MARS model is a predictive behavioural model that aims at analyzing how four major factors drive the human behaviour and the way that behaviour gets translated into results. In other words, a combination of these four factors decides or predicts human behaviour and performance. MARS stands for Motivation, Ability, Role Perceptions and Situational Factors. MARS model takes into account the fact that both internal as well as external factors play a decisive role in molding one’s behaviours and performance. Motivation, ability and role perceptions are factors that are under control of an individual and hence can be viewed as internal factors – motivation and ability are either innate, or acquired or learnt, and role perceptions denote the idea and image one has of one’s role and the way he perceives or understands it. On the contrary, situational factors are external environmental factors that impact or influence one’s behaviour and the results but are beyond the control of an individual.

In an organizational setup, any result refers to a performance given by an employee. Employee behaviours are the performance-enabling behaviours, i.e. those particular behaviours that lead an individual to demonstrate a stellar or an average or an inferior performance.  As per MARS model, motivation, abilities, role perceptions and situational factors act together in synergy to result in a particular type of behaviour and performance. It is crucial to note that absence of any of these factors will not result in the expected performance despite the influence of other factors. Say, for example, an employee has enough motivation to perform his job nicely, a clear understanding of his role expectations and positive or empowering situational factors, but is deficient in abilities, i.e. competencies needed to perform the job efficiently. In such a situation, the employee won’t be able to deliver the expected level of performance. Similarly, an individual with adequate motivation, abilities and facilitating situational factors, will fail to be a super performer if he doesn’t have the correct role perceptions.

The first element ‘Motivation’ simply implies the eagerness and urge with which one pursues a given work. A motivated person willingly and eagerly puts in effort to accomplish a task at hand. Motivation determines the kind of behaviour one employee is likely to demonstrate in the workplace and his attitude towards his work. Motivation has 3 components – direction, intensity and persistence. A person is motivated towards the achievement of a particular goal or goal-set. It is in the direction of this goal or goal-set that a person will channelize all his efforts and enthusiasm – hence, motivation has a specific direction the sense of which grows when one is aware of his specific aims or goals. The second component, intensity refers to the extent of effort that one puts forth in order to achieve the desired goals. Persistence implies tenacity – the perseverance shown by a person in accomplishing a goal. Persistence denotes whether a person gives up when faced with hurdles or obstacles, or he sticks to his purpose and continues to put forth effort towards the purpose in a sustained manner.

The second element ‘Ability’ shifts the focus from behaviour to actual performance. Motivation alone cannot serve as a performance-enabler. An employee needs to have requisite knowledge and skills to execute a given task. Ability can denote an innate talent or an inherent aptitude that lets a person learn or acquire some specific knowledge or skill more quickly and more efficiently than others. Ability can also denote the proficiencies or expertise one has acquired on-the-job. The term ‘ability’ can be used interchangeably with the term ‘competency’ which refers to characteristics that translate to a stellar performance.

Role perception means the degree of clarity with which an employee understands what his role is and what exactly is expected from him when he is the role incumbent. Adequate motivation and ability will not be fruitful if the efforts and energy are spent on some tasks that not even required of a person whereas some required tasks lie unattended. Role clarity can be explained from 3 dimensions:

–          How clearly and accurately an employee knows what exact duties are expected of him and on what parameters will his performance be assessed.

–          How clear idea does an employee have regarding prioritizing the set of duties he is entrusted with, i.e. is he aware of the relative importance of the tasks at hand? If there is lack of awareness or clarity on this front, then an employee may end up spending more effort on a relatively less important task thereby putting the more important task at the backseat.

–          Is the person employing ways, methods and procedures that are compliant with the organizational standards or norms or specifications while carrying out his work?

Whereas the above three factors are internal factors, the last factor, i.e. the Situational Factors is the only external determining factor of behaviour and performance. It encompasses all those external conditions and situations that can either facilitate or deter the superior execution of a work. These situations are beyond an employee’s control, and hence while performance evaluation, presence or influence of these factors should be duly considered but an employee should never be held accountable for outcomes caused by these factors. In an organization, situational factors can include allocated budget, time, availability of efficient resources, facilities present, cooperation from external sources etc.

