Performance Management Initiative and Employee Motivation
MiningCo is one of the well known mining companies that has earned the reputation for operating in many isolated locations, such as, in the Middle East, some parts of Africa, and in some regions of Greenland, other than some conventional mining regions. Due to the locational constraints, the employees are mostly sent to these locations on a fly-in, fly-out basis, on a rotating two-week roster. Since, there are many such locations and many employees flying in and flying out continuously, there are many HR issues that arise due to lack of communication and integration. The following report highlights solutions to the three different cases based on the HR issues of managing teams and people in the organization.
Impact of introducing performance management initiative on the motivation of staff in your location
Performance management initiative is the process in an organization, which is implemented by the managers to work together with the employees to plan, monitor or supervise, and review the work objectives of the employees and their contribution towards the organizational goals (Bach, 2013). This includes not only the annual performance review, but it is a continuous process of formulating the objectives, assessing the progress and providing a training and feedback ensuring that the employees are successfully meeting the organizational goals and objectives and their own career goals (Marr & Gray, 2012).
The fundamental goal of performance management initiatives is to increase the employee motivation and their effectiveness and productivity. Motivation of the employees is one of the primary factors for success in any organization. Performance management initiative can enhance motivation among the employees through the positive feedbacks. Efficient performance management initiatives help the employees to have a good understanding of the goals and objectives and perform accordingly (Schiuma, 2012). Hence, to address the reducing motivation of the employees travelling in and out of the remote locations, such as, in the Middle East, MiningCo has introduced performance management initiative to increase the motivation of the employees.
- The three major stages of performance management initiative are plan, monitor, review and evaluate. Through these steps, parameters are set to monitor the performance of the employees and evaluate those for appraisal, which includes increase in monetary and other benefits. Thus, it keeps the employees motivated to perform better throughout the year (De Waal, 2013).
- Increase in employee motivation is reflected in the outcome and hence, measuring and evaluating the outcome can help the employees to put devotion in their work.
- In the isolated locations, the performance management initiative can be sustained through the effective communication, since; this system is all about communication among the managers and the employees, arriving at an attainable objective point through participating communication (Pulakos et al., 2015).
- This system encourages participative leadership, which is beneficial in increasing the motivation of the employees, especially in isolated locations. Participative leadership welcomes inputs by the employees during the decision making, which helps in increasing the motivation of the employees.
- Improvement in the employee morale can be attributed to the feedbacks, appraisals and rewards achieved through their contribution. The implementation of performance management initiatives ensures the appraisals, which helps in retaining the skillful and loyal employees for productive mining operations and increased profitability.
- According to Jerome (2013), the participative communication among the employees and managers leads to the motivation generated from the psychological needs, that is, belongingness and love, from the third layer in the motivational pyramid in the hierarchy of needs by Maslow.
- Performance management imitative also motivates the employees to involve in effective team work, which not only increases organizational productivity, but also develops the coordination and communication skills of the employees. The feedbacks from the managers regarding team works make the employees feel valued and raises their motivation towards the job.
- Lastly, appreciations work best to boost the employee motivation. Either certificates or bonus or any type of financial rewards motivate the employees to increase their productivity and deliver the best quality performance (Bach, 2013).
The above motivational factors can be achieved through the introduction of performance management initiative in the isolated locations of MiningCo.
The initiatives can bring about positive outcomes if implemented in the effective manner. The motivational problems arise more for the employees travelling to the isolated locations for the companies. Two weeks of staying in those locations take a toll on the employees and difficult circumstances of working is another obstacle in the path of motivation. Since, these conditions cannot be changed; the only way to improve the employee motivation is to implement an efficient performance management initiative with attractive rewards.
MiningCo: Operating as a Single Entity in Isolated Locations
It is important for MiningCo to sustain the factors for employee interest. Among many such contributory factors, financial reward is one major factor. Along with the performance bonus and appraisals, there should be increased medical benefits, pension scheme and gratuity should be given to the employees. There should also be scope for career growth, through promotions (Marr & Gray, 2012). The growth ladder should be shorter for the employees travelling frequently to isolated locations, based on their performance.
