Productivity and Profitability of the People Plus Company - Essay Example

PEOPLE PLUS INCORPORATION By Location Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………...……3 Analysis…………………………………………………………………………………………..3 Explain why Sam and other staff may have become demotivated given the recent changes (you should make specific reference to the changes staff have experienced to their psychological contract)……………………………………………………………………………………..........3 It is clear that there are some problems with the new performance-related pay system. Identify and discuss how problems with target setting and measuring individuals’ performance could be overcome…………………………………………………………………………………............6 Set Effective Goals…………………………………………………………………………….…6 Start with Performance Planning………………………………………………………………....7 Ensure a Process that is Ongoing and Improve Productivity………………………………….....7 Gathering information from different sources and rewards……………………………...............8 Matching the target measures with the Organizational Context………………………………....9 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………..9 Introduction People Plus is one of the leading recruitment firms for employers and people seeking employment. The company opened its doors in 1990 by the founder Harriet Henley. The company has grown and had over two thousand staff members. It has opened two hundred offices all over the UK. The People Plus clients get access to the largest database in the United Kingdom for the candidates from the company. The company has experienced financial losses just like many other companies. The employees are not happy, by the way, the company treats them after the financial loss experience. The article will talk about the employees’ complaints and how to overcome the financial problems in the future. Analysis a) Explain why Sam and other staff may have become demotivated given the recent changes (you should make specific reference to the changes staff have experienced to their psychological contract). The psychological contracts are about reciprocal obligations made between employees and the organizations about the kind of work they are to do and how best to perform their duties. The contract is important as it lays a foundation for the relationship between the employers and employees. The various trends in different organizations; downsizing, restructuring, an increase in the temporary worker recruitment in the organizations are impacting negatively on the employees of the companies (Hemanth and Shruthi 2012). For instance, the changes People Plus has in their organization had a negative effect on Sam and the other staff members. There was reassignment of the staff members’ jobs to different people. The shuffle in the job description did not sit well with the staff. It is because the change means the work description you have perfected has another person do it, and you get reassigned to a new job. It means that the staff members have to undergo training in the new job description assigned to them. Training takes a while, and it becomes difficult to get new clients in a different section of the job. The current trend makes it unclear what the staff members and the employers owe one another. The traditional job security that has always been there feeling threatened by the changes. There can be damage to steady rewards for loyalty to the organization, and hard work ceases to exist (Rousseau 2001). The staff members at People Plus get partially paid through the performance related payment scheme. It means that the more clients you bring, the larger your pay. In other words, you get paid by commission. The reward package of the employees has also had many changes as one gets rewards based on the number of good candidates you can take to the clients organizations (Woodside 2001). Sam like all the other employees feels vulnerable in their jobs despite working for the company for the past nine years. The state of uncertainty and turbulence in the organization has made it difficult for the company to fulfill all its mandatory obligations to the clients and the employees. The result of such uncertainty makes the employees feel that the terms of their psychological contracts have not been fulfilled by the organization. Studies from samples of graduates have found that 55% of MBA graduates feel and believe that the organizations owners have broken their psychological contracts. The staff members become demotivated because they feel the company does not give them enough respect as employees (Nadin and Cassell 2007). Sam feels he cannot contribute to the organization in a way to add value. The changes have taken over his role and duties, and this makes him feel insecure towards his job. The patterns of behavior that encouraged the staff members and the organization’s relationship have a large blow. The workers get threatened by the organization regarding the amount of work and effort they put towards the organization. Sam had to increase his performance or else he will lose his job to the people who are doing better than him. The workers were shocked as their company did not meet their expectations and never before did they face the same kind of threats from the company. The company’s code of conduct should be the source of the changes in the company to ensure respect across all borders for both employees and employers. A violation of the psychological contract occurs when one member of the contract relationship feels the other person has not met his/her obligation. The contracts initially emerge under assumptions of fair dealings and good faith of both the parties. There should be maintenance of the promises made by both parties, and violation of the promises leads to serious consequences for those that did not keep their promise (King 2004). A worker like Sam may decide to resign from their duties instead of being treated unfairly in the workplace. The new payment system at People Plus is unfair as one of the workers complaints. Jenny says the target that the company has set for them is too high to be achievable. The conditions in the work environment are not conducive as the workers are still under training for their new roles. The targets the employees have are therefore, unreasonable to the kind of experience they have regarding the new system and the service. The broken promises the organization had given the staff members before the new service system results in anger and has the trust of employees to employers eroded. The employees reacted to the violation of the contract in the right way. They voiced their concerns to Harriet Henley, the owner of the firm. The result of the changes feels like the company is setting up the staff members for failure. The service damages the self-esteem of the employees and may result in degrading (Grimmer and Oddy 2007). The company instead of recording financial gains from the changes may record deeper losses than the ones experienced before. The employer and the employee should both look for a way to work together to ensure solving of the vital issues and look for ways to maximize company’s profits. b) It is clear that there are some problems with the new performance-related pay system. Identify