MARS Model, therefore successfully analyzes the reasons behind the types of behaviours shown by individuals and the performances delivered by them, based on the four major predictive factors. This model also depicts how each of these factors act as crucial and indispensable factors in determining the behaviour and performance – lack of any one can cripple the performance notwithstanding the solid presence of other factors.

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Job characteristics model relates or connects the various aspects of a job or task to final performance-related outcomes like effort spent by employees, degree, quality and effectiveness of their performance, scope of career advancement on the current job, achievement motivation, job satisfaction, engagement level etc. It focuses on five crucial job or task characteristics which determine three psychological states that the performer of the job can experience or go through, and these psychological states in turn influence the desired outcomes related to the performance of the job.

The five important task characteristics as outlined by this model are task variety, task identity, task significance and degree of autonomy and feedback about the task performance. Let’s take an in-depth look at these five job or task characteristics:

–          Task variety – it implies a scope of getting assigned to different types of tasks so that an employee gets a chance to utilize a variety of skills or talents he or she possesses and to learn or acquire new skills. Task variety breaks the monotony that one can experience in the course of performing a same kind of job repetitively. A strategically determined balance is to be maintained while designing a job in terms of the extent of variety to be introduced. Incorporating too much variety will only add to the stress levels of employees whereas too less variety does not serve any purpose.

–          Task Identity – motivation and satisfaction of employees can be increased if they can see that their contributions are translating to some concrete and visible achievements for the organization. A greater sense of pride and enthusiasm is experienced when employees feel that they are contributing to the accomplishment of a larger part of a job.

–          Task Significance – it implies how significant or meaningful the work is that an employee is performing, how far-reaching its consequences are, to what extent this work is helping the organization in attaining its goals, whether the work is producing a positive impact on the society etc. When task significance is high, employees’ motivation and morale is also high.

–          Autonomy – Autonomy over one’s job fosters creativity and innovation since in absence of micromanagement or excessive supervision and managerial control, employees feel free to do the work the way they deem best, or to try out new techniques and procedures for accomplishment of the job.  Employees also feel like job owners and that leads to a greater sense of responsibility and accountability for the job.

–          Feedback – Feedback about one’s performance is the most accurate source from which an employee can learn about his or her strengths and weaknesses and hence can strive for betterment. A regular feedback also ensures a better quality of work delivered. Feedback can come from direct supervisors, management, customers, audit of the job itself etc.

The three psychological states that affected by these task characteristics are:

–          Experiencing meaningfulness of work – employees experience meaningfulness of the work they are doing only when they feel that their work fits into the larger picture of organizational objectives and that they have the scope to employ their knowledge and skills effectively for executing their assigned tasks. Task variety, task identity and task significance are the factors that determine to what extent an employee is able to perceive his work as meaningful. For example, a task that is highly significant will have more meaning and value to its executor. Similarly, a job with no variety will seem meaningless to an employee by dint of its sheer repetitive and monotonous nature.

–          Feeling responsible for outcomes – holding oneself accountable for one’s performance will result only from autonomy granted for the job. If an employee knows that he is the one who will decide on the techniques and procedures of doing a job, scheduling of the job, making desired changes etc., then he will invariably bear the onus of the success or failure encountered at the job.

–          Knowledge of the actual results – this knowledge comes from the feedback given to an employee about his or her performance quality. Knowledge about the outcome enables one to rectify the problem areas or to tweak the way of doing a job so that better results can be achieved.

All these psychological states than an employee might experience shape up the various performance related outcomes. These outcomes can be work related motivation, job satisfaction, satisfaction about one’s professional growth, performance of superior quality, low absenteeism, absence of distracting factors at work, a higher level of employee engagement etc. When an employee feels his work to be meaningful and challenging as well as enriching in terms of knowledge and skills, his level of engagement, intensity of effort, motivation, satisfaction from the job etc. increases and he perceives the job as one that provides him with ample chances of professional growth. Similarly, the feeling of ownership of a job makes an employee more responsible and it can implicitly be concluded that the employee will strive to put forth a much superior performance or to walk an extra mile for the accomplishment of the job, will show a higher level of engagement, and will derive more satisfaction by doing the job since it’s done in his way. Knowledge about the actual result or outcome helps one to improve his or her performance, thereby leading to a growth in his or her career, heightens the motivation to stick to the job etc.

