CT098-3-2Research Methods for Computing and Technology

Research Methods for Computing and Technology (CT098-3-2-RMCT)Individual Assignment:UC2F1410SE

STUDENT NAME: Wong Kah ChunSTUDENT TP NUMBER: TP027850LECTURERS NAME: Mr. Leong Swee Kee DUE DATE: 9 July 2015

Table of ContentsAbstract41.0 Problem Definition51.1 Title Introduction51.2 Aim51.3 Objectives51.4 Problem Statement62.0 Research Proposal62.1 Problem Background62.2 Literature Review72.3 Research Question102.4 Research Design102.4.1 Gantt Chart122.5 Personal Reflection123.0 References14

Employee Performance Evaluation System for Sales Department

AbstractThe purpose of this research is to identify the problem in performance evaluation system, how it affects employee performance and propose a new system as solution. In the problem definition, introductory of an evaluation system is described together with the aim and objectives of the proposed performance evaluation system. Problem statement of the current performance evaluation system is shown after that. In the research proposal, problem backgrounds relating to the current performance evaluation system are listed. Literature review talks about performance evaluation, employee motivation depending on rewards, mistakes done in performance evaluation, importance of feedback towards organizations and a 360 degree feedback solution. Research questions are listed as well as explanation of methods to undergo in research design. Last but not least, personal reflection towards the research is defined.

1.0 Problem Definition1.1 Title IntroductionAn evaluation is an assessment which determine a subjects worth and value. It proposes a way of regulating whether if expected output is delivered by the subject or not. An employee performance evaluation system is a process of reckoning the throughput of an employee in an organization by undertaking a few standard of procedures. Evaluating an employee is essential as performance development is dependent on outcome of evaluation. Furthermore, manager goes through evaluation process on employee to hold an evidence for increment and other operations. On top of that, employee can be motivated after being evaluated thus setting an objective to work better.

1.2 AimTo develop a computer model performance evaluation system for sales department that prioritize the usage of feedback where company of any size can move on to a paperless performance evaluation process while producing accurate results.

1.3 Objectives To generate a statistical performance review of an employee based on raw data such as sales, budget, wastage and etc. To include different types of template to outline the performance review in a graphical way such as graph, table, chart and etc. To develop a private two-way assessment between superior and subordinate. To provide a 360 degree feedback system where employee receives feedback from different individuals such as peers, managers, head of department and etc.

1.4 Problem StatementTraditional performance evaluation for employee does not possess an effective output to organizations as it is not aiding employees in improving performance and setting a clear goal due to the inability of returning corrective and constructive feedback from the superior.

2.0 Research Proposal2.1 Problem BackgroundThe absence of a proper computer model evaluation system has led to a problem in organizations. In a research from Shrestha (2006), it is shown that a total of 55.7% of companies in Bangkok, Thai does not possess a computer model evaluation system. This proposes that more than half of the companies in Bangkok, Thai undergo evaluation process with their employee manually through paper form or Microsoft Excel sheet prepared by the company. The use of improper model to evaluate employees has cause them a state of being unclear on the employers expectation regarding objectives thus lead to miscommunication and de-motivation.It is found that traditional performance evaluation does not produce effective output anymore. Alexander (2006) explained that traditional reviews works well in the classification of employee with good performance or bad performance but wasnt able to specify an employee that belongs to the range between good and bad. Generally, rater is possible to face human error which carelessly cause a mistake in rating an employee thus producing an inaccurate performance review. On top of that, it turns to a difficult task when manager refers to employee review that has average performance for organization operations such as salary increment or promotion. The seed of arising problem in any performance evaluation system is the inability to return a corrective and constructive feedback back to the employee from the rater. According to Bekele, Shigutu & Tensay (2014), the performance appraisal system has been significantly affected from an employees perception thus they start to feel dissatisfaction towards the enactment of practicing performance appraisal system in the organization all because of the lack of continuous feedback from the rater. The implementation of performance evaluation system is technically useless without feedback transmission as it causes low employee productivity.Farooq & Kahn (2011) reflected that it has turn out to be a norm that many firms fail to provide a corrective feedback for their employee after going through the evaluation process. Company that faces this problem is actually trailing a big disadvantage with them because missing of feedback towards employee will cause them to lose their direction and tend to move away from intended objective easily.Based on a research done by Markus (2004), a survey of self-opinion about performance evaluation system was conducted on the employees of United States and it is found out that 70% of the employees has voted that the implementation of performance evaluation system does not fulfill the companys goals because there are no development of performance after each evaluation process. To add in more information, 60% of the employees has stated that one of the reasons that causes this issue is the lack of creditability or response from the rater. Without an honest feedback, employees has no idea on how to set a goal in the organization.