The performance management initiative should be designed in a way so that it can contribute in employee motivation by addressing the hierarchy of needs by Maslow. The outcomes of the assessment should satisfy the psychological needs, safety needs, belongingness and love needs, esteem needs and self-actualization needs of the employees. Then only, they would remain motivated to stay with MiningCo and put their best performance
MiningCo has many isolated locations for their operations. All of these work as a single and independent business entity and also do not allow cross-over staff rotation between them. This is creating an employee retention problem in some locations of the company. Many events in such locations are forcing the foreign nationals to leave the company, such as, growing presence of the ISIS movements in the Middle East makes the foreign nations extremely insecure about staying and working in the Middle East and hence, wants to leave MiningCo. The lack of flexibility to change or rotate the locations is also adding up to the undesirable situation for the employees to work with the company. This is affecting the work culture as well as production of the company. Hence, the HR Department of MiningCo has focused on the problems of operating as a single entity and how to curb those problems by implementing effective measures.
Single business entity operations are defined as separated official departments and business units or subsidiaries, which report their financial information to the parent company and only to the legal agencies and not to other units of the same parent company (Zhang, 2012). In the modern business world, the single entities are exposed to various types of risk and external threats and thus, require environmental management. In the single entity business structure, the risks are effectively allocated, the operational costs are low, along with some legal benefits. The decision making and controlling is easier for the managers in the single entities. However, it also poses certain difficulties in maintaining and protecting the assets of the businesses, which includes both the human and capital resources. Hence, although single entity businesses have certain benefits, they also face critical challenges of protecting the business operations and assets, control management, issues in staff rotation and critical decision making (Ellis, 2016). In case of the business units of MiningCo, situated in different isolated locations face many such critical and different challenges in retaining and protecting the assets, majorly, human resources.
Challenges of a Single Entity Business Structure
As stated above, the single entities of MiningCo in the isolated locations also face certain critical challenges and external threats, which have a severe negative impact on the business operations. The economic crisis of Greece or the growing menace of the activities and movements of ISIS on the foreign nationals in the Middle East are causing serious harm to the operations of the single entity units of MiningCo, as the employees are not feeling safe to visit those locations on a frequent basis. Lack of flexibility to change the location demotivates the employees and they no longer want to stay with MiningCo. This creates a negative impact on the working environment and productivity of the company. This is a big disadvantage of the single units of MiningCo.
The locational problem is creating major problems for the internal management of the company. The biggest internal issue of the of the single entities of MiningCo is the presence of very small number of employees, who are mostly on a fly-in and fly-out mode for two weeks in those locations. Thus, the managers have to maintain a roster for managing those traveling employees. The complexity of staff rotations will increase if number of employee increases too much or rapidly. Hence, internal management issues and external threats make it difficult for the single entities of MiningCo in the isolated locations to implement efficient control on the operations and assets, efficient decision making and retention of skilled employees (Blair & Marcum, 2015). However, it is all the more difficult to have an effective control on the external threats. Hence, the company should think about increasing the motivation of the employees to retain them.
In order to achieve effective performances from the employees, their motivation needs to be improved. It will also help in addressing the critical challenges faced by the employees as well as by the company. Hence, development of motivational policies and its planning is essential. New motivational grounds should be developed to satisfy the employees other than only financial rewards. Following the hierarchy of needs theory by Maslow, the fundamental issue of MiningCo in the isolated location is the absence of the satisfactory elements of the physiological needs and safety needs, generating from the external threats and absence of good employee retention policies. Hence, formulation of potential security plans, which include not only monetary security and job security, but also environmental security, can ensure the fulfillment of safety needs of the individuals, and helps to increase their motivation towards the job in a secured environment (Fernandes, Relvas & Barbosa-Póvoa, 2013). The improvement in the safety and security measures can lead to a reduction in the uncertainties regarding the external threats among the employees, and good measures on employee retention help in increasing motivation as well as productivity of the employees travelling to the isolated locations of MiningCo.
