Who Will Own Performance Management?

The blog "director of recruiting" asks the question - "who will own performance management?" 

Good question. 

The "director of recruiting" talks about technology companies like ERP and HRIS suppliers as possible answers.  The blog "systemicHR" also mentions technology providers but  offers up the idea that the HR group (with focus on compensation) within the company owns performance management.

My answer is:  the manager at the company where the performance occurs owns the performance management task.  All the technology surrounding the manager whether that be PeopleSoft, Oracle, SAP, whatever, are simply the tools that allow managers to do their job better.  There will always be multiple tools - some more effective than others depending on the overall business model, people and adjacent systems the technology needs to draw from.  This is good. 

However,  technology simply automates tracking of performance, it does not understand what the people need to do, it does not ferret out which behaviors need to be tracked to achieve the company objectives, it does not understand what will motivate and influence the individual whose performance it being tracked.

None of the technology solution providers have a real understanding of the psychology that goes into the motivation, engagement and loyalty of an employee (or other audiences - the same argument can be made about distribution channels and the tracking software that supports those people.)  It seems that we continually look to technology to remove responsibility. 

I look at it this way (very rough stuff)... Performance Management is:

Let's remember who's in charge - we are - not the technology.