ILPC 2027

This paper will serve as an introductory contribution to the stream of the same title. It is argued that a general managerial offensive has occurred on the ‘front-line’ of work, whether at the point of production, in the delivery of services or professional work. The ‘new normal’ involves a re-definition of the frontier of control between employers and employees, a central theme of labour process theorising and research, in favour of the former. Central to this offensive has been the emergence of new forms of performance management (Taylor, 2013), based on the micro-measurement and micro-management of employees’ individual performance, firstly in quantitative terms through of outputs and ‘deliverables’, based often on digitally generated data. Secondly, though, these forms are often accompanied by qualitative ratings of behaviours, and attitudes. While mainstream HRM literature has overwhelmingly depicted an ‘idealised’ performance management process as developmental (e.g. Aguinis, 2013; Armstrong, 2014) and, with some effort, largely achievable (Pulakos, et al., 2015), the alignment of the individual and the organisation, the cherished principle and objective of performance management, has occurred increasingly on a conflictual basis. The paper refers to the transition from what was often a stand-alone PRP-based appraisal, described by many as an ‘annual ritual’ to an holistic process that incorporates manifold elements of the HRM agenda (Boxall and Purcell, 2011) and which may even constitute the totality of day-to-day management (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2012). Yet the continuous and disciplinary essence of PM has, at best, been understated. The utilisation by managers of the capacity of new technologies to generate performance data is inextricably connected to pressures deriving from the broader political and economic milieux, whether intense market competition or public sector austerity. In this respect, the paper engages with the so-called ‘connectivity problem’ of labour process theory in grasping and analysing the linkages between broader political economy and workplace control. The distinctive contribution that performance management makes to the ‘new normal’ is to fuse the reconfigured formal procedures and policies of HRM with augmented managerial controls over ‘leaned’ forms of work organisation (Carter et al, 2013). The currency in this synthesis are the ubiquitous ‘stats’, ‘metrics’, ‘targets’, ‘measurables’ and ‘dashboard deliverables’, which prescribe the individual amounts and quality of performance, provide the basis for (competitive) appraisal, validate reward, but more pointedly justify the designation of underperformance and on occasion ‘managed exit’. From a labour process perspective, then, these discipline-focused systems with their micro-measurement and micro-management aim to overcome the indeterminacy of labour and to generate additional surplus. Fear of reprisal through performance management impacts the wage-effort bargain, as it provides an ever-present compulsion to translate further their capacity to labour into concrete labour. This contribution in largely a position paper although there is an empirical foundation to its arguments rooted in more than a decade’s research. Given the significance of performance management for contemporary employment relations, work organisation and the labour process, it is perhaps surprising that little critical research has been published, although this is emerging (e.g. Beck and Williams, 2015; Scholarios and Taylor, 2014). While this paper focuses on management control, the ‘wage effort bargain’, the ‘frontier of control’ issues and overcoming labour indeterminacy it also signals the terrain of resistance, a familiar and important theme of LPT and ILPC. References Aguinis, H. (2013) Performance Management, 3rd edition, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Armstrong, M. (2014) Armstrong’s Handbook of Performance Management, London: Kogan Paul Beck, V. and Williams, G. (2015) ‘The (performance) management of retirement and the limits of individual choice’, Work, Employment and Society, 29.2: 267-277 Boxall, P. and Purcell, J. (2011) Strategy and Human Resource Management, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan Carter, R., Danford, A., Howcroft, D., Richardson, H., Smith, A. and Taylor, P. (2013) ‘"Stressed out of my box": Workers’ experience of occupational ill-health in lean clerical work', Work, Employment and Society, 27.5: 747-767 Marchington, M. and Wilkinson, A. (2012) Human Resource Management at Work, London: CIPD Pulakos, E. D., Mueller Hanson, R., Arad, S., and Moye, N. (2015) ‘Performance management can be fixed: An on-the-job experiential learning approach for complex behaviour change’, Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 8: 51–76. Scholarios, D. and Taylor, P, (2014) ‘”Decommissioned vessels” – performance management and older workers in technologically-intensive service work’, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 89: 333-342 Taylor, P. (2013) Performance management and The New Workplace Tyranny: Report for the STUC, Glasgow