2.2 Literature ReviewPerformance evaluation has been a tool for the managers to refer as the quality of progress of their employees in an organization. Gregory (2011) once said that performance review distinguishes between subordinate that is making a vast contribution to the organizations achievement and subordinate that requires more effort in order to achieve target. It is an effective utensil to measure an employees performance. The researcher agrees this point as manager will need to track down each of their employees progress and understand what their employees are capable of. With an appropriate performance review, managers can build up employee motivation by undertaking corrective action for employee with bad performance and reward employee with good performance.Employees feel motivated if they are given reward or incentive throughout their hard work achievement for organization. According to Hameed, Ramzan, Zubair, Ali & Arslan (2014), motivating an employee is an essential factor in organization context as it convert an employee to high productive and significantly develop performance. The researcher reflects that offering compensation as a tool to motivate employee is an effective way to expand their ability in performing vigorously for the organization but managers need to be certain before making any decision to reward an individual. Mangers judge an employee by referring to the output of performance review. Therefore, they need to be precise in the evaluation process in order to produce a trustworthy performance review that they can refer as to motivate employee.It is not just about going through a simple evaluation process in order to achieve an effective performance evaluation. Manager with insufficient training on how to conduct an evaluation will cause a high impact towards the outcome. According to Bekele, Shitgutu & Tensay (2014), shortage of technical skills on how to conduct a proper evaluation towards employee has caused failure in performance evaluation. A reflection is upheld which manager with no proper skills in evaluating employee performance has no difference in employee evaluating their own performance with themselves of which personal biasness takes place. Based on a research done by Shrestha & Chalidabhongse (2006), it is reflected that the need of a computer model performance evaluation system is required which transform the manual evaluation method to an automated evaluation method that helps manager to train on technical skills in evaluating employee. It is not only a benefit for employee but also for manager that tends to conduct the evaluation. The researcher believes that employee can get a clearer image of their progress through a computer model evaluation system rather than through paper form. On the other hand, manager holds the opportunity to train on the skills to use the computer model evaluation system to conduct a more objective-based evaluation method towards their subordinates. However, manager tends to perceive mistake while conducting performance evaluation and cause the whole process to go wrong. According to Jackson (2012), there are managers that abstain from giving a harsh and negative feedback to the employee after the evaluation process. With this, the manager isnt providing an honest feedback thus ruining the purpose of a performance evaluation. The researcher thinks that the employee needs to know the truth behind his or her performance in an organization. Employees will not make any significant progress if they think that they are doing just fine but in fact they are not. Feedback has been one of the most essential part in any organization. In a research done by Dignen (2014), a positive feedback is a gratitude to definite a job well done so the employee will do better in future while a negative feedback is not a criticism instead it is a constructive way to remind employee to develop further performance. Feedback is obtained from supporting evidence hence performance review is a seed for the manager to seek for information to return as feedback to the employee.Having a corrective feedback that determine the better part of the performance and the required areas to be improved can enhances an employee performance. Based on a research done by Yamoah (2014), organization that has a solid and clear goal can improve performance by 15% - 25% but producing feedback which enhances employee performance can increase performance more than that. While according to Farooq & Kahn (2011), collective feedback provide sharpness in employee performance and aid in pinpointing the weaknesses that employees have in them. The researcher believes that feedback is required in the field of working as it is not just a mere verbal words from the manager but a suggestion on a way to enhance an individuals quality of work. Rather than being persistent in their own thought, employees should accept feedback from reviewers and start following the path to achieve expected objective.In order to facilitate feedback in a performance evaluation system, a solution is implemented as the 360 degree feedback system. According to Fleenor & Prince (1997), 360 degree feedback system does the task in acquiring input from various perspectives and generate a complete picture of an employees performance as an output. It is also emphasized that relying on a single source for evaluation may end up in a result that is bias. Moreover, feedback turns out to be more accurate in a 360 degree feedback as it provides a complete capabilities and performance of an individual from different perspectives. However, it is reflected by Alexander (2006) which using 360 degree feedback for the purpose of increasing salary or pay of an individual employee may turn to a harmful process. The reason behind this is peers and colleague, who may see themselves as the competitors against the employee, are also eligible to rate the employee and they may provide a negative feedback towards the individual to halt the employee one step further from getting reward. The researcher thinks that 360 degree feedback system is a revolution of the traditional one-to-one feedback system. After all, having multiple feedback from different perspectives is always better than receiving a sole feedback from a single person. However, judging from the 21st century workplace environment, co-workers dont often get along well and it might turn the whole 360 degree feedback process to another level of failure. In a nutshell, 360 degree feedback system is overall a good adaption to move towards to and the researcher believes it can change the employees perception towards performance evaluation system in organization.

