Performance Management of State Government Department in South Australia - Case Study Example

Student’s Name Instructor’s Name Course Name Date of Submission Performance Management Case Analysis Introduction In the current workplace, the important of performance management and performance improvement have gained a lot of focus. Walker and Greenhall attribute the increased attention in these areas to the fact that businesses are increasingly being put under pressure and are required to not only become efficient and effective, but also to be able to deliver on the business strategies in order to become competitive (7). However, because government departments are not driven by profit motive, many have tended to ignore the value of performance management, which consequently result in poor performances triggered by low employee morale, high turnover and lack of appropriate skills. Such is the case in case study that involves a State Government Department in South Australia that is facing a serious human resource issues that include low staff morale, high levels of bullying lack of effective induction process, lack of seriousness in implementation of Performance Management Policy and Procedures, lack of investment on training and lack of performance reviews. All these issues are likely to affect the department negatively in the coming months if not address as they are likely to cause a decline in the department’s performance and even high turnover by staff. This report outlines a plan for the implementation of an effective, integrated “Best Practice” Performance Management System across the Department to address the HR challenges. Context of HR Challenges in the Department The human resource department plays a critical role in ensuring the success of an organization, be it private or governmental department or institution. The HR plays a critical role of recruiting, selecting, training, rewarding and motivating the staff (Lin, and Lee 82). Performance management is one of the most critical roles of a HR manager in any department. Performance management is all about managing the employees by aligning the workforce, enhancing employee performance, promoting employee career development and increasing business returns. This implies that performance management is not just about appraising the performance of employees as some people think of the concept. The case study indicates that the State Government Department in Australia is facing serious HR issues that pertain to performance management and this is likely to impact negatively on the performance of the department. As a government department that is involved in providing services to the public, members of the public expect the department to be efficient and effective in the delivery of services. However, this public expectation cannot be met if the company has employees have low levels of morale and motivation and experience high levels of bullying. According to the case study, the employees in the department experience low levels of morale and are either bullied or harassed at a higher level compared to other government departments. These incidences have the potential of causing low job satisfaction and prompt a high turnover. Additionally, the case shows that the department lacks an effective induction and that there is ambiguity with regards to performance targets. Other HR challenges highlighted in the case include lack of an effective Performance Management Policy and Procedure, lack of formal review and development plan. To ensure that the department performs well and meets the expectation of its stakeholders, such as the public, the department needs to address these challenges immediately; otherwise it will not be able to meet its objectives. This is because the department is likely to end up lacking the talents needed to spur it to success due to high turnover, low morale and lack of skills by the employees that opt to remain to work for the government department. HR Strategic Performance Management Plan to Meet the Challenges Plan to Enhance Employee Morale and Motivation According to the case study, low employee morale and motivation is one of the challenges that the Australian government department faces. This is a serious issue that needs to be addressed because employee motivation is linked to productivity. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, employees must be motivated to get the best out of them. Maslow argued that, once an employee’s lower level of needs have been met; they seek the satisfaction of higher level needs (Kaur 1062). As such, when developing a plan for motivating employees, HR managers must take into consideration the needs of each employee. Therefore, to improve the performance of the employees, the following are some of the strategies that will be employed in the State Department to improve employee morale and motivation so as to enable them increase their efforts in the company. The first motivation strategy to adopt is to reward the employees competitively. According to Abraham Maslow, every employee seeks the fulfillment physiological needs before seeking the fulfillment of higher level needs (Kaur 1063). Therefore, the best way to fulfill this important need and to motivate employees is to reward them competitively. Studies have shown that a slight increment in the salary has an effect of increasing the morale of an employee to increase their efforts. The other motivational strategy that will be employed is recognizing and rewarding top performing employees. Employees are motivated when their efforts are recognized and rewarded. Chamorro-Premuzic study found that when an employee puts more effort but fails to get recognized and rewarded, this makes employees to get demoralized (par. 2). This appears to be one of the reasons for the low employee morale and motivation in the state department. Therefore, the best practice to be employed in improving employee morale in the department is to advice the HR manager of the department to ensure that top performing employees are recognized and rewarded for their effort as this will motivate them to increase their efforts. Some of the strategies HR managers use to recognize and reward employees for top performance include promotion, salary increment and scholarship opportunities among others (Fernandez, and Moldogaziev 12). Plan to Address Bullying and Harassments in the Department Bullying and harassment is a common thing in the workplace. Although workplace bullying is not illegal in Australia, harassing an employee is illegal and punishable by law (Fair Work par. 2). Workplace bullying involves acts such as spreading malicious rumors, unfair treatment, picking, undermining a competent worker and denying an employee promotion and advancement opportunities (Fair Work par. 5). Harassment, on the other hand, includes unwanted behaviors that are related to sex, age, disability, race, gender, sexual orientation and religion among others. Bullying and harassment impact negatively on the company because they not only reduce an employee’s job satisfaction, but also results in increased employee turnover and absenteeism. To address the problem of bullying and harassment in the State Department, the department will be advised to create anti0bullying and harassment policies. This includes instituting hash punishment to any employ found to be involved in bullying or harassing an employee. Employees will also be encouraged to ensure that any bullying or harassments are reported to their immediate supervisors or HR manager for action to be taken immediately. Additionally, because bullying and harassments sometime result from misunderstanding related to culture (Nielsen 21). To address prevent bullying and harassments, the HR department will be required to introduce cultural competence programs that will involve educating employees on the importance of recognizing personal differences and embracing diversity. This would help enhance understanding in the workplace and promote good working relationship among employees and the management. This will in turn promote teamwork among employees, thereby resulting in improve productivity and success of the department. Plan to Improve Effectiveness of Induction Process Having a working and effective induction process is important to the success of the state department. Having an effective induction program in place is important because it ensures that new hires acquire the right skills needed in their job assignments, as well as ensuring that they become productive quickly enough and feel being part of the team (Walker and Greenhall 43). It takes time, effort and commitment to have an effective orientation. Nonetheless, it pays not just for the employee, but also for the state department and the government at large. Therefore, to address the induction challenges in the Australian government department, the HR managers of the department will have to do a number of things. The first thing that the HR managers of the statement will have to do is to ensure that the induction program is to the department’s strategic and operational plans, job descriptions and goals (Kumari and Malhotra 56). Secondly, because every employee is unique, so is their learning needs. Therefore, the HR managers will have to consider creating a learning motivation environment as soon as the induction program begins. At the same time, the HR managers will to ensure that the induction environment gives personalization tools to ensure the creation of a familiar environment. At the same time, the HR managers will have to ensure that the entire team is involved. In this respect, the HR manager will have to ensure that the senior management team and workers representing other departments are involved in the induction program. The HR manager will have to ensure that they welcome the new hires, provide useful tips, share opinions and insights, as well as develop an inclusive environment (Ismajli et al. 24). Additionally, the HR manager will have to ensure that the new hires are allowed to have the induction training conducted at their own pace and repeated when need be to ensure that they understand what they are being taught. Besides, the HR manager will have to ensure that a reasonable induction timeframe is allowed for the training program to be completed. Above all, the department will have to set a reasonable performance targets for the inductees (Richardson 46). Plan to Improve Performance Management Policy and Procedure Having and implementing an effective performance management policies and procedures is critical to the success of an organization. The same applies to the Australian state department that must ensure that the performance management policies and procedures are effectively implemented to ensure enhanced performance of employees. According to the case study, the Australian state department conducts performance management shoddily across all the departments while there are some that ignore the policy and procedures completely. However, this is detrimental to the department because it makes it difficult for the department to understand where an improvement is needed to ensure enhanced performance by workers. Therefore, to address the problem, the department will have to ensure that the performance management policies and procedures are effectively implemented by all departments (Kateřina et al. 21). All the departments will be required to ensure that employees are informed of what is expected from them; they are provided with feedback about how they are performing relative to expectations; single out development opportunities; address performance areas that are wanting and to ensure that workers are rewarded accordingly (Mughal, and Akram 112). This would help in ensuring improved performance to the standards expected by the department. Plan to Improve Personal Development and Career Needs The performance of employees depend on the skills they possess and each employee aspires to develop their careers to enable them achieve their full potential. When an employee develops and reaches their full potential, this translates to improved productivity and success of an organization (Ismajli et al. 28). Although individual employees have a responsibility to plan for their personal and career development, their employers have a key responsibility to help employees develop personally and career wise. According to the case, it emerges that the State Department has not given employee personal and career development the attention it deserves. This is because it takes as long as 18 months for the managers to conduct a formal review something that has left employees feeling undervalued and dis-empowered. The following is a plan of how these HR challenge will be addressed to ensure increased performance of the department. Firstly, the HR manager of the department will have to empower the employees by providing them with an enabling environment for personal and career development. Because employees cannot perform the task they are assigned if they lack the right skills needed, the HR manager of the State Department will have to ensure that employees are trained so as to enable them acquire the skills needed for the job (Ferrazz par. 4). The training can be multifaceted to include on-the-job training, organizing workshops and training seminars for the employees. Additionally, the department’s manager will have to consider offering scholarship opportunities for its staff, as well as creating a flexible working schedule that allows employees willing to further their studies have time for study. Additionally, the manager of the department will be advised to ensure that formal review is conducted periodically, not more than one year to make the employees feel valued and empowered in the organization. Conclusion Having an effective performance management is critical to the success of the Australian State Department. However, as things stand, it becomes clear that the department is facing a number of human resource challenges that affects the performance of the department. The challenges include low employee morale and motivation, high levels of bullying and harassments, lack of effective induction process, performance management policy and procedure issues and lack of investment on employee training and development. This report has highlighted the strategies that the HR of the state department should implement to address the challenges so as to ensure enhanced performance. Works Cited Chamorro-Premuzic, Tomas. Does Money Really Affect Motivation? A Review of the Research. Harvard Business Review 10 April 2013. Web. 27 April 2016 https://hbr.org/2013/04/does-money-really-affect-motiv Fair Work. Bullying & harassment. 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Performance Management, Managerial Authority, and Public Service Performance. J Public Adm Res Theory (2013): doi: 10.1093/jopart/mut025 Richardson, Francine W. Enhancing Strategies to Improve Workplace Performance. Walden University (2012): 1-138. Print. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjlh4STyrPMAhUHshQKHdQhAkoQFggiMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscholarworks.waldenu.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1105%26context%3Ddissertations&usg=AFQjCNE5ZX0rlgl_33GI_7UImXMcHaDTfA&sig2=PyDATGPC7WT4H77bCi8a9A&cad=rja Read More