Performance Management System in the Child Safety Department in Queensland Government - Case Study Example

Name : xxxxxx Tutor : xxxxxxx Title : A critical analysis of the child safety Department performance management System for Employees Institution : xxxxxxx @2011 Contents Contents 1 1.1 Purpose of Report 2 1.2 Scope of the report 3 2.0 Background and Description of the Organisation 3 2.1 History, nature and structure of the organisation 3 2.2 strategic goals of Organisation 5 Each organisation has its set goals and objectives which they target to achieve may be over the next one year, five years or even ten years. Strategic goals are usually used to reflect the analysis that have been done in terms of a clear vision, mission and role statement and also the analysis of the business environment. The strategic goals of the child safety department are basically grouped into three categories. This includes goals towards the client, community and the organisation partners. 5 2.3 HR philosophy 6 3.2.1 Procedures 7 4.0 Evaluation of PMS department of child safety 9 4.1 Validity 9 4.2 Reliability 10 4.3 Cost effectiveness 10 4.4 Felt fairness 11 5.0 Recommendations 11 7.0 References 14 1.0 Introduction 1.1 Purpose of Report The purpose of this report is to critically analyse the department of communities the Performance Management system in the Child Safety Department in Queensland Government for staff who work as child safety officers (CSOs). Employees in an organisation play an important role in the success of the organisation. An organisation therefore should conduct a continuous performance assessment to identify the high performers and the low performers and find ways in which they can motivate the low performers for them to perform better in the delivery of duties assigned to them. Performance ultimately depends on the personal commitment of the people working in the organization. Managing the performance of staff at an individual level, obtaining regular feedback about staff satisfaction with internal procedures and management processes and monitoring organizational climate are all important dimensions of performance.For an organisation to be able to carry out the continuous assessment it should put in place a performance management system. The performance management system has proved to be a challenging and complex issue in a human resource department and child protection agencies in Queensland. 1.2 Scope of the report To analyse the CSOs performance management system (PMS) for the employees this report will focus on the experience the employee at the department of child safety who works at the CSOs level. The CSO role is to be in the front line to ‘protect children and young people who have been harmed or who are at risk of harm, and secure their future safety and wellbeing’ (Department of Communities website 2011). All new CSOs regardless of tenure must attend CSO entry level training within the first month of appointment. On appointment the CSO must be on restricted duties until they have completed phase 2 of the CSO entry level training. 2.0 Background and Description of the Organisation 2.1 History, nature and structure of the organisation The Department of Communities is dedicated to endorsing and sustaining brilliance in the delivery of human services to the people of Queensland. The department of communities was established in August 2009 and it was formed as a result of merging several government departments. The child safety department lies under the department of communities. The department of child safety was formed in 2004. The main aim of the department was to participate in response to the recommendations of the crime and misconduct commissions report (CMC) protecting children: an inquiry into abuse in foster care. (Crime and Misconduct Commission Annual Report 2004–05) The CMC recommendations placed a strong focus on improving outcomes for the children and young people who are harmed or are at risk of harm. One particular aspect of the reforms has been implementation of a range of performance management strategies aimed at monitoring the performance of the child protection system and aligning its performance systems to portfolio reporting requirements. The department is accountable for defending children and young people at danger of harm and whose guardians cannot offer sufficient care for them. The child safety services works intimately with non-governmental and the government partners in order to attain the department’s main goals. A lot of employees are employed to assist in the day to day learning of the department. The department has a large staff number which is almost ten thousand employees with a variety of very separate, diverse service streams. The child safety departments consist of about 60% of all the staff in the department of communities and about seven hundred and sixty are CSOs. The Child Safety work is very demanding and is often a thankless job with workers expected to manage complex human situations and high caseloads (Department of Communities website 2011). 2.2 strategic goals of Organisation Each organisation has its set goals and objectives which they target to achieve may be over the next one year, five years or even ten years. Strategic goals are usually used to reflect the analysis that have been done in terms of a clear vision, mission and role statement and also the analysis of the business environment. The strategic goals of the child safety department are basically grouped into three categories. This includes goals towards the client, community and the organisation partners. For the clients the organisation goals is to present an enhanced wellbeing, protection, health and community participation of the people of Queensland and particularly the most exposed and needy people in the society. For the community the organisation seeks to provide improved sustainability, liveability, affluence and unity in Queensland communities. And for the organisations partners the organisation provides improved ability, sustainability and efficiency of human and other services and systems in Queensland (Child safety department website 2011). Figure 1.0 displays the organizational chart Organisational chart of the department of child safety The department is headed by child safety service manager who is followed closely by team leaders and the business support team. This is best illustrated in the organisational chart in the next page. 2.3 HR philosophy In the department of child safety in Queensland government the people are responsible for all components of human resource management. The department seems to have a human resource philosophy which appears to have a strategic focus that is closely aligned to the organisation strategy and achievement of the 2008-09 goals which was to sustain skilled workforce and professional workplace culture in the organisation. 