Benefits of the Current Performance Management - Example

TOPIC: Performance Management (NAME) (COURSE NAME) (INSTITUTIONS NAME) 10 MACRH 2009 Contents Introduction 3 Scope 3 Benefits of the current Performance Management framework 4 Organization 4 Planning and implementation 5 Auditing 5 Implementation of Framework 6 Measuring Performance 6 Review Performance 7 Background 7 ULMS Bikes 7 Employee performance management at the Firm 8 Effect of Payment incentive as a strategy in Staff Performance at ULMS Bike 9 Advantages of Payment Incentive strategy on Performance 9 Disadvantages 10 Conclusion 11 Drivers and enablers behind the widespread adoption of flexible working practices 12 Atkinson Model of a flexible firm. 14 Implications for people resourcing policy and practice in accommodating such flexible working arrangements 15 Advantages 18 Disadvantages 19 Challenges and dilemmas faced by people resourcing and HR staff as well as the line managers 19 Conclusion 22 Introduction Performance Management comprises of activities and strategies undertaken by development and planning professionals that can cover the range of activities, approaches and methods which are used by the employers and supervisor in human resource organization and management. All this strategies have been formulated to enable them achieve their key goals and objectives by ensuring that staff perform and carry their duties in ways that is expected by them. Performance is a key objective of people resourcing and this starts from where the achievement of staffing objectives ends. The aim of performance management strategies in people resourcing is to ensure that once the workforce is assembled, chances of absenteeism are minimized and that the workforce is wiling and well motivated to carry out tasks to their best of ability. Hence, to achieve the above objective, there is need to be flexible in monitoring both group and individual performance and then undertake the development by which individual and group performance can be achieved (Becker and Joroff, 1995). Scope: This paper is going to deal with two organizations ( One public and the other private) both based in the United Kingdom. The first organization will be Merseyside Fire & Rescue services which is a public organization. The second organization is ULMS Bikes, which is private. We are going to analyze the performance management strategies that they have implemented. This will also include the benefits as well as the drawbacks associated with the strategies in place. Merseyside Fire & Rescue services has come up with framework, ?HSG 65 framework? which controls and dictates the level of performance expected from its staff. Policies that have been formulated by this organization are within the legal framework of the government, society and stakeholders involved in the entire process of formulation and implementation. Within the UK laws and regulations, it is required for all IRMP to follow provisions that are provided, a factor that has been embraced by Merseyside Fire and Rescue department for service plan 2009-2012. (Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service, 2010). Generally, the framework policy plan encompasses both objectives, purposes and aims through maximisation of human resource to ensure the county and entire UK is safe while risks been minimised. Thus, Merseyside Fire and Rescue policy incorporates a performance management strategy that seek to add value for money and other fundamentals that champion environmental protection, risk assessment, incident reduction strategies. Generally, Merseyside Fire and Rescue ensures that the policies formulated and implemented champions, prevents, reduction, preparedness and rehabilitation of emergencies by ensuring that the staff perform as expected. (Merseyside Fire & Rescue, 2010). Benefits of the current Performance Management framework Organization: It is a common phenomenon for organizations to employ diverse employees with different backgrounds in terms of culture and other human factors. Hence, control measures should be in places that ensure these diverseness is championed, and Merseyside Fire and Rescue has ensured that this remains a fundamental requirement of its performance management strategy. Merseyside Fire and Rescue has formulated effective framework that champions contribution of different stakeholders (Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service, 2010). For example, Merseyside Fire and Rescue encourage involvement and participation of communities in championing security and safeness of the environment both socially and economically. This goes hand in hand with increasing the staff performance as it ensures that organizational requirements are effectively achieved. The organization has encouraged effective communication, provision of appropriate and required resources among staff, and ensured that the staffs are competent on what they are doing. Through this approach, Merseyside Fire and Rescue has continuously fulfilled safety and security requirements of the community and the nation at large. Planning and implementation Planning and implementing measure is a process that ensures the formulation system and its provisions can be fulfilled. The performance strategy in place incorporates and enables planning and implementation