So, the Job Characteristics model discusses at length on the core job characteristics that ultimately become the determinants of the final work related outcomes that are desired by any and every organization.

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A performance management system prevailing in an organization is almost never a perfect one owing to several types of inaccuracies and biases often creeping in. Majority of these inaccuracies are committed unintentionally by the appraisers – they are not aware that how the environment or their own thought processes are preventing an appraisal process from being unbiased. Having said so, it’s also undeniable that some of the biases exhibited in a performance management process are intentional.

The intentional errors or inaccuracies can be categorized as Leniency or Inflation error, Severity or strictness or deflation error and Central Tendency error.  As the name suggests, leniency error takes place when the appraiser shows undue leniency while rating a candidate and inflates the rating that the candidate actually deserves. On the contrary, when an appraiser shows too much strictness or severity and assigns a deflated or lower-than-deserved rating, he is demonstrating Severity error.  In Central Tendency error, appraiser gives an average rating to most of the candidates.

Now let’s check various unintentional biases that are committed during the appraisal process:

–          Halo/Horn effect – this takes place when appraiser gets influenced by one particular trait of the candidate and draws conclusion about the candidate without assessing other traits of the candidate. So, the assessment or appraisal is driven by what impression the appraiser has drawn from a particular trait of a candidate. Halo error takes place when the appraiser is positively impressed and horn error takes place when the appraiser forms a negative image of the candidate based on some particular trait of that person.

–          Similar to me error – Appraiser notices some similarity between himself and the candidate being evaluated and that clouds his judgemental abilities. Appraiser ends up giving a better rating to the candidate than what he deserves.

–          Primacy error – Appraiser focuses on information that he received or the impression that he formed about the candidate earlier during the appraisal process and decides on the rating based on that.

–          Recency error – This is reverse of the primacy error. Appraiser is influenced more by the information garnered or impression formed during the later or most recent stages of the appraisal process.

–          First Impression error – appraisal done is based on the first impression that a candidate made on the mind of the appraiser.

–          Contrast error – Appraiser consciously or unconsciously compares or contrasts the current candidate with the previous candidates he assessed and tends to over-emphasize on the differences between candidates. For example, if one candidate that the appraiser appraised was a super performer, then while assessing another candidate who is a good-enough performer, appraiser will tend to give him a relatively poor rating than what this candidate deserves.

–           Stereotype error or Stereotyping – Appraiser has a preconceived notion about a candidate just because the candidate falls in a certain category based on gender, race, nationality, ethnicity etc. Appraiser allows that preconceived notion to take precedence over actual performance delivered by the candidate while assigning a rating.

–          Spillover effect – Appraiser is influenced and guided by the past performance history or past evaluation result while rating a candidate, although the current performance is different from that of the past.

–          Attribution bias – Appraiser wrongly attributes the good performance or behaviour of a candidate to external factors and poor or bad performance and behaviour to internal characteristics of traits of the candidate.

While occurrences of intentional errors can be minimized by educating appraisers about the benefits of giving a proper and unbiased rating, unintentional errors can be eliminated or minimized by letting the appraisers know about the types of inaccuracies and why they occur and how those can be consciously avoided. If needed, suitable training programmes can also be developed to increase awareness about the various types of biases and errors and the ways to eliminate them.

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A performance management system in any organization is an extremely crucial HR function that drives and directs all decision-making processes in the organization and determines the effectiveness of individual and organizational performances. A strong performance management system can play a key role in transforming a good organization to a great one. But on the contrary, a poorly implemented performance management system (PMS) can create several issues and over time can cripple the functioning of the organization. We’ll analyse the several adverse consequences that an organization is likely to face when it does not have a robust PMS in place.

If a PMS is not functioning as it is supposed to function, it will fail to serve one of its basic purposes – the evaluation of the performances delivered by employees. Since the results of appraisal or assessment determine the decisions regarding promotion, salary increment or revision, rewards, variable payments etc, an improper appraisal resulting from a weak PMS will lead to improper or wrong decisions by management. This will result in issues like:

–          A decline in motivation to perform one’s best as employees will feel that their superior performance did not get rewarded suitably and it did not bring them the desired increment or promotion or recognition.

