Job Description of a Retail Sales Associate and Issues Influencing Performance Management System - Case Study Example

Performance Management Performance Management The job of a retail sales associate The candidate retail sales associate needs to exude patience in order to handle customers of different types from the peaceful to the difficult. This should go together with friendliness and politeness because the associate will be the first contact point with the customers of the business. An outgoing personality is necessary have for a successful retail sales associate because they need to be easy in establishing helping relationships with customers. The associate must have adequate knowledge of the business’ products including their prices, features, the company’s policy and warranty services. There is a need for the associate to be able to work under pressure in order to thrive in busy seasons (Holloway, 2009). Computational skills are indispensable in a successful retail sales associate because he or she will need to keep books of purchases, receive and process both cash and credit payments. The associate should be able to work well in teams linking their activities with those of their colleagues because failure in one area will affect the outcome of the whole sales team. Exemplary interpersonal skills are needed for retail sales associates to be able to attend to all the needs of the customer. The retail sales associate should recognize security risks in the workplace and respond appropriately. Whereas experience is not necessary, a competent associate should be a holder of at least a high school diploma (Pollitt, 2006). Organizational behavior modification plan Professionalism is one of the key behaviors required for successful job performance as a retail sales associate and that will be paramount in this organizational behavior modification plan. Since the associate develops relationships with customers in order to serve them well, it is easy to lose focus of their work and professionalism would help them stay focused. Professionalism helps a sales associate attend to his or her work duties without interference from personal life. To instigate professionalism, a dressing code will be established and sales associate-customers will be moderated. Professionalism benefits the organization by enhancing individual and organizational performance. Negative attitudes and frequent tardiness are some of the things that can stifle professionalism. Compliance will be rewarded with positive comments and the retail-sales-associate-of-the-year award (Pollitt, 2013). Accountability is the second key behavior in this performance management system and that enhances the success of a retail sales associate. Accountable retail sales associates will complete the tasks assigned to them and be present for their proper shifts. The benefits that come with retail sales associates seasoned with accountability are timely delivery of services and consistently good performance. Lack of clarity of organizational or team goals and monitoring brings unaccountability. This plan will instigate accountability by articulating organizational and team goals, introducing attendance roll calls and quarterly monitoring (Thorpe & Beasley, 2008). Innovation is a key behavior that would be desirable in a retail sales associate. It entails sales associates varying their approach to sales and bringing new ideas in order to suit a situation. Innovation enhances the chances of success for a business strategy. Another benefit that accrues from innovation is cutting on the costs that would be needed in overhauling a business strategy. Fear and totalitarian leadership are the things that thwart innovation. This plan will inculcate innovation by promoting the participation of employees in goal setting and in the development of business strategies (Holloway, 2009). Ways of measuring whether current employees exhibit the key job performance behaviors Results-based approach Results-based approach is one of the ways that can be used to measure whether employees exhibit the key job performance behaviors. The approach will include documenting both the intended and unintended results of a sales activity. For example, it can be decided the measurement be done on a new product that is selling in the retail store for the first time. Acceptability by customers, good sales, and profit margins are some of intended results while unintended outcomes would include risks associated with the inappropriate use of the product and deterioration in the sales volume of the product’s alternatives. The best way to apply the approach would be the logic model that will seek for a connection between inputs, activities and outcomes of the sale of the product (Pollitt, 2006). Results-based approach analysis will involve the checking and crosschecking whether there is a logical flow between the activities that the retail sales associates take and the outcomes at the end of the set time. A succinct narrative of all the detected relationships with evidence-based examples should follow the analysis. The outcomes can further be divided into ultimate, intermediate and immediate. Desirable outcomes will indicate that incumbent retail sales associates have the key job performance behaviors while undesirable ones will indicate the lack of these behaviors (Pollitt, 2013). Task-based approach This approach measures whether retail sales associates have key job performance behaviors using different aspects of the tasks in which they engage. The nature of the task can be one of the helpful aspects in this measurement. Simplicity and complexity are possible dimensions of the nature of a task. The number of