Management System of the Employees at Community Development Authority - Dubai Government - Example

Student’s Name: Student Number: Subject: 22nd May, 2013 Performance Management System of an Employee 1.0 Introduction The Community Development Authority in Dubai is an organization running a government-backed initiative to improve the welfare of the people of Dubai. To realize this goal, it provides programs to various groups of people aimed at improving social integration and knowledge on citizen rights. Its vision lies in making Dubai an inspiring model of community well-being and national identity. It also has a mission to continuously elevate social standards through an integrated system of policies and quality services for everyone. Amal Al Siri, Waleed Saeed and Yousef Shams are employees of CDA. Their roles are e-transformation head, IT business analyst and IT director respectively. Amal manages 75% of projects in IT department, ensures availability of applications, keeps the CDA strategic plan in shape and manages the organization website. Waleed avails ICMS, RLA, and related documents. He also avails ARIS SMS Gateway, eSurvey, eJob and other delivery support systems. When Alaa and Ahmad are on leave, he plays their roles as well. Yousef supervises projects and ensures system continuity. Performance management entails the setting of goals and objectives that will be achieved through collective improvement of employees’ performance. The best way of achieving this would be through harmonizing the culture of the Human Resource Management with the goals and policies of the organization so that both the performance and progress of the employees improves greatly. A continuous assessment of the improvements made so far is frequently taken in a move meant to monitor the performance of the organization. The assessment of performance is done with particular focus on the future rather than the past. The purpose of this report is to examine the performance management system of the employees at Community Development Authority – Dubai Government. It will further discuss the factors that influence the employees’ performance, and then suggest ways through which it can be improved. 1.1 The objective of the report is to: 1.1.1 Examine the performance management system of the employees at Community Development Authority – Dubai Government. 1.1.2 Discuss factors that influence the employees’ performance and 1.1.3 Suggest ways through which it can be improved. 2.0 Methodology For a comprehensive report on the employee performance management system at the Community Development Authority, the following activities were undertaken: i. Administration of questionnaires to employees on various levels of job groups and specifications in the IT department on the employee management system at CDA. ii. Analysis of documents such as job descriptions, sample appraisal forms and reports supplied by the relevant authorities. iii. Scrutiny of CDA website to establish background information on CDA. Literature Review The human resource management team in any organization is tasked with the duty of ensuring that employees perform at an optimum so that the organization realizes its goals within the stated period. This can only be done when the employees are evaluated and made to improve their strengths and lessen the effects of their weaknesses. Performance appraisals have been known to cause discomfort to the management teams in many an organization as they are viewed as a judgmental way of reviewing employees’ capabilities than a positive way of doing an evaluation. In light of this, employees may not be motivated much to improve their efforts in line with the organization’s need to be better. This way of looking at performance management changed when employee performance management system was introduced. Employee performance management system is a four-pronged approach towards improving the collective performance of the workforce (Buchner 1) (Performance Management System from the Employee Perspective 5). It includes planning, reviewing, assessing and finally rewarding. It focuses more on the future of the organization than criticize its past. The government of Dubai decided to implement employment performance management systems across its respective organizations in line with the Dubai Strategic Plan 2015, which is meant to empower and encourage employees while still putting a great focus on results and accountability. Employees in band 3 and above are supposed to be taken through the steps, each going through between three and five SMART objectives, a scrutiny of their competencies, strengths and weaknesses section and a final end of cycle performance appraisal. A particular focus will be put on three employees who have already gone through their particular organization’s employee performance system. These are Amal Al Siri, Waleed Saeed and Yousef Shams of the Community Development Authority – Dubai Government. As alluded to earlier, the Community Development Authority carries out performance management using various parameters, but within stipulations offered by the government of Dubai. First off, employee management system is important in strategically managing an organization, while creating harmony in its operations, communications and responsibility. In all, this is done through proper planning, reviewing of the set plans, assessing the advances made and finally rewarding any improvements made by the employees and organizations as a whole. A performance improvement plan is agreed upon by the employee, his manager, and a reviewing manager. If in the process of carrying out the plan, an employee feels overwhelmed by an aspect of it, he is free to exercise his right to complain through a formal procedure by filling a grievance form. In doing so, he indicates what he feels is not agreeable to him and also gets to support his claim so that there is seen to be a probable cause for his need of a review of the plan. 1. Performance Planning When developing a plan for an individual the manager, a review manager and the employee are involved. The Community Development Authority’s conventional employee performance management system plan include five parts: the SMART objective setting, objectives, strengths and areas of development, end of cycle