The Experience of Performance Appraisal for Ethnic Minority Employees in UK Organisations

This thesis examines the performance appraisal for ethnic minority employees through their lived experiences in UK organisations. A theoretical framework of the soft model of HRM and the four goals of Guest Model of HRM: Commitment, Integration, Flexibility and Adaptability, and Quality were adopted for the study. The regimes of inequality were used as a conceptual framework in relation to the hard model of HRM. A snowball sampling method was adopted to reach the participants. The data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews. Hermeneutic phenomenology and a thick description of analysis were adopted to produce a rich textual description of the fifteen respondents. Data were analysed by using a Heuristic method of analysis. The findings reveal that some of the participants have experienced fairness and transparency in the process of their performance appraisal, similar to the soft HRM. However, the findings also indicate that most of the participants perceive that the malpractice and manipulation of the process of performance appraisal result from the power of whiteness (white line managers). The findings further evidence that the white employees are given full support by their white line managers such as training, support, a good rating in their performance appraisal and promotion, thereby taking advantage of the soft model of HRM. Rhetorically, the process, system and practice of performance appraisal are a soft approach to white employees; in reality, it is a hard approach to the ethnic minority employees in UK organisations. It is important to expose the gap between rhetoric and reality of PA that experienced by EME so that the organisations in the UK can review their human resource functions and strategies effectively. As a result, all employees irrespective of their ethnic background need to feel fair in the process of the performance management life cycle. The result of this research supports the findings of Trust et al. (1997) and Gill (1999) that the initiatives of organisations initially seems to be soft when they are scrutinised, they are a hard approach to HRM. This research identified the need that addresses the lived experience of ethnic minority employees working in UK organisations concerning performance appraisal.