2.3 Research QuestionTechnicalDomain

1. What type of programming language is used in developing the system?1. What are the factors affecting an employees sales performance?

2. What are the hardware that is used for developing a performance evaluation system?2. How performance evaluation is improving employees sales performance?

3. What is the algorithm used in a performance evaluation system? 3. How is feedback required in performance evaluation?

2.4 Research DesignThe chosen method for primary research is interview and questionnaire. Interview will be used to collect qualitative data. It is chosen because the researcher can explore the personal views, experiences and opinions from an individual on the specific research topic. Therefore, the data collected by interview will provide a deeper understanding on the research. Relating to the research purpose, interview can be conducted to solve technical and domain questions. Purposive sampling will be used in determining the sample size. It is chosen as the sampling method because the researcher needs to choose specific people in a population there fore it is suitable for concentrating on people that is fulfilling requirements of the research design. For the technical research questions, the researcher will conduct an interview with graduated Software Engineers with Degree qualification to acquire deeper understanding of technical part of the research. Software engineers are the one who has vast knowledge on developing a system. Therefore, the purpose of an interview with these professionals will get the opinions from these professional on addressing the question in developing a system efficiently yet effectively. For the domain research questions, the target audience for interview will be employees and managers of sales department in different organizations. No one else will understand what is at stake regarding the performance evaluation and feedback except for themselves, therefore the purpose of interviewing them is to dig out information like how effective is the current performance evaluation system and what is it lacking.Questionnaire is used to collect quantitative data. Quantitative data is needed in a large amount from a large scale of people. It is suitable to acquire data that is required in large form. The result obtained from a questionnaire can be easily compared and measured with other results because it is done in Likert Scale. Relating to the research purpose, a sample size calculator will be used to determine the sample size. The population size, margin of error, confidence level and response distribution are to be identified before the sample size can be calculated. Questionnaires regarding technical questions will be distributed to Software Engineer graduates with Degree qualification while questionnaires regarding domain questions will be distributed to employees in organization. The questionnaires will be designed using Likert Scale to avoid the target audience to get off topic and provide answer that are irrelevant to the question. The main purpose of questionnaire in the research is to study the best way to develop a performance evaluation system and importance of feedback in a performance evaluation. Therefore, the research can identify the scenarios and acquire the answers required in the research questions. The data and information collected from the research is analyzed before the research is complete. For the qualitative data collected from interview, the approach to analyze the data is to construct a theme that is fulfill the requirement of the research. The data will be placed in the designated theme then research will start filtering data. The ones that is matching the theme will be kept as the supporting findings for the research while the irrelevant ones will be filtered out from the theme. For the quantitative data collected from questionnaire, the data will be divided into different components of which the question is carrying. The results of one single component will be analyzed by using chart or table. With this, the researcher is able to get a statistical overview of each component. The researcher then can measure and optimize the data in the research easily.