performance appraisal and a development action plan. Firstly, SMART objectives account for the following: Specific – this implies that the set goals should narrow down to a specified and concise issue, not a general area of operation. For instance, instead of reading, “The organization shall strive to enhance the livelihoods of the people of Dubai”, it should be narrowed down to a specific aspect of the lives of the people of Dubai that it wants to develop. For instance, “The organization will ensure the people of Dubai are educated on their rights”. In short, the goals set should be clear, not ambiguous. Agreed – the supposed group tasked with handling any issue mostly consists of a management team and a set of employees. In this regard, all of those involved should be able to agree upon all the aspects of the planning instruments that are to be used in the performance management system. A situation where some of the employees or managers feel they are not well-conversant with or worse still, not comfortable with the set plans may lead to grievances. Realistic – While setting goals may be easy, finding it pragmatic to fit them within a realistic frame may not be the easiest of tasks. Therefore, it is prudent to set goals that the organization knows can be achieved. The set parameters should be achievable, but this does not mean that they should be less challenging to those involved. When they are not challenging, then goals are not worth setting. Time-bound – all projects and plans have a set time within which a certain result should be achieved. In this respect, when setting up a performance management system, there should be a period within which intended goals may be reached. A feasibility of the plan may be scheduled for a selected period, say quarterly, half-yearly, or better still, annual. Plans set to run over a period of a year are the best since this is a period within which most activities of a firm or organization are set to take place. For instance, the financial planning of an organization is set to run for a period of twelve months. In this regard, most operations and projects are usually financed for that period after which they are either terminated or renewed. The setting of objectives must be in line with the organization’s vision and mission. In this case, the organization’s vision is to inspire a model of community well-being and national identity with a mission to continuously elevate social standards through an integrated system of policies and quality services for everyone. In lieu of this, the company set its employee performance objectives as leadership, general and foundation. i. Leadership is the way in which the behavior and actions of the management team influences and enhances a culture of total quality management within the organization. ii. Under the general criteria of assessing performance, the overall conduct of an employee is assessed. iii. The foundation of an employee consists of the strong areas which an employee displays at the workplace. 2. Performance Review and Assessment The final parts of a performance management system, which includes the assessment and the rewards parts are generally organized into the competencies, strengths and weaknesses and finally the end of cycle performance approval and the performance plan approval. These assessment areas are tailored to look into an employee’s competencies and then their strengths and weaknesses. Due to the fact that weaknesses are not to be focused on as a let-down, but rather in terms of how to improve them, the weaknesses section is covered as areas that require development. In this particular area, the human resource management comes in handy with the technique of development through either learning and development, or training and development (PeopeStreme 1) (Performance Management 1). As for learning and development, the organization needs to follow stipulated rules in managing the knowledge that employees already possess. Further, when the organization needs to increase capacities through capacity building, training and development would come in handy. Community Development Authority’s three employees who were interviewed have undergone various stages of the employee performance management system as envisaged by the government of Dubai. Their specific scores against their respective job descriptions will be discussed next. Factors that Influence Employee(s)’ Performance Oftentimes, employees are wont to find jobs in areas of their liking. However, when forced, and this is a highly-likely situation, they find themselves jobs because they have few options to choose from. In such situations, fitting in the job situation may not be an easy task. Therefore, the levels of motivation among such employees may be below that required. In all, motivation is a key area that makes or breaks an employee. Low motivation is likely to lead to a situation where the employee does not exactly feel like doing their work properly. This may end up affecting the performance of the whole organization. A second from which low motivation is likely to arise is the remuneration or compensation package awarded to employees. There are various ways through which employees are paid. Aside from the usual wage, salary, or whatever kind of payment an employee gets, allowances make up for extra monies that may just work well as a means of encouraging workers. Some organizations may be responsible for overworking their employees without necessarily compensating them for the extra work they have put in. Thirdly, a management with a poor sense of direction may be the biggest source of a disenfranchised employee. At times, the manner in which a management team runs a business goes a long way in defining the employee motivation. Company or organization goals need to be specific, as stated before, on how objectives will be met. This should be laid down like a script so that managers do not seem to overstretch their roles, neither do they abuse the positions accorded to them as this is a likely source of low motivation. The management of an organization is the best point from which employee performance management may be tracked. Line managers are the eye of the company so that if they cannot be relied on to create a positive environment for work to be done, then