3.0 Performance Management Policies and Procedures 3.1 PMS Strategy The Queensland government approach to PMS is to contain a sustainable, skilled workforce and professional workplace culture to its employees. Currently the organization applies the self assessment strategy in assessing its employee performance. (http://www.communities.qld.gov.au). The domino effect of the current strategy are, the departments has to put its focus on upraising its temporally employees to permanent ones, each employee stays in this department for at least three years, and increasing staff satisfaction levels. Goal setting approach can be used to solve the problems of self assessment. Self assessment management approach at Queensland department of child safety has been one of the critical factors in the success of the project. The basis for a harmonized goal setting approach is a commonly understood set of goals. Queensland department of child safety staff will work hard to achieve goals such as; Sense of community – this includes dealing with patterns in the lives of the children that may be affected. The emphasis is on developing strategies to re-habilitate children into community life by helping them to find positive ways to interact with others. Housing – this includes helping the children develop the skills needed to find and keep housing in the community, including financial planning/budgeting, learning to cook and clean, and conflict resolution with housemates. Counselling this involves developing the knowledge and skills to deal with other personal factors, such as substance abuse, anger management and the like. 3.2 PMS procedures and tools 3.2.1 Procedures To implement the modern strategy, the first week of each month, the Human Resources Division will inform heads of various divisions of employee appraisals for that particular month. The Performance Appraisal System questionnaire shall be filled by the employee's direct overseer, be reviewed by the higher Supervisor, and then by the Director and forwarded to the HR Dept. At three-month intervals the Human Resources Division will also notify Department and Division Directors of performance progress reviews due. These reviews are informal sessions where the employee and the supervisor meet to discuss the employee's status on performance standards and job tasks and contributions to unit work goals. 3.2.2 Measurement Tools The Self Assessment Profoma strategy measurement tool approach focuses mainly on recognition of employees as individuals and focuses on their development individually. Research shows slight connection linking self-assessment and all forms of assessments, especially supervisory assessments. The self-assessments seem to be constantly lower. This difference can lead to defensiveness and estrangement if supervisors do not use finer response skills. Self-assessments ought to focus on the appraisal of performance elements, and not on the review level determination. . Sometimes this can be lower than others. In such cases employees tend to be self-demeaning and may feel intimidated. Using the proposed goal setting approach employees will be upraised according to the increased levels of performance. This will make the employees to work harder so that they can achieve high grades of appraisal. This will result to enhanced professionalism from the staff, if done properly and tactfully, encouraging employees to appraise at more frequently, including around the actual review meetings, help convey the message that the process of performance management and appraisal is a team effort, and not something the manager does to the employee. Appraisal is an accepted and integrated part of the performance management process, it encourages employees to self evaluate throughout the year. Appraisals are particularly useful if the entire cycle of performance management involves the employee in a self-assessment. 4.0 Evaluation of PMS department of child safety Performance evaluation offers employers with the chance to assess their employees’ assistance to the organization and they acts as vital tools in developing an influential workforce within the organisation. In reference to the department of child safety we will evaluate the PMS based on four factors. The four factors include validity, reliability, cost effectiveness and felt fairness. 4.1 Validity Validity can be defined to as the degree to which a system gauges what it claims to gauge. In this scenario the performance management system should be able to measure the employee performance for it to be termed as valid. There exist there types of validity which are content validity, criterion validity and construct validity. For the assessment to be termed as content valid it must measure all the mandatory requirements of the job of CSO. According to Cronbach and Meehl (1955) "Construct validity must be investigated whenever no criterion or universe of content is accepted as entirely adequate to define the quality to be measured" as quoted by Carmines and Zeller (1979). For the assessment to fulfil the conditions of content validity it must include all the aspects that describe the role of a child safety officer and no aspect should be left out. According to Suen 1990 content validity is the degree to which elements of the assessment of an assessment instrument are relevant to and representative of the targeted construct for a particular assessment purpose. 4.2 Reliability According to Joppe (2000) reliability is the extent to which results are consistent over time and an accurate representation of the total population under study is referred to as reliability and if the results of a study can be reproduced under a similar methodology, then the research instrument is considered to be reliable (Joppe 2001 p. 1). Embodied in this citation is the idea of replicability or repeatability of results or observations. According to Kirk and Miller 1986 there are three types of reliability, which relate to: the degree to which a measurement given repeatedly remains the same, the stability of a measurement over time and the similarity of measurements within a given time period (Kirk & miller 1986 pp. 41-42). The performance management system should be steady and accurate in measuring employee performance. Thus for the system to be reliable the assessors should use the same principle each time they are assessing a person. The performance management system should be able to carry out and sustain the expected roles in n regular situations and also in unforeseen situations. 