measurement which in turn champion risk assessment. Risk assessment is a fundamental function of a fire and rescue department, an aim that Merseyside Fire and Rescue has effectively fulfilled since its inception. Risk assessments have ensured that appropriate strategies and approaches have been involved in defining organizational objectives. Merseyside Fire and Rescue objective that encourages safety and health provides a means in which the society and all stakeholders involved to appreciate the contribution of the organization. The performance framework adopted by the organization ensures that the organization operates optimally, Merseyside Fire and Rescue encourages single equalities scheme, champions the fundamentals of National Fire & Rescue Equality & Diversity Strategy, and their specific contribution of diversity in the workplace is provided by Equality & Diversity Actions 2009/10 (Merseyside Fire & Rescue, 2010). Auditing The performance strategy in place enables auditing which is important to determine the success of each quality assurance initiative. Auditing ensures that specific provisions in the national framework are achieved and determining the appropriate strategies that will improve on these crucial benefits (Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service, 2010). Generally, auditing can be seen in terms of determining where Merseyside Fire and Rescue went wrong, shortcomings of policies and regulations, accomplishments and areas of improvement, and strategies that will ensure the shortcomings are corrected (Merseyside Fire & Rescue, 2010). Implementation of Framework Measuring Performance For any organization to succeed, it is crucial to ensure the performance accomplished and been plotted should be measured. This means that the measuring performance strategies should incorporate monitoring and corrective measures that ensures the organization achieves its objectives. Merseyside Fire and Rescue department has put in place different strategies that provide means for measuring performance and accomplishments within the organization (Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service, 2010). Measuring performance strategy that has been employed by Merseyside Fire and Rescue department brings into consideration improvement of health and safety measures, monitoring of distress calls, employees roles and responsibilities, summary of current accomplishments, comparing current and past accomplishments, and number of successful distress calls that have been addressed. Measuring the performance of employees/staff provides a means of assisting them to improve in their efficiency such as introducing training programs, and the measures also determines the strategies that will be used to recognize and award some of the staff members. In the case of community regarding the education provided, measuring performance strategy determines the type of distress calls, authenticity of these distress calls, nature of the distress calls, and general impact of these distress calls towards organizational resources (Merseyside Fire & Rescue, 2010). Generally, the goal of an organization is to ensure and champion the safety and security of the community, and Merseyside Fire and Rescue has championed this through formulating and implementing measuring performance strategies that ensures all resources of the organization plus the stakeholders are geared towards achieving objectives of the organization. Moreover, the outcome of performance measures has ensured that organizations can compare development and effectiveness of the organization through comparing past accomplishments and current accomplishments. Additionally, measuring performance determines whether the objectives in risk assessment are effectively addressed (Communities and Local Government, 2008). Review Performance Review performance is an important credential in Merseyside Fire and Rescue since saw information from measuring performance cannot be effectively utilized by staff or people who do not have analysis skills. Merseyside Fire and Rescue understands that the staff, community and stakeholders have different analytical capabilities, and thus Merseyside Fire and Rescue usually review performance with the help of stakeholders. The review process determines whether the objectives of different organizational frameworks have been achieved, determining next steps, and formulating appropriate strategies to mitigate the shortcomings of current strategies. Thus, the review of performance is crucial for Merseyside Fire and Rescue and they have ensured that it is part of the organizational requirements and accomplishments (Merseyside Fire & Rescue, 2010). The second organization that we are going to analyze is ULMS bike. It is a private organization. Background ULMS Bikes ULMS BIKE is a manufacturing company dealing with the assembly of a variety of bikes, including racing bikes, mountain bikes, children bikes. This organization has several departments and all are working for the overall objective producing the best products in this category. ULMS BIKE has several departments; Accounting, marketing, HRM, electrical engineering and design, Sales, warehousing, manufacturing and logistics & dispatch. Each of these departments performs some procedures and processes that will serve