Leading and Inspiring People - Coursework Example

Introduction

Leigh who was is the new manager in Westwood College developed a three-year performance management scheme to help Westwood College achieve its aspiration to providing outstanding educational services to its clients. One of her objectives is to introduce a scheme that entails employees’ voice mechanism. Prior to development of the year performance management scheme, a staff survey was drawn and rolled out across the college. The analysis of the survey revealed some key performance issues from across different departments.

As the newly appointed HR professional in Westwood College, one of my task has been to analyze and evaluate the introduced performance management scheme and provide recommendations. After the analysis I have noted some weaknesses in the way the scheme has been used especially in the way that performance scheme is managed in the college. One of the worrying aspects that I have discovered is that a number of capability and disciplinary procedures have been successfully challenged by union representatives. The college recognizes trade three trade unions namely UCU, which represents the lecturing staff, ACM which represent college managers and UNISON that represent administrative staff. This paper presents a report to Leigh and the other Senior HR managers outlining what I considered to be some key principles to assist line managers with the process of managing employee performance in the departments based on my theoretical knowledge and my own observations.

Principles of Performance Management scheme

An effective performance management system involves a reward-for-performance culture in the organization. This in turn develops the engagement of employees for sustainable productivity and profitability in the organization. The action plan to that is key to addressing the institution’s performance which includes setting, measuring and rewarding achievable performance expectations.

The approach to creating a performance management process involves the following principles:

• Do a Performance Improvement Analysis-This involves measuring the frequency of behavior of each individual as well as the corporate strategy’
• Be Specific-This involves communicating the desired performances and the standards to each staff across the organization.
• Measure-Measuring the progress and frequency of the set goals against the desired standards. This happens while the management provides coaching and guidance on performance.
• Feedback-Appraisal of individual performance on feedback and formal documentation.
• Compensation is given on the basis of performance (Aguinis, 2009 p35).

In some instances, this plan may include rewards on performance that meet or go beyond the desired standard. However, in the case of Westwood College where performance has not met the desired standards, it was necessary to develop a performance development plan that would address the gap.

Manager’s Role

A good leader is someone who can inspire his or her subordinates to work together in pursuit of a common goal, such as enhanced service delivery. The HR manager will be responsible for preparing an updated policy manual for Westwood College that contains policies that are imperative in creating a favorable working environment for the employees to exploit their skills in conformance to the college’s objectives (Bateman & Scott, 2011 p12). Staff are exposed to policies that refine their technical skills thereby developing performance and creating sustainable productions in an organization (Bateman & Scott, 2011 p13).

The HR manager will also be responsible for preparing and reviewing performance appraisals completed by employees. This is important for the purposes of assessment of training needs, personal development and feedback on employee’s performance usually done quarterly (Aguinis, 2009 p34). By this, the Human resource manager will have the responsibility for providing an opportunity for staff to develop their careers and a chance to share their personal and professional problems.

Use of assessments in the college will be used to improve the performance of the employees by allowing the staff to complete performance appraisals/assessments. The assessments also help in strategic planning of institutional issuers such as training.

Another role for the HR manager is to enhance discipline and devotion as well as group dynamics and team spirit in the place of work. This is beneficial in the development of performance of any organization as it promotes capacity building.

Methods for Monitoring and Evaluating Individual Performance and Behaviors

The first method is the use of Rubrics which employees fill. These rubrics are used to monitor performance progress. Assessments can then be done to formally measure the achievement levels of the institution has attained at the end of a stipulated time frame, mostly done at the end of a financial year. Rubrics are given to employees so that they know what is expected of them (Mullins, 2007 p9). Rubrics would also be used to determine a more objective summative grade for participants of various tasks in the institution. The HR personnel at Westwood College would then use summative assessments to evaluate and do team analyses and the scores for each staff. The data would then be used to determine staff performance levels and rewards allocation.

Another method is by use of formative assessments. This is the type of assessment used to build a cumulative performance of individual employees in an organization. It is done by observation while the employees are discharging their duties. It can be done in quarterly basis and the results used to monitor individual employee’s ongoing progress (Keeping & Levy, 2000 p61). It also helps to provide the management with instructional process guideline. This type of assessment would be used by the Human Resource personnel in guiding the staff actions in the various departments.

Typical Performance Issues

In Department A, the performance issue relates to some lecturing staff appearing over-zealous and overly confident, whereas others seem to lack the confidence and capability to effectively teach. The human resource department chaired by Leigh will have the mandate of reviewing and coming up with new staff mix so as to address this particular performance issue. The Human Resource Performance Evaluation team after analyzing the scores of each staff will use this as the data to determine the staff levels and staff mix (Hannigan, 2007 p35). The team considers the excellence of work done by both the overly confident teachers and less confident teachers. The institution should then be involved to imbedding employee mix. This is done with the aim to promote interpersonal training and enhance the performance of each staff member. This is important as it will work towards meeting the overall goal and development of the institution (Keeping & Levy, 2000 p64).

In Department B, the performance issue is whereby the staff appear to have low staff morale and engagement and there are indications in the feedback that staff feel that poor performance is not tackled. This can be addressed by ensuring that the work environment is a great place to work for all employees. The leaders should also be able to celebrate what each individual employee can bring to the team. Leaders should make rounds daily to connect with the junior staff on their department. This can help to build the confidence of those staff who feels that poor performance is not tackled. To build staff morale, monetary compensation is the most effective form of motivation. monetary compensation helps in reducing stress that comes when there is numerous workload with less monetary compensation.