4.3 Cost effectiveness Most organisations view the adoption and implementation of a performance management system as a complex and expensive affair to indulge in. Though the advantages of the system greatly out ways its disadvantages. Thus for an organisation to achieve the set goals and objectives it should implement a performance management system which will assist them in monitoring their employees. Though it may be costly the benefits that the organization will achieve as a result of the implementation should not be ignored. 4.4 Felt fairness Fair assessment assumes good practice in assessment as a whole through measure that is clearly described to both the assessor and the person been assessed. At the level of the team leader good practice would mean a clear link of assessment job outcome and payment received. Assessment tasks should be clear and have specific briefs aimed at explaining what the employee must do and how it will be judged so as to be assessed fairly. All employees in an organisation should be treated in a similar manner. Since if an employee suspects any instance of unfairness on his side this may greatly affect his work performance and may eventually lead to the failure of some of the business goals. 5.0 Recommendations For the child safety department to have an effective performance management system for the employees within their organization they need to change some particular aspects and approaches that they are currently using. Numerous design and implementation procedures need to be improved. The recommendation for the department includes: 5.1 Goal setting approach Goal setting approach is a powerful way of motivating employees within an organization. For the goal setting approach to be appropriate the goals set must be clear, challenging, commitment and feedback must be provided. The goal setting approach is recommended to be used and the current subjectivity that exist within the department of child safety needs to be removed (Latham 2004). 5.2 Feedback When issues that are affecting the performance of the employees are identified the managers should promptly provide feedback to the employees. The managers should also provide feedback even to the good performers within the organization. Regular feedback will encourage open discussion about those factors that are contributing towards poor performance within the employees. Open the disclosure of the factors that are contributing towards poor performance strategies will be implemented to as to solve the performance issues (Baker 2010). 5.3 Clear definition of the rating Employee performance are normally rated using different methods. Rating helps in identifying the performers and the non performers within the organization. For the department of child safety the behaviourally anchored rating scale (BARS) should be used sine it provides clearer standards of measurement and since the rating will be done by many people who are familiar with the working environment the results generated have a great chance of being accurate (Smith & Kendall 1963). 5.4 Clear link The strategic agenda of an organization play an important role in determining the success of an organization. For an organization to succeed there needs to be a clear link between the strategic agenda of the department of communities and the performance expectation of the CSOs this link seems to be lacking and it may play a major role in the failure of the set strategic agenda of the organization (Dutton 1996). 5.5 Support The team leaders in the department should provide more support, training and mentoring to manage CSOs performance. These will ensure that there is a continued improvement in the employee performance. This should also include how the feedback will be communicated the specific employees in a way that is not biased. Upon implantation of the above stated recommendation the organization will have an effective performance management system (Ferdindard 1999). 6.0 Conclusion Employees with exceptional performance should be recognized, both informally and in accordance with the department's HR Policy and Procedure 'Reward and recognition. The PMS should focus on all the employees in the organization that is the performers and under performers in the organization so as to achieve the overall business objective. By designing a more effective performance measurement tool and ensuring that feedback is given to all the employees this will ensure there is a clear and concise alignment with the organization goals towards the community, its partners and its clients. 7.0 References Baker, N 2010 ‘Employee feedback technologies in the human performance system’, Human Resource Development International, vol 13, no. 4 pp 477-485. Crime and Misconduct Commission Annual Report 2004–05 Retrieved from http://www.cmc.qld.gov.au/data/portal/00000005/content/51853001132192017793.pdf Cronbach, J & Meehl, E 1955, Psychological Bulletin, 52, 281-302. Department of Communities website, 2011 Retrieved from http://www.communities.qld.gov.au/childsafety Department of child safety website, Retrieved from http://www.communities.qld.gov.au/gateway/about-us/our-organisation Dutton, E 1996, Strategic agenda building in organizations, New York University: New York. Ferdindard, f 1999, Coaching for Improved Work Performance Mc Grawhill: New York. George, T at el 2002, Essentials of Corporate Performance Measurement, John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey. Joppe, M 2000, The Research Process. Retrieved October 7, 2011, from http://www.ryerson.ca/~mjoppe/rp.htm Kirk, J & Miller, M 1986, Reliability and validity in qualitative research, Sage Publications: Beverly Hills. Latham, P. "The Motivational Benefits of Goal-Setting." Academy of Management Executives 18, no. 4 (2004): 126–129. Smith & Kendall 1963, Re translation of expectations: An approach to the construction of unambiguous anchors to rating scales. Journal of Applied Psychology, 47, 149–55. Suen, K 1990, principle of Test Theories, Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc Inc: New Jersey. Read More