a manager is in the work area interacting directly with employees.

Feedback Control. Feedback control is a type of control that takes place after a work activity is done.
B. Financial Controls.

● Traditional Financial Control Measures

Financial ratios are calculated by taking numbers from the organization’s primary financial statements—the income
statement and the balance sheet. Financial ratios can be organized into four categories:

1. Liquidity ratios measure an organization’s ability to meet its current debt obligations.

2. Leverage ratios examine the organization’s use of debt to finance its assets and whether the organization is able
to meet the interest payments on the debt.

3. Activity ratios assess how efficiently the firm is using its assets.

4. Profitability ratios measure how efficiently and effectively the firm is using its assets to generate profits.
Budgets are discussed in the Planning and Control Techniques module. Budgets also function as control tools;
budgets provide managers with quantitative standards against which to measure and compare actual performance
and resource consumption.
C. Informational Controls

Managers deal with information controls in two ways: (1) as a tool to help them control other organizational
activities and (2) as an organizational area they need to control.

How Is Information Used in Controlling?

Managers need the right amount of information at the right time. A management information system (MIS) is a
system used to provide managers with needed information on a regular basis. In theory, this system can be manual
or computer based, although most organizations have moved to computer-supported applications.

Controlling Information. Information controls need to be monitored regularly to ensure that all possible precautions
are being taken to protect important information.
D. The Balanced Scorecard

The balanced scorecard is a performance measurement tool that looks at four areas—financial, customer, internal
processes, and people/innovation/growth assets—that contribute to a company’s performance.
E. Benchmarking of best practices

Benchmarking is the search for the best practices among competitors or non competitors that lead to their superior
performance.

The benchmark is the standard of excellence against which to measure and compare.

● Benchmarking can be used to monitor and measure organizational performance.

● This practice can be used to identify specific performance gaps and potential areas of improvement.
Contemporary Issues in Control
Adjusting Controls for Cross-Cultural Differences and Global Turmoil.

Should global organizations use particular control systems? What should global managers know about adjusting
controls for national differences?

1. Methods of controlling people vary in different countries.

2. Technology has an impact on control, depending on the level of sophistication of technology in a particular
country.
3. Managers must consider the legal constraints in different countries.
4. Managers face challenges in making comparisons of goods and services among countries, even when
comparing similar products and services.
5. Organizations need to have controls in place for protecting their workers and other assets during times of
global turmoil and disasters.
Workplace Privacy

Employers monitor workers for a number of reasons.

● Web surfing while at work is thought to cost billions of dollars in lost work productivity each year.
Employers do not want to risk being sued for creating a hostile workplace environment because of offensive
messages or material displayed on an employee’s computer screen.

● Managers want to ensure that the company’s secrets are not being leaked by employees.
Employee Theft

Employee theft is any unauthorized taking of company property by employees for their personal use.
Workplace Violence
Anger, rage, and violence in the workplace adversely affect productivity.

A number of primary contributors to dangerously dysfunctional work environments have been identified:

● Work driven by TNC (time, numbers, and crises)

● Rapid and unpredictable change
● Destructive communication styles of managers
● Authoritarian leadership
● Little or no feedback
● Double standards in terms of policies
● Unresolved grievances
● Emotionally unstable employees
● Repetitive, boring work
● Faulty equipment or deficient training
● Hazardous work environments
● Culture of violence
Controlling Customer Interaction

The service profit chain is the service sequence from employees to customers to profit.

Corporate Governance.
Corporate governance is the system used to govern a corporation so that the interests of corporate owners are
protected.

The Role of the Board of Directors. The role of boards of directors is to have a group, independent of management,
looking out for the interest of stockholders.