Developing Management Skills - Example

First and Memo to senior management Senior management HR practitioner Recommendation In the modern world of business, more and more companies recognize that well- trained and developed workforce is the key to the organizational success. For that purpose businesses analyze the importance of numerous job positions, conduct planning of the needs in recruiting and selecting of the right people on the right places. Moreover, for the employees that are hired, numerous training and development opportunities are created. All these activities are the integral part of creating the most effective workforce which is able to ensure the organization its business well- being and achievement of long-term goals and objectives. Here a well- established human resource management affects every aspect of such workforce managing employees and their performance and handling labor relations between the employees and employer that let both to achieve the biggest outcome for the organization in general. The concept of HRM itself refers to the organizational ability to use its employees as the resource for development and implementing its business ideas. Staff here means the economic value for the organization and thus it is provided with the training, experience, it is judged and evaluated. However, since employees are the resources for businesses, if some of them are not exceeding the organizational expectations, they are simply changed into other resources. This is how each organization programs itself for success and this is now it avoids failure. HRM with all its practices and tools makes it possible for the organization to have sustainable competitive advantage for creating employee engagement (Steen, Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, & Wright, 2009). As one can notice, HRM deals with the human capital, the employees and their behavior that finally influences the overall organizational performance. Effective HRM is able to form the high- performance work system that ensures organization its competitive advantage by using technology, organizational structure and people. HRM practices include employees’ feedback, which help them and the organization to evaluate success and achievements. However, with the presence of all of the opportunities that an organization can give the employee, it does not guarantee that all employees would have excellent performance of their job duties. While poor performance is observed, it requires immediate actions as to solving such issues with the problematic employees. Along with the wide range of responsibilities that HR Departments have, they integrate performance measures that enable the organization to see how well employees contribute the overall business strategy. Whether employees are not succeeding to establish a good performance at their job, HR specialists should be able to determine why such bad performance occurred. One of such reasons is that employee overrates one’s abilities with the real tasks. Moreover, the employees may not be suited for the specific job position. In addition, there is a non-work related problem that occurs and distracts employee from doing a job well. HR professionals know as nobody else that organizational human capital is the most valuable asset for each company. Therefore, positive impact of employees who present high performance at work guarantees business’s success. The burden of people performing their activities below rates negatively influences the organizational image. Such negative effect touches hours spent in correcting mistakes, resources and funds wasted for the unproductive performance, besides HR specialists claim on the costs spent on recruiting and train replacement staff. Finally, the underperformance of employees, the wrong people at jobs and costs associated with that- the under-fund proactive investments and over-fund reactive investments, result largely the ability of the organization to achieve its business success. A research conducted in U.S. proved every year companies spend vast sums of money and working hours that are lost as a result of poor performance of certain employees. Thus, the poor people management is one of the hidden costs across organizations. If to count in the money equivalent, this sum is about hundred billion dollars a year that is related to the poor hiring and people management practices (Karsh, n.d.). It is also estimated that it takes approximately eight months to attain required level of the work performance of an employee from the moment one is assigned to the special position. Further about twenty-three percent of employees consider that their colleagues are incompetent bringing certain burden to the team and entire organizational departments. Another statistics say that U.S. managers waste about a month in a year with the underperformance and managing employees with bad performance. It is the real problem as the world merges into a global economy, paying more and more attention to the importance of selection of proper human capital that is key driver of organizational profit and innovation. Beside cost effectiveness of each employee, HR managers are also concerned by the organizational flexibility and social legitimacy and the employment citizenship. Such critical goal as company’s flexibility is defined through the capacity of changes to which employees are able to adapt. Here different complications may occur while employees are involved into different shifts and fluctuations in production output. Besides, different job rotations, engagement in teamwork of those employees who used to work alone, and also job enlargement can cause decrease of good performance level of certain employees. In addition, social legitimacy as one of the HR goals also impacts the organizational image. While employees are not customer oriented or are not trusted by the other stakeholders, they create great disadvantage for the businesses. There is certain relationship between HR practices, outcomes and critical goals that all together influence the performance of the organization. The level of individual employee, such as education level, job experience along with the organizational level such as capital intensity and sector influence the organizational performance, which is profit of the company, its market value and share, productivity and thus HRM activities and outcomes (Human Resource Management and Performance: Adding Value through People , 2010). To ensure that employees’ activities and results meet achieving of the key objectives of the organization, HR specialists use numerous approaches. Thus, performance appraisal allows them to measure specified area of each individual performance. If any problems within such process occur, the task of HR departments is to identify the problem and find the appropriate solution to it. There are also basic approaches to performance management that include comparative, competency, behavioral and results. While all employees are aimed to meet the same standard or achieve the same goals of the organization, there is a point in comparing one individual’s performance with the performance of other staff. Besides, there are areas of performance that are important to most positions. They are the client service, level of communication and cooperation, professionalism and creativity in solving problems, interpersonal skills and teamwork. One of the main ways to increase the competency-based approach to employees’ management is to examine and assess their professional behaviors. Critical- incident method is the best used approach that enables managers to record examples of employees’ behaving that evidence one’s effective or ineffective performance (Steen, Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart & Wright, 2009). The vivid example of such method is the mediocre performance and a recurring attendance of certain employees within the organization. This incident provides evidence of the