The Performance Appraisal And Compensation System Study For The Research Staff Of The National Defense Research Unit

The performance appraisal and compensation system study for the employees of the National Defense Research Unit has always been a complicated issue. The complexity associated with the nature of National Defense Research, such as uncertainty, risk, long time span, and team cooperation, all make it difficult to quantify the performance of research staff. Due to the old human resource management concept from the planned economy era, the National Defense Research Unit is short of an effective, scientific, and reasonable system for Performance appraisal and compensation package. As a result, we have seen high turnover rate in the National Defense Research Unit in the past few years. Therefore, how to establish a highly effective and efficient Performance appraisal process and related compensation package has been put into the priority agenda of the Human Resource Department of the National Defense Research Unit. This task is necessary to maximize research staff's employee moral and satisfaction, keep them motivated, and minimize the salary and benefit cost. The truth is, the only way to make it happen is to start from reality of the National Defense Research Unit, face the problems, and utilize a systematic and reasonable methodology. In the following thesis, we used the research staff Performance appraisal and compensation system of Institution "G"as the background. We incorporated the theories and concepts of modern human resource management, project management, and management psychology. We analyzed the pros and cons of various Performance appraisal methods and concluded that the Performance appraisal system should be practical, quantifiable, focused on both means and ends, and fair. We described the structure and functions of the compensation system, and emphasized that the compensation package should obey the principles of fairness, motivation, economy, competition, and compliance with rules and regulations. The major viewpoints of the following thesis are: 1) Pointed out the weaknesses of the current Performance appraisal and compensation system of the National Defense Research Unit through a thorough analysis. Laid out the various factors in Performance appraisal process and chose the most matching method for the research staff:performance based compensation system. 2) With consideration of the unique nature of National Defense Research, we came up with a reasonable Performance appraisal model and grading system by using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). 3) Due to the common practice of team project in research field, we created a job cost budget model to budget the salary cost allocation of each project.