–          The PMS will be perceived as an unjust and unfair one by the employees. If an employee perceives another employee receiving same level of reward in spite of performing at a comparatively lower level, he will feel resentment towards this disparity and unequal treatment of employees by the organization.

–          Employees may feel resentment towards management for not recognizing their performance or for showing lack of parity in rewarding others. They may also feel resentment towards other employees who they perceive as the recipients of undeserved rewards. This resentment is detrimental for the desired healthy relationships amongst individuals in the organization.

–          Above all, the organization can face an increased attrition rate. Dissatisfied employees can start looking for other opportunities. These employees will either quit the current organization or refrain from putting adequate efforts into their work until they get the opportunity to quit the organization.

PMS is also aimed at providing a constructive feedback to the employees about their performance on a regular basis. This regular and appropriate feedback helps the employees in identifying where they are going wrong, what are their weak areas or what deficiencies they need to take care of. A weak PMS will:

–          Lower the self-esteem and confidence of employees if the feedback given is not pertinent or adequate or appropriate, and fails to let the employees know about their real strengths and shortcomings.

–          Hinder the developmental process of employees. Employees will not find the scope to rectify their mistakes or improve their performance in absence of a timely and proper feedback.

–          Make it difficult to track the errors or their sources at a later point of time. So those sources remain unidentified and the year-end appraisal process can’t help in discovering those. But a regular monitoring and feedback can help in pointing out the errors and reasons behind them without delay and thus facilitate in taking timely corrective measures.

–          Lead to over-expenditure of resources, time and money if the issues are not detected and dealt with in a timely manner.

–          Failure in identifying proper training needs. Feedback serves as an important source from where training needs can be identified. If the feedback is not proper and relevant, the sources of performance deficiencies will not be uncovered and thus a useful training curriculum will not be designed.

The PMS process needs commitment of time and money. When a weakly designed PMS fails in accomplishing its desired goals, the entire time and money spent for it is wasted. Further, the PMS will be perceived by both managers as well as employees as a meaningless process that simply eats up resources and causes work overload. Consequently, neither employees nor managers will show the required commitment and spend adequate effort and time when doing their parts in this process.

The inaccuracies that result due to a poor PMS are not always committed inadvertently. In a poorly implemented PMS, it’s highly probable that standardized procedures will not be in place. The absence of standardized procedures coupled with lack of clear communication leads to variance in ratings across and even within departments for equivalent performances, lack of awareness on how a particular rating is arrived at or how a particular rating is linked to a particular level of reward etc. It also creates opportunities for unfair practices like fabrication of information about an employee’s performance, favouritism, biased decisions etc. This in turn can sometimes create another type of challenge for an organization – lawsuits filed by disgruntled employees who feel that they have been victims of unfair treatment owing to an unfair PMS.

Since a poorly designed and implemented PMS can lead to several issues ranging from issues like high attrition, employee dissatisfaction, loss of motivation etc. to issues like complaints of unfair treatment, expensive lawsuits against the organization, loss of organizational reputation etc., the wise decision would be to invest the right amount of effort and time to put in place a robust PMS. This investment will be a long term investment that will keep on reaping rich rewards for the organization and its employees.

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Person-job fit denotes the extent of compatibility between a person and a job, i.e. to what extent does a person have potential to satisfy a job’s requirements and to what extent does the job have potential to meet the needs and expectations of the person.

Checking person-job fit before a particular person is assigned to a particular job is of utmost importance. A job can only be executed successfully if the person doing it possesses the right set of competencies for it. Also, the job needs to have characteristics that provide the person with enough motivation to strive towards the delivery of a superior performance on the job. So, a combination of competencies and motivation is the secret of success on a job. Existence of competencies determines whether a person is fit for a job. Existence of motivational factors determines whether a job is fit for a person.

When assessing whether a person is suitable for a job or not, we first check all the requirements associated with the job – what’s the relevance of the job, what all tasks need to be accomplished as part of the job, what are particular competencies required for executing the job and which of those competencies are essential ones and which are desirable ones. Competencies include knowledge, skills, abilities and attitudes that a person must possess. Existence of essential competencies enables a person to execute the job, whereas the presence of desirable competencies along with the essential ones enables him to carry out the job in a far more effective and superior manner. Now, all these requirements can be ascertained through job analysis and job description techniques. The next step is to assess whether the potential candidate has all those competencies needed to meet the job requirements? This can be checked through various assessment techniques, like interview, psychometric tests, assessment centres etc.