and discuss how problems with target setting and measuring individuals’ performance could be overcome. Set Effective Goals The role of performance management and performance improvement at the workplace is common at different firms. The organization needs to be more effective and efficient, hence the targeting of individual performance at the People Plus Inc. The business strategy requires the employees to do more with the fewer resources in order to remain competitive in the market. There has been an emergence of many job seekers firms in the United Kingdom since the inception of the People Plus Company. The company has many obstacles to implementing the new system as it is affecting the trust and loyalty of the employees. There should, therefore, be several ways to ensure both the employer and employee are happy. The appraisals should contain a summary of the ongoing dialog to show that it has proper construction (Kellen 2003). People Plus should set its goals effectively. The goals should directly lead to the achievement of the business strategy and not to harm the employees. The goals the company set should be realistic when it comes to execution. The employees, i.e. Sam and Jenny are complaining of being given impossible targets to reach, according to the changes in the system. The employer should review the goals and adjust them to suit everyone’s needs. A happy employee equals happy returns thus maximum profit. Start with Performance Planning The company should first have performance planning before implementation. The planning involves communicating the objectives to the employee and setting actionable plan that will be used to guide the employees in achieving the company’s goal. It is a collaborative move that involves the employer and the employee. The employer will have some non-negotiable elements that are supposed to be reasonable in a working environment. The employee should have the capacity to achieve the long term and short term goals set by the employer after the negotiations. The training of the old employees to adapt to the new system was a great idea that would make People Plus remains in the competitive market. The managers, however, should let the employees finish their training before getting assigned new jobs (Berman 2002). It would ensure that the employee has full knowledge of how to get new clients and the best job seekers for the clients. Proper performance planning ensures the employee has no excuse if she/he fails to meet a reasonable target. The managers should then be able to monitor the progress of the employee as they adapt to using the new system. The performance planning should be the reference document when the managers monitor the employee’s individual progress (Eckerson 2002). The employer should be ready to change the goals, reevaluate and reassess the training if the plan does not work over time. Ensure a Process that is Ongoing and Improve Productivity The process of goal setting, performance monitoring and planning, and the feedback from the employees is all an ongoing process. The process should be continuous and ongoing for effective results. The process should support performance appraisal that then supports the process that is related to learning, development and rewards for the employees. The evaluation process and the changes to the system should be continuous to ensure flexible changes in the performance plan (Frigo 2002). Harriet Henley should have regular goal tracking as it will provide her with feedback regarding the employee’s performance. In this way, she would have been well placed to tackle the contingencies and obstacles from her employees. The employees would then discuss their problems and their needs with Henley to be able to come up with adjustments to the original performance plan. The staff often experiences many roadblocks that Henley is not able to see. The goal tracking will ensure she gets to learn about the road blocks the staff members’ experience. Gathering information from different sources and rewards Getting information from various and different sources ensures all the factors regarding performance appraisal and objectivity should have consideration. The sales report and data from the staff members are a great way to see how individual employees are doing their job. Other helpful information includes finding out from different employees the satisfaction of their jobs (Meyer 2002). The staff members at People Plus complain about the new payment system. The employees feel the system is unfair, and they should look at it for improvement. The rewards the employees get a good job have also been affected by the new system. The managers should be able to discuss the concerns of the employees and adjust the system where it is genuinely hurting the employees. The performance of the employees to improve the company’s productivity depends on the rewards the employees get after doing a job properly. The management system should have a sound performance that ensures the process of giving rewards is effective. Consistency in the organization is also important as it ensures a sense of fairness and increases the employees’ job satisfaction significantly. If one of the employees in a department is identified and awarded because of a job well done, then the rest of the employees will strive to increase their sales. They will also do this to get an award also and the rewards from the award. Matching the target measures with the Organizational Context The measures the organization comes up with should be easy for the employees to understand. A simple plan and measure will prove effective as the employees take a short time training on the system and embark on implementing the measures. The measures should also have a visual impact so that the staff members get to understand the need for the change in the organization (Kahneman and Tversky 2000). People Plus could have explained to the staff members the need for implementing the measures as this would make them accept the changes easily. The company should focus on improvement of their systems and style rather than variance. Improving the system is better than changing up the whole system that confuses the staff members. It will be able to increase productivity, thus increase profitability of People Plus. Conclusion The measures People Plus took to increase productivity and profitability for the company were necessary due to the stiff competition from other companies. The organization, however, did not execute the whole system properly as the staff members were left out in decision making about the company growth. Drastic change in how the staff members work on can lead to bad consequences for the employees as well as the company. The company should, therefore, involve their staff members before making a drastic change that would change their lives. References Berman, E 2002, How Useful Is Performance Measurement. Public Performance & Management Review, Vol. 25 No. 4. Eckerson, WW 2002, Data Quality and The Bottom Line, The Data Warehouse Institute, New York. Frigo, M 2002, Strategy, Business Execution and Performance Measures. Strategic Finance. 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