steps and level of details involved in a task can tell the simplicity or complexity of a task. Time taken to complete a task is another useful dimension because some tasks take longer than others do. Rating the time it takes a sales associate to finish a task can tell something about his or her job performance behaviors. The totality of the features of the deliverable of a certain task is an important aspect in measuring whether a retail sales associate has key job performance behaviors. The extent to which a sales associate fulfils the features of a task deliverable shows the presence or absence of the job performance behaviors (Thorpe & Beasley, 2008). Methods of informing employees of the new performance standard Broadcasting the new performance standards through different media is one of the methods through which retail sales associates can be informed of the new performance standards. Examples of the media that can be used to broadcast the new performance standards include posters and the company website. Broadcasting the new performance standards through such media is advantageous in the sense that it reaches to many people and can be used for future reference. A setback with this method is the difficulty of establishing how many people get the information (Holloway, 2009). Using departmental meetings to pass across the information about new performance standards is a viable method. Departmental heads can be used to inform the message and probably give feedback to the leadership in higher ranks. This method is effective in the sense that it can help record the number of persons who have heard the information by taking note of the employees attending the meetings. This would provide a basis for holding employees accountable to the reasons why they flout the standards (Pollitt, 2006). Methods of providing feedback to employees Reports are one of the methods that would help provide feedback to employees. Every time a survey is conducted in the organization, it is good to ensure that employees are served with the outcomes of this survey. Besides surveys, evaluation and departmental performance appraisal can help generate reports. Publishing these reports and disseminating them to employees provides employees with a chance to ascertain their progress. Reports should be released quarterly in order to help employees stay continually informed of their status and that of the organization (Pollitt, 2013). Direct contact through email, telephone, and face-to-face meeting is the other method of providing feedback to employees. This can be an effective method as the company leader can go through the individual items of concern with an employee seeking an explanation of the incumbent status (Thorpe & Beasley, 2008). Actions company leaders should take to reinforce positive employee behaviors Giving benefits helps in positively reinforcing desirable employee behaviors. This is because it makes the employee feel rewarded and the prospective of getting such benefits again makes employees uphold the behaviors. Benefits motivate employees to exude desirable behaviors because they supplement employees’ basic earnings. It is important to choose a favorable schedule in which to use benefits as a positive reinforcement in order to enhance their effectiveness (Holloway, 2009). Consistent and appropriate use of word of mouth is another action that company leaders should use to reinforce desirable employee behaviors. Words of appreciation serve to boost the self-esteem of employees making them aspire to exude the rewarded behavior more. Company leaders can also use word of mouth to challenge employees to add more effort in what they do. For example, it would be prudent for a company leader to recognize the way an employee collaborates with another in carrying out a particular task. This can make the employees to cement their collaboration (Pollitt, 2006). Legal and ethical issues that could potentially influence the performance management system Discrimination is both a legal and ethical issue that can affect the performance management system. It is illegal for a performance management system to show bias against certain employees on any grounds. For example, it is discriminatory for a performance management system to apply the concepts of physical capability or incapability on women in a manner that disfavors them or that attacks their esteem. Fair warning is the other legal and ethical element crucial to a performance management system. For example, a company can be sued for firing an employee whose performance measurement results are negative without giving them a warning (Pollitt, 2013). Finally, errors in staff measurement are the third ethical and legal issue that if not checked, can affect a performance management system. Managers act on the outcomes of a staff performance measurement by either promoting or demoting employees (Holloway, 2009). It would be unethical and illegal, for example, to demote an employee based on the results of an evaluation that either used the wrong tool or the tool was administered wrongly. References Holloway, J. (2009). Performance management from multiple perspectives; taking stock. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 58(4): 391 – 399. Politt, C. (2013). The logics of performance management. Evaluation, 19(4): 346 – 363. Pollitt, C. (2006). Performance management in Practice: a comparative study of executive agencies. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 16(1): 25 – 44. Thorpe, R. & Beasley, T. (2008). The characteristics of performance management research – implications and challenges. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 53(4): 334 – 344. Read More