When evaluating the job’s suitability for a particular person, first it’s crucial to determine what does that person want from a job? Is he looking for growth, or challenge, or recognition, or reward or autonomy or a combination of these factors? In brief, what are the factors that motivate this person to perform his best? Once those factors are determined, we need to take a look at the job and see whether this job has scope for providing all these factors? Is the job challenging enough if the person is looking for challenge? Does the job provide ample learning opportunities for a growth-seeking person? Are the monetary rewards associated with the job enough to motivate a person keen on rewards? These details about job can again be gathered through job analysis and job description and also through consultation with organization’s HR department and senior management who are knowledgeable about the job.

It’s a wise step to do a person-job fit analysis before a particular person is assigned to a particular job, since it greatly minimizes the chances of poor performance on the job, chances of generating dissatisfied and demotivated employees, and the scope of rework that leads to wastage of time, effort and money.

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In organizational context, employee engagement these days has become a popular buzzword. Before delving into the details of employee engagement, let us clarify a prevalent misconception – employee engagement is not same as employee satisfaction. A particular employee may feel satisfied if he or she is assigned very easy tasks which do not require much effort or time. But that employee is not an engaged employee and effectively does not contribute towards the success of the organization.

An engaged employee shows complete involvement with the work that he is responsible for. He is enthusiastic and passionate about getting the job done in the desired manner. The employee cares to know about the relevance and importance of his job, how does the job fit into the larger context of organizational goals and objectives and  how the way its executed can translate to superior or inferior organizational performance. The employee cares about the overall success of the organization and shows commitment and sincerity in spending effort for achieving this success. This employee is always willing to walk an extra mile for ensuring the interests of his organization.  Now, when an employee shows this level of commitment and involvement towards his job as well as his organization, it can be concluded that he receives enough satisfaction by performing the job, it provides him with ample scope of professional growth, he feels suitably rewarded both in monetary and non monetary terms, and he feels that his organization cares about him and treats him as an integral part of it. So, we can summarize by saying that an engaged employee is essentially a satisfied employee who is willing to put forth more than what is expected of him, and this willingness, dedication and additional efforts shown by the engaged employees transform an organization from good to great. Employee engagement is thus a superset of which employee satisfaction is only a subset.

How to increase employee engagement in an organization? To answer this question, let us examine few factors that lead to ‘engagement gap’, i.e. result in lack of involvement or effort on part of employees. Taking care of these factors will certainly help in bridging the engagement gap. These factors can be:

• Lack of clarity about what exactly is expected from one in one’s job – an employee may be putting in his best efforts to execute a task and then he learns that it’s an irrelevant task or it does not come under his set of responsibilities. This mismatch can be frustrating and lead to lack of interest in getting involved with the job.
• If employees perceive that the job expectations are not very realistic or achievable, they may get disappointed even before trying to accomplish the job.
• Lack of recognition or praise for work accomplished brings down the morale of employees and acts as de-motivator.
• If regular feedback about performance is not given, employees are not in a position to know if they are heading in the right direction or not. It leaves no scope for performance improvement at an early stage.
• Monotonous work can siphon off the energy and enthusiasm of employees. The more challenging and exciting a work is, the better it is.
• Employees will feel de-motivated if they feel that their work does not provide them with any scope of professional growth.  It’s very tough to make one feel enthusiastic and passionate about a job that faces a dead end.
• Clear idea about how one’s contribution is influencing the organizational performance acts as a booster. An employee is probably not walking that extra mile because he does not know his performance and execution of his assigned job is ultimately helping in achievement of the organizational objectives.
• Dissatisfaction will result if employees perceive that unequal treatment is being meted out to them.
• Lack of awareness about the reward policies, promotion and increment policies of the organization will fail to spark interest in employees.
• Guidance and support from supervisor and colleagues can go a long way in increasing the morale of employees.

These are a few major factors that can be held accountable for not having employees who show the highest level of engagement. Organizations need to come up with proper strategy and action plans to eliminate these factors and to ensure that every employee it has is a highly engaged employee.