employee is aware of the code of conduct within the company and also knows that such attitude to work and performance will negatively affect the organization in general. While manager is able to record certain behavior, it is also possible to further provide the feedback to the employee about one’s performance. Avoiding of incidents that may harm the company’s image of organization is the main priority of HR managers. Such incidents may reoccur and may be supported by other employees that is why they should be managed and controlled. While thinking about the compassionate toward the employee that has poor performance, it is not the best way to deal with staff, because personal problems will appear at work environment over and over (Clark, n.d.). Fixing poor performance is the first step of improving the problematic situation which HR specialists recommend to do. It is also known that performance is composed of the individual’s ability and motivation to make certain work. While ability is the person’s aptitude along with the resources of the organization, motivation is one’s desire. It is also estimated, that employees with the performance ability of seventy-five percent but motivation in hundred percent are able to show the above-average performance. So when the manager observes the decreased level of performance in one of the employees, it is vital to understand what moves such changes. With the low percentage of ability it is impossible to achieve the type of performance that organization expects from the employee. That is why, there are certain ways out that help the organization to increase the ability. They are the resupply, retrain, refit, reassign and release (Whetten & Cameron, 2011). While the resupply is an effective way in addressing performance, it is associated with the willing to make changes to members of organization. Retraining of employees also helps to enhance their performance by exploring additional skills and abilities. Whether these measures are ineffective, the organization may consider the employees for another position with the different combinations of tasks and abilities. The goal of such step is usually retaining of the employee in order to meet the organizational needs. Reassignment is also a useful tool in changing the situation with the poor performance. One can lack the appropriate abilities to hold certain position and thus the performance is also at low level. However, with the change of organizational position, it is possible to enhance one’s performance. Whether lack of ability is still present, it is better let the employee go or release one from the certain position. However, different negative consequences may occur in the releasing process. Other members of the team may start work harder in order to carry the employee with poor performance. Besides, if no actions to avoid mediocre behavior are done, other employees may think that such performance is acceptable in the organization. For the organization it is better to use precious time and resources for other purposes and people; that is why releasing can be the inescapable moment. When the organization retains employees with poor performance, it risks to meet the other staff wants to obtain the same preferences, because their performance as they seem is much better. Besides, there are certain ethical concerns that may arise while the releasing of the employees. For example, when the employee performs one’s duties and responsibilities below the organizational expectations, however, the circumstance that led to such inappropriate behavior seem reasonable, it is up to the organization and its HR department to think over the situation that occurred and make the decision in terms of ethics. While it refers to such principles as to what is right and wrong, business decisions, including HRM decisions, should also be ethical. When incident with the mediocre performance problem occurs because of the employee’s unreliable child-care situation, the supervisor together with the HR manager should think over the ways how to solve such problem without breaking any ethical principles but with the advantage to the organization. Here the employee should be informed that notwithstanding the situation, the organization expects for another results. Besides, the performance that employee displays, decreases the level of activities of other staff, which negatively influences the organization activities. Whether the situation reoccurs, the manager should demonstrate the negative signals of such behavior and let the employee know that no uncertainty is acceptable. The law is clear and it states that an employee can be released if one’s performance does not meet the expectations of the organization. Here the supervisor should be specific about the concrete incidents and days when the employee broke the regulations of the organization, remind that such inappropriate behavior was pointed out previously and its regular reoccurrence puts certain risk at the company’s image and performance of other employees as well. The member of the organization should also emphasize that customers are as valuable for the business as its employees and treating all at the highest level is the main prerogative of the organization and is its one of the main principles. For the company such breaking of rules worsens relationship with the loyal customers and creates certain barrier for obtaining the new. Besides, mediocre performance influences the quality of work of the employee, as there are personal distractions and inability to focus on the given tasks at work. The regular attendance problem creates problems with the lack of necessary information that is needed. In such case not only the employee is embarrassed with the absence of certain information, but one creates an image that the company also does not know what it follows and how conducts its business. Regular feedback from the managers and colleagues give the opportunity to see how the employee shows oneself. If problems with attendance and inappropriate behavior are often, these are the reasons to release the employee. Manager or the specialist of HR department should be truthful with the employee, stating that the main reason for releasing is not the result of the unreliable child-care situation, but because employee has failed to display good performance level in the organization. For proving these words and if a company has written employment policy, the HR practitioner should focus employee’s attention on the termination procedures and that each member of the organization should follow them consistently. It is also a good tone to offer a severance package to the employee, which is usually releasing any claims that employees can have against the organization. Some companies prepare termination letters that allow the employee to think through what are the reasons for releasing. The process of terminating is a complicated one, however, when well organized and the employee understands all the terms and conditions, the parties will obtain what each wants. For the organization in the modern life it is vital to be achievement-oriented thus to be able to compete among the other businesses. Since people are the main means by which the companies reach its profit and well-being, these resources should be selected properly and retained if they meet the expectations of the organizations. Otherwise, poor performance will produce poor productivity of the business. Works cited Clark, N., n.d., Problem Management Personal Problems at Work, Available from http://www.performance-management-made-easy.com/problem-management.html Karsh, L., n.d.,The hidden costs of poor people management, The Inc., Available from http://www.inc.com/articles/2004/12/karsh.html Steen, S., Noe, R., Hollenbeck, J., Gerhart, B. & Wright, P. 2009, Human Resource Management, Second Canadian Edition Whetten, D. & Cameron, K., 2011, Developing Management Skills, 8th Edition, Pearson Education, Inc Read More