the other department and overall functioning of the company. Departments are the components that will jointly and interactively work together to achieve the overall goal of the company. ULMS BIKE as an organization has the suppliers, airport and the city as its environment. It interacts with the environment and therefore is an open system. The environment of provides substantial resource to ULMS BIKE ; human resource, raw materials and a market for ULMS BIKE product hence it also very important that ULMS BIKE appreciates it Employee performance management at the Firm The performance strategy at ULMS Bike organization incorporates programs and operations which are highly dependent on the employee performance. However, to determine the individual performance with respect to the organizations set goals, the performance management strategies that have been implemented help to distinguish the low performers from the high performers. Performance management of the employees is a practice that encompasses communication, goal alignment, continuous feedback and education, which leads to the performance grading and recognition (Wilkinson, 1988). In the organization or institution, recognition plays an important role, motivates and retaining the top talents and organizational objectives hence overall improved employee performance that positively influence the customer experience. Currently in ULMS, the payment trend is linked directly to the performance and service quality (Armstrong, 2006). Effect of Payment incentive as a strategy in Staff Performance at ULMS Bike ULMS Bikes has initiated a strategy that uses pay incentives in order to boost performance. pay incentive is a motivational feature that could be awarded in both monetary and non monetary form and used for the purposes of encouraging staff and employees to achieve the targets set in the workplace. As the business environment becomes more and more competitive, higher goals are being set for employees to meet and this creates the need for managers to come up with better and more fulfilling ways of encouraging the employees to meet the set targets. Human resource managers researched and concluded that Employees are bound to operate at a lower level without some form of incentive. This comes back to hit the company?s bottom line. In a study (Hall, 2008) concludes that lack of incentives to employees creates disharmony within the workplace, as employees tend to perceive that it is only management who are benefiting from their sweat. These perceptions manifests into lack of teamwork. A company that does not invest in an incentive program suffers from frequent staff exits as the employees are always seeking greener pasture where they feel their efforts are being rewarded. Innovation also lacks in such an environment as the employees work for monetary value and is not driven by the desire to work and achieve both personal and organizational growth. Advantages of Payment Incentive strategy on Performance 1. Increases productivity because workers are less stressed 2. Ensures that employees remain healthy for a long time. 3. Decreases the chances of absenteeism among the employees due to fatigue which in turn increases the performance of individual employees. Disadvantages 1. The employers lack proper records of individual employee performance because a single task can be performed by many employees who work in shifts in a flexible working environment. 2. Employees appear as superior once they meet in the workplace and this affects the work team cohesion which in turn affects team performances. An analysis of the performance management strategies in the organization shows that Incentives can only be awarded after performance evaluations have been conducted and this gives the company the opportunity to evaluate and mitigate any chances of a lazy employee ?hiding behind others.? A performance evaluation hence boosts output of each and every worker in the firm. In a big company, small time employees are not able to appreciate their output towards the bigger goal of the company, hence companies that have an incentive program in place are able to appreciate them and this maximizes the potential of each and every employee which in turn makes the company achieve its goals faster .In his book (Smith, 2004) describes that an organization that is able to demonstrate to its employees that their efforts has an effect on the bottom line of the company is sure to reap more, as the staff will feel motivated when the company succeeds. As the saying goes, ?a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.? When an employee is happy in the organization the chain effect of this morale can be felt all around the company through better results. Apart from implementing pay incentive strategies, the firm also allows the employees time to attend to their personal and private obligations which leaves them more satisfied. With this level of satisfaction, employees work with minimum disturbances which enable them to give their best in their places of work. Conclusion We have analyzed 2 organizations and the performance management strategy that they have implemented. Both benefits and drawbacks have been discussed. Performance management strategies can greatly increase the output of human resource in any organization. Read More