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In order to keep one’s career on the right track and see to its progress in the desired direction, one needs to have a career development plan in place. A career development plan encompasses three essential steps – continuous self-assessment, setting of concrete time-bound goals and development of an action plan.

Career development is facilitated by several tools or techniques that assist in identifying where one actually stands when evaluated in terms of the performance expectations from or professional goals or objectives of that person, which particular areas require improvement or change and what sort of plan is needed to address the required changes.

One such career development tool is assessment centre or developmental assessment centre. An assessment centre employs multiple assessors and multiple assessment techniques to assess multiple participants. Simulation techniques are used that simulate on-the-job situations to force the candidates to display job-related behaviours, which can be judged to identify the extent of certain competencies possessed by the participants. So, the basic aim of the assessment centres is to check whether a participant is a good fit for a given job or position, or for a position that he aspires to acquire or to be promoted to in future. This evaluation, as mentioned earlier, is done by determining to what extent the participant possesses the job-related competencies. The assessment centre data and findings can be used for various purposes – recruitment and selection, performance evaluation, training needs analysis, development etc. A developmental assessment centre focuses exclusively on development of the participants.

Career counselling is one other method where individuals are offered expert assistance in understanding the types of jobs that best match their skills, talents, interests and motivation. Career development workshops help the participants in developing required skills that will be needed to attain success in relevant job fields.

On-the-job training and learning can also be useful in acquiring skills specific to a particular job. To impart more generic set of skills that can be applied to a no. of jobs, a more formal training curriculum can be designed.

Job rotation, job enlargement and job enrichment techniques can also be employed to let employees learn about cross-functional or cross-vertical skills, or to let them become more knowledgeable in their areas of work.

Assigning employees challenging and developmental job assignments can help to enhance key competencies and build experience in important job tasks before the individual actually assumes that position.

Often, organizations send its employees to attend specialized courses that are in line with the organization’s requirements. They sponsor the enrolment of these employees and the benefits are reaped by organizations as well as the employees – employees acquire additional knowledge and a professional degree, organizations get heightened performance from the employees, or the skills and capabilities to occupy some higher or specialized positions.

Sabbaticals or long-term leaves allow the employees to take a break and get re-energized before they return and start their jobs with new-found enthusiasm.

So, all these tools and techniques assist the employees actively in giving a shape and direction to their career and in making desired progress through the organization.

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Staffing, one of the most crucial functionality of Human Resource Management Domain is often used interchangeably with the term recruitment. But do these terms connote the same set of steps and processes? Is it correct to use these two terms interchangeably? The answer is a No. Recruitment forms only a part of the process of staffing.

Need for staffing arises when some vacancies are created in the organization, or requirements for more human resources are generated owing to some new project or expansion of business. Recruitment refers to all the set of activities or processes that generate a large applicant pool that will come to the ‘gate’ of the company for evaluation by way of sending resumes or applying through web portals.  This set of activities include identifying the most time and cost efficient processes of generating application pool, and then executing the necessary steps to attract applicants. Application pool is mostly generated through employee referrals, headhunting, placement agencies etc.

Now, once a sufficiently large applicant pool is generated, next step is to filter those applicants by carrying out the first level of screening process. This screening process mainly focuses on filtering out those applicants who fail to meet the threshold criteria for the specified job or position. Rest of the applicants are allowed to enter the ‘gate’ of the organization and are now referred to as candidates.

Candidates now have to face the multi-level interview process. There may be filtering of candidates at the end of each round of interview or filtering may take place at the end of the entire interview process based on the aggregate scores obtained by the candidates. Interview process ends with the selection of few finalists who are given provisional offer letters. This entire process commencing from the moment candidates were allowed to enter the ‘gate’ of the organization till the offering of provisional letters to a few finalists is known as selection process.

Finalists are given a time-window to communicate their decision about offering or rejecting the offer made the organization. The finalists accepting the offer are asked to report on a particular date. Once they join the organization, they are put on a probation period for a fixed duration of time and known as probationers from the very day of joining the organization. After the probation period is over, probationers are confirmed after being evaluated in terms of their performance during the probation period. Only then, they can be technically termed as ‘hired’.  In some organizations, the probation period may not exist, and finalists can be said to be ‘hired’ since the day they join the organization.