employee performance management systems may as well fail to achieve the basic objectives they were intended for. In light of the above-mentioned factors which may influence employee performance negatively, there are ways through which the negative influences may be dealt with to come up with positive ones (Izak 1) (A Critical Analysis of the Factors that Influence Employee Work Performance 63). Motivation may be done through various means. In this case, the relevant means may be through the last stage of employee performance appraisal rewarding. While it is good to take note of the advancements made by the whole group of employees, it would even be better if aspects such as promotions arise from performance appraisals. This will be done in line with the organization goals. For instance, in the case of Waleed Saeed who confidently steps into Alaa’s and Ahmad’s roles and accomplishes them effectively, a promotion may come in very handy as a means to motivate the other employees to work harder and be able to play multiple roles when Community Development Authority needs them to. Conclusion and Recommendations The three employees of Community Development Authority score relatively well in the employee performance system parameter tests. This may well be a good thing, judging as the people tasked with the duty to carry out the whole process are in the management of CDA. In essence, when done by line managers, appraisals are highly-likely to be more objective than subjective. However, instances abound when appraisals may be done with a little favor going some employee’s way. Measures to curb such practices should be instituted so that a concise report of employee evaluation is carried out, and not a sham in the name of evaluation. In this respect, several factors have been reported as silent rules that should apply when employees are undergoing such evaluations. For instance, in an interview, line managers tasked with interviewing employees should be rather objective than subjective as subjective positions are likely to create a halo effect where soon as a negative aspect appears on an employee, the session thereafter will focus more on their weaknesses rather than a neutral view. In cases where employees need to be educated on improved aspects of their jobs, various techniques may suffice. For a start, fresh ideas may be learned through use of dedicated means like hiring investors in persons to train employees, or better still, enrolling employees for short courses in colleges that may equip them with better techniques, thus improving their skills. For an organization that is backed by a government initiative, realizing such goals may not be that difficult in as much as it is not a walk in the park either. CDA’s employee performance management system is a concise way of trying to improve the general performance of an organization without necessarily having to look back into the past, which would be detrimental to not only the employee, but CDA as a whole. Questions on Employee Performance Management System at CDA 1. What your SMART Objectives are as stated in your Performance Appraisal form: i. ___________________________________________ ii. ___________________________________________ iii. ___________________________________________ iv. ___________________________________________ v. ___________________________________________ 2. What are your competencies? i. Initiative ii. Communication iii. Teamwork iv. Time management v. Analytical thinking vi. Problem solving vii. Decision making viii. Strategic decision making ix. Team leadership x. Managing excellence xi. Champion change and innovation xii. Planning and organizing xiii. People management and development 3. What are your strengths and weaknesses? i. _________________________________________________ ii. _________________________________________________ iii. _________________________________________________ iv. _________________________________________________ v. _________________________________________________ For a start, Amal Al Siri, the e-transformation head’s objectives in employee management system include managing 75% of IT projects, avails applications with minimal disruptions and ensures alignment of respective factors with CDA Strategic Plan in 2013. He also acts as a webmaster of the IT homepage and prepares materials for GITEX 2013. For all these objectives, his general competencies are planning and organizing and problem solving and decision making, where he scores an above average mark of three. In leadership competencies, team leadership, managing excellence and championing of change and innovation are his competencies. He also manages people and development. For these remaining competencies, he scores a modest two, which is just about what the organization expects of him. The IT business analyst, Waleed Saeed, has objectives extending from ensuring the availability of various documents within two days of request to handling the responsibilities of two other employees – Alaa and Ahmad. When both of them are not around, his objectives extend to running their roles of leading the implementation of the ICMS new requirements and reports, preparing business cases within ten working days and managing and availing databases. His competencies in the foundation subsection include initiative, communication, and teamwork and time management. In general competencies, analytical thinking, problem solving and decision making are his mainstays. Lastly, Yousef Shams, on the other hand, is the IT director. His objectives include project supervision, ensuring systems continuity void of disruption during working hours and infrastructure stability. He also closes all support incidents by 75% of applications received in the year 2013. His general competencies lie in planning and organizing, and communication. In leadership, strategic decision making and management of excellence make part of his competencies. Team leadership and championing of change and innovation close the list of his competencies. References Buchner, T. W. Performance Management System from the Employee Perspective: A Phenomenal Study. 2008. ProQuest. PeopleStreme. Performance Management. 2012. Web. Izak, W. M. A Critical Analysis of the Factors that Influence Employee Work Performance. 2008. Read More