2.4.1 Gantt Chart

No.ActivityWeek

1-23-45-89-1011-1415-16

1Prepare Technical Interview Questions and Questionnaires

2Prepare Domain Interview Questions and Questionnaires

3Interview Software Engineers on Technical Questions

4Distribute Questionnaires to Software Engineers

5Interview Employees and Managers on Domain Questions

6Distribute Questionnaires to Employees

7Analyze Data Collected from the Research

2.5 Personal ReflectionIn order to conduct primary research against the domain problems, the researcher is required to travel to an organization and interview both the employee and manager. However, it will be a difficult task to book a session from the manager to conduct the interview because the manager may not be available or does not have any free time at the moment. Therefore, the researcher faces limitation and may not be able to elicit information from the manager. Besides, there is a potential limitation where organization may refuse in using the proposed performance evaluation system because it is an optional system for them. The target market may believe that the organization is doing fine in handling employee performance therefore concluding that it is unnecessary to use such a system.An alternate approach to develop the proposed system is to include artificial intelligence integration. Since performance is judged on the achievements of employee, the system will not only judge result but also learn the process of getting the result by using AI integration. The result will also be more accurate because AI make decisions using an algorithm that standardize everything. On top of that, time spent on completing a task will be reduced as AI will handle the task and learn behavior each time it is completing a task. (2730 Words)

3.0 ReferencesAlexander, D., 2006. How Do 360 Degree Performance Reviews Affect Employee Attitudes, Effectiveness and Performance?, University of Rhode Island: Schmidt Labor Research Center Seminar Paper Series.Bekele, A., Shigutu, A. & Tensay, A., 2014. The Effect of Employees' Perception of Performance Apprasial on Their Work Outcomes. International Journal of Management and Commerce Innovations, II(1), pp. 136-173.Daoanis, L., 2012. Performance Appraisal System: It's Implication To Employee Performance. International Journal of Economics and Management Sciences, II(3), pp. 55-62.Dignen, B., 2014. Five Reasons Why Feedback may be the Most Important Skill. [Online] Available at: http://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2014/03/five-reasons-feedback-may-important-skill/[Accessed 29th June 2015].Farooq, M. & Khan, M., 2011. Impact of Training and Feedback on Employee Performance. Far East Journal of Psychology and Business, IV(1), pp. 23-33.Fleenor, J. & Prince, J., 1997. Using 360-Degree Feedback in Organizations, Greensboro, North Carolina: Center for Creative Leadership.Gregory, K., 2011. The Importance of Employee Satisfaction. pp. 29-37.Hameed, A. et al., 2014. Impact of Compensation on Employee Performance (Empirical Evidence from Banking Sector of Pakistan). International Journal of Business and Social Science, IV(2), pp. 302-209.Jackson, E., 2012. Ten Biggest Mistakes Bosses Make In Performance Reviews. [Online] Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/01/09/ten-reasons-performance-reviews-are-done-terribly/2/[Accessed 29th June 2015].Khan, M., 2013. Role of Performance Appraisal System on Employees Motivation. IOSR Journal of Business and Management , VIII(4), pp. 66-83.Markus, L., 2004. Performance Management - Problems and Potential : 12 key steps to ensure top performance from your staff. pp. 1-13.Shrestha, S. & Chalidabhongse, J., 2006. Improving Employee Satisfaction on Performance Apprasial: A Case Study on Thai Companies. Management of Innovation and Technology, Volume I, pp. 106-110.Yamoh, E., 2014. Monitoring Employee Performance at the Workplace. Developing Country Studies, IV(14), pp. 109-110.

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