This entire process is known as staffing. So, staffing encompasses the various processes an organization sequentially goes through in order to successfully fill a vacant position or a new requirement. Recruitment forms only the initial step of staffing.

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Job rewards analysis refers to the identification of various kinds of rewards associated with a job. These rewards are extremely important determinants in attracting job-seekers to an organization, in retaining the best employees and in motivating them to put forth their best performance. Often, rewards become the sole deciding factor. That is so, because the term ‘reward’ encompasses almost everything that an employee looks for in his or her job, or from his or her organization.

To a layman, reward can mean just the salary or monetary benefits one receives in lieu of the job performed. But that salary and monetary benefits form only a small part of the larger picture. Job rewards can be broadly categorized as intrinsic rewards and extrinsic rewards.

Intrinsic rewards imply the satisfaction that an employee derives through the performance or accomplishment of a job itself and also from a rich and supportive organizational culture. These rewards are non-monetary in nature and are intangible. Sources of an intrinsic reward can be the content of work and approach followed in its execution, career prospects and feeling of belongingness to the organization.

With respect to work content, if the work is challenging and meaningful, does not lead to monotony, has lots of learning opportunities, provides enough scope of autonomous decision-making, encourages creative practices, earns desired recognition  –then, an employee can glean immense satisfaction by performing the job. Accomplishing a challenging task or having the authority to make crucial decisions is a reward in itself.  Recognition and admiration for good work can go a long way in mentally rewarding and motivating an employee. An employee also looks at his or her career prospects with the current organization. Are there ample chances of career advancement with the organization? Does the current job offer opportunities for learning and skill enhancement? Are trainings that help in bridging existing skill gaps and imparting new skills regularly conducted? An affirmative answer to all these questions is considered as a reward by the employees.  If the organization has a supportive work environment, if the organization shows that it cares for its employees and is willing to go an extra mile to encourage employees’ commitment, if the values of the organization match with those of the employees’ – in all these cases, employees feel that they belong to the organization and the chance of continuing with the organization is a rewarding opportunity.

Extrinsic rewards, on the other hand, are tangible and represent the monetary value for the job. They include compensation components and various benefits.  Compensation consists of basic pay, several types of allowances, incentives, innovative schemes like profit-sharing, deferred compensation, employee stock options, variable pays, performance-related pay etc.  Benefits comprise various health and medical benefits, retirement benefits, other social security benefits etc.

A job reward has 3 dimensions, namely amount, differential and stability. Amount denotes magnitude – the quantity in which a benefit is received. Differential implies how much a reward varies from employee to employee, or how consistently is it distributed across the employees? Stability or reliability of rewards takes a look on what factors do the rewards depend on, like business condition, organizational performance etc. and to what extent do the rewards vary with change in the influencing factors.

A job’s total rewards are assessed by checking both its intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. These rewards can be termed as the ‘values’ an employee receives in lieu of his or her performance and thereby are coined as Employee Value Proposition (EVP).

To attract and retain the best talents, properly communicating an organization’s EVP to its potential and existing employees is of utmost importance. To do so, first, job rewards analysis needs to be done which identifies the precise factors that attract employees. Then, a message should be drafted which clearly communicates the strengths of the EVP and why this organization should be perceived as an employer of choice. A lucrative and compelling EVP which at the same time does not turn out to be an economically non-profitable or unrealistic one for the employer needs to be balanced in economic terms, fitting to the needs and preferences of employees or applicants and possessing some unique  characteristics that sets it apart from other employers.

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Training Needs Analysis is that crucial step that needs to be diligently carried out even before the planning for the design of a new training is commenced. As the name implies, Training Needs Analysis is a systematic process of ascertaining whether there is actually any need of carrying out a particular training and if yes, then determining what the deficiencies or problem areas are that led to the need for this training and are those deficiencies addressable through this training?

The sole focus of any training program is either to impart new knowledge, skills and abilities so that the performance of an individual, a team or an organization as a whole can be taken to a new dimension, or to act as a remedial solution that assists an individual, team or organization to overcome its weaknesses and turn its lagging performance to an improved one. In either way, performance improvement is the intention behind every training program. So, whenever there is an apprehension that there exists a performance problem or gap or there is going to be one in the future, the trigger to carry out Training Needs Analysis (TNA) is pressed.