In Department C, the performance issue is low levels of trust based on feedback that people get away with things in other departments. This can be addressed by developing and strengthening relationship of the employees. Employee’s relationships include employee-employee relationships, relationships between employees and their supervisors, top management leaders and the subordinate staff

(Mullins, 2007 p11). The relationship that should be focused more would be relationships between employees and their supervisors as well as employees and top-management. Ensuring a healthy employee’s relationships would be instrumental not only to rebuilding trust but also to increasing the morale, confidence and emotional motivation of the employees. Good relationships make an employee delight in his or her work. Unhealthy relationships cause stress and tensions in the workplace, which result in decline to the employee’s performance and productivity.

Impact of Individual Poor Performance

The poor performance of employees from the 3 departments has affected co-workers, the company and clients in the following three ways;

• Lowered productivity: The wrong lowered trust and lack of motivation has led to lowered performance among the team.
• Reduced quality of work: observation has identified poor quality of work by teachers. 
• Decreased moral among the group: Signs of decreased morale has been observed.

Adair Approach to Leadership

Adair approach to leadership is simple and practical describing the actions leaders need to take in order to gain the support and commitment of those being led. His model is represented by three overlapping circles shown as follows;

• Achieve the task.
• Build and maintain the team.
• Develop the individual.

Approaches and resources available to identify the performance gap

Staff development specialist (SDS) time is one of the valuable resources that can be used to identify performance gap. SDSs was asked to provide information on why some staff in the college are not meeting performance expectations. After asking SDS, the following information was gathered.

Department A-some lecturing staff appear over-zealous and overly confident, whereas others seem to lack the confidence and capability to effectively teach. Staff development was identified as an issue with low take up of opportunities.

Department B-appear to have low staff morale and engagement and there are indications in the feedback that staff feel that poor performance is not tackled

Department C-had low levels of trust

This response helped Leigh to identify several areas for improvement which can be achieved with the use of the intended performance management scheme.

The Human Performance Technology model is another tool that can be used to improve productivity and competence among the staff in the college. This is done by analyzing performance gaps and developing appropriate interventions that mitigate or curb barriers to performance. The appropriate interventions are developed through analysis, design and intervention selection, performance development plan, implementation, and evaluation. This model is intended to influence the behavior and accomplishment of the employees (Hannigan, 2007 p33).

Reasons for The Performance Gap

Ineffective strategy is used to solve the performance issues facing Westwood college. Developing a task-oriented strategy would be an effective way to solving the performance issues noted above. This strategy is appropriate since it is problem focused as well as team based strategy. The problem focus involves direct action interventions to alter the conflicting situation itself and reduce the level of stress evoked. For example, a teacher in Department C would have some problems relating to adjustments when new policy is implemented because of the trust issues they have. Task-oriented strategy can be used to foster better adjustment.

Lack of communication is another reason for the gap. Effective communication should be utilized to increase the emotional rewards of the employees. Modes of communication are relevant in any organization. The interaction between the management and staff is a critical element that helps to improve emotional reward of the staff and their managers.

Options for Performance Improvement

I was able to work with the employee on the options for performance improvement. One of the approaches that we agreed upon with the employee that would be helpful in improving performance was communication. Communication would be helpful in providing solid information about the employees’ changes. Communication was necessary to clear the air on misconceived attitudes that that poor performance is not tackled (Mullins, 2007 p43). In areas where the changes have been proposed and the teacher’s get fear of losing their job, the employees will be involved in the change design. Their participation would be helpful to understand about the changes and eliminate the fears teachers might have. Top management is a symbol of the importance of improvement changes and their support to the employees would be helpful in helping the employees overcome their fears.

My analysis for the performance process at Westwood College is that the institution should lengthen the time frame for closing the performance gap. The employees would take a long time to achieve the desired outcomes. This means that outcomes would be realized at a distant time in the future. Based on these characteristics adopting a behavioral approach to measuring performance is the most appropriate for the institution.

Disciplinary and Capability Procedures

Failure to meet the stipulated expectations as drafted in the performance improvement plan would result to invoking capability procedures. Gross misconduct will result to invoking disciplinary action, up to and including termination from their job. This would be done by assessing any significant improvement whether the expectations and goals have been met after the indicated timeline in this Performance Improvement Plan. If no improvement is recorded, then the disciplinary action would be invoked.

Appendix

Performance Improvement Plan (PIP)

Confidential

TO:employee’s name

FROM:Leigh

DATE:1st December 2016

RE:Performance Improvement Plan (PIP)

This Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) is meant to address serious performance issues, gaps in teacher’s work performance, reiterate Westwood College’s expectations, and allow me as the newly appointed HR manger monitor improvement and commitment.

Areas of Concern:

The poor performance of employees from the 3 departments has affected co-workers, the company and clients in the following three ways;

• Lowered productivity: The wrong lowered trust and lack of motivation has led to lowered performance among the team.
• Reduced quality of work: observation has identified poor quality of work by teachers. 
• Decreased moral among the group: Signs of decreased morale has been observed.

Step 1: Improvement Goals: These are the goals related to areas of concern to be improved and addressed:

1.

Teachers will teach at least 15 per week

2.

Employee will clock in for work no later than 9:00 a.m. every day.

3.

Employee will have no more than one calculation error per report.

.

Step 2: Activity Goals: Listed below are activities that will help you reach each goal:

Goal #

Activity

How to Accomplish

Start Date

Projected Completion Date

1

Attending a minimum of 180 teaching hours after 3 month

Attending to allocated lectures

7th Jan 2017

8th March 2017

2

application of essential teaching skills required to do the job

Get further training

7th Jan 2017

8th March 2017

3

Ability to work as a team

Develop healthy relationships

7th Jan 2017

8th March 2017

Step 3: Resources: Resources available include;

1.

training materials

2.

time away from normal responsibilities

3.

services of a professional expertise.

Signatures:

Employee Signature:_____________________________________

Date: ___________________________

Supervisor/Manager Signature: _____________________________________

Date:___________________________