A TNA will be initiated whenever a gap between actual performance and expected performance of an individual, a team or an organization is perceived or guessed. So the first step of TNA will be to ascertain beyond doubt that an actual gap does exist.  Once that is confirmed, TNA will now carry out a systematic analysis to discover the reasons behind this gap – what the deficiencies are that have caused the drop in performance. Once the problem areas are identified, TNA will check whether these areas can be corrected by conducting training. Outcome of TNA will be two categories of needs – training needs that require help of a training program and non-training needs that can’t be resolved by imparting training.

So, what are the various benefits of conducting a TNA? First, it ensures that training is being given for valid reasons. Training needs commitment of money, time and other resources – so a training not backed by any particular need will lead to a waste of all those. But a training that results after a properly conducted TNA is likely to be worth resources spent on it. TNA also helps to set the benchmark for training evaluation, as during evaluation, it becomes easier to check whether the requirements and deficient areas chalked out by TNA have actually been taken care through the training or not. Often it is seen that training participants do not show any enthusiasm to imbibe the learning from the training as they feel that the training content is not relevant for them or it is not going to impact their performance or work-related knowledge. But since TNA ensures that a training is given for an actual performance gap or to enhance performance in relevant work areas, it can be assumed that participant motivation will be higher when the find the training content useful and helpful. TNA also helps in aligning the training programs with organization’s strategic goals.

TNA can be either done in a proactive manner or in a reactive manner. Reactive TNA is conducted when some performance discrepancy is identified. Proactive TNA on the other hand foresees the future – it assesses the future needs of the organization, the needs that may be surface if the business expansion takes place, the needs for empowerment of an employee to occupy a higher position in future, and identifies training requirements based on these future needs.

As we have already discussed, TNA looks at the performance gap and need of relevant training at 3 levels – Organization level, Job or Operational level and Personal Level.

TNA at Organization level takes a critical look at the organization’s mission, vision, goals and objectives and how the organization’s internal environment and culture and the existing employees’ competencies are conducive for the achievement of the organizational goals. So basically it first determines what sort of competencies, i.e. knowledge, skills and abilities are required for accomplishment of organization-specific goals, and then it tries to measure organizational performance and whether the human resources possess those particular competencies. It also judges if the internal environment of the organization and its prevalent culture are acting as booster to or deterrent for the organizational performance. When all these parameters are evaluated, TNA focuses on what type of training is required to overcome the existing weaknesses. If the focus is on further growth and expansion of the organization, then TNA comes up with the training needs that will equip the organization with competencies to cope future challenges.

Operational TNA focuses on job analysis and on identification of key competencies required to perform a particular job or job group in a superior fashion. The information about key competencies can be obtained from Job Description documents, or from job holders or their supervisors. Equipped with that information, TNA can identify the gap areas that are causing inferior performance on that job and determine the skills and knowledge required, if any, that can bridge the performance gap.

TNA on a Personal or Individual level assesses an individual’s performance or whether that individual has required competencies to do meet the expectations of a new or different task. If an individual is showing poor performance, TNA identifies whether lack of particular KSAs is the reason for the same and whether training can address that deficiency. Knowledge about an individual’s competencies can be obtained from various sources like performance appraisal rating and supervisors’ comments, personal interview, psychometric and proficiency tests, assessment centre data etc.

Now, once a TNA is conducted, the outcome of the process is a list of reasons categorized as training needs and non-training needs. Training needs are those needs that have shown a KSA deficiency correctable through proper training. Non-training needs can further be subdivided into:

–          KSA deficiency not correctible through training – to address these, measures like job aid, more practice, job change etc. are required.

–          Lack of motivation due to lack of reward or recognition – can be addressed by taking a look at organizational practices and installing a system of rewarding and recognizing good performers

–          Lack of punishment in case of poor performance –  similar approach as above, with use of punishment in form of poor rating, demotion, dip in salary or other benefits etc.

–          Non-adequate feedback about performance – accurate feedback needs to be provided on a regular basis

–          Other obstacles in system – removal of those obstacles.

So, carrying out Training Need Analysis forms the first step of ensuring increased organizational and personal profitability through heightened performance at every level.

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