Retaining Employees in Isolated Locations
Along with the above measures, the company must provide a supportive and dynamic working environment to the employees, including group involvement opportunities, appreciation to meet the needs of esteem, and values to the opinions of the employees (Aguinis, Gottfredson & Joo, 2012). Sometimes, the fulfillment of the psychological needs is greater than the monetary benefit to enhance the employee motivation (Blair & Marcum, 2015). Innovative techniques, improved safety measures, improved communication system across different locations and coordination is required, which would not only lead to the requirement of more staff rotation across different units, but also greater integration among the employees of different business units. This would result in a much better cooperation among the employees and enhanced motivation towards the job. Lastly, it can be said that, in case of any economic crisis, such as, in Greece, MiningCo should consider giving rewards, such as, gift boxes or discount vouchers, which would keep the employees motivated and reduce the attrition rate (Bernstein, 2015).
Crisis management team is developed essentially to support the business management of a company during any crisis situation. It provides necessary support to the organization to reduce the level of issues of the crisis (Johansen, Aggerholm & Frandsen, 2012). Crisis issues can be internal or external. There is need for a crisis management team to be developed in the MiningCo to address the issue of substantial talent gap emerging in the individual sites.
Substantial talent gap
The individual sites of MiningCo have been affected by major talent gap that is prevailing in the industry. The problem identified is the reduction in the rate of employee retention and shrinking number of skilled and talented workers in the talent pool of the employees. The older employees are also either leaving the organization or retiring and with that the knowledge and experience are also becoming nonexistent. Hence, it is evident that, in the near future, there will be a crisis in getting and retaining the talent, along with the most important knowledge transfer from the experienced employees to the freshers. Apart from that, the formation of collaboration with the external learning and training institutes for the mining job would require additional cost and longer working hours for the employees. Hence, the talent gap has becoming substantial and it is growing too. To address this issue, a crisis management team should be developed, which would control the employee management and retention and improve the motivational grounds to cover up the talent gap.
Conclusion: Addressing HR Issues in MiningCo’s Isolated Locations
Team selection criteria
The most skilled and knowledgeable members of the organization will be considered for the formation of crisis management team. The criteria for selection will be based on the skills, qualification, and significant experience of the employees. Past experience of crisis management will be counted as an additional advantage. Along with that, the ability of critical thinking, analyzing ability of challenges and spontaneous decision making will be given extra points during selection. However, the most senior executives will be preferred to develop the crisis management team. This would give a value to their experience, skills and knowledge and motivate them by giving a substantial responsibility, at the same time, will highlight the effectiveness of employee retention. Along with that, the members will be selected from various regions and will be appointed to visit different isolated locations of the business units of MiningCo. The selection criteria will provide the opportunity of appreciating the skills, knowledge and experience of the members and their ability to handle critical challenges in the most effective manner (Booth, 2015).
Figure 1: Crisis Management Team Format
(Source: Author)
Positions in the crisis management team will include the Regional Crisis Management Team Manager, Human Resource Advisor and two immediate reporting officers for HR Training and development and retention, Legal Advisor, Security Advisor, Medical Advisor and Environmental Evaluator and Advisor, who will be appointed for analyzing the chances of potential crisis by evaluating the internal and external business environment. All these positions will contribute in planning and the decision making, implementing the plans and coordinating, identifying the training needs and arranging the trainings, modifying and updating the training plans accordingly and take appropriate actions to mitigate the external or internal threats of various challenges and environment. The role of Crisis Management Advisor would be to evaluate the plans formulated and decisions taken and take actions accordingly. Legal Advisor will look into the legal matters. Medical Advisor will take care of the medical related affairs of the team and the organization. Security advisor will take care of the matters related to both the internal and external security. The Human Resource Advisors and the two HR officers will be responsible for all the HR related affairs. The head of the regional crisis management team will the Regional Manager, who will supervise the activities of all the concerned departments and take the final decision to handle the potential crisis situation for the individual isolated locations.
Team structure and function
The structure of the crisis management team will be similar to the organizational structure of MiningCo. The hierarchy will be same and every member of the Crisis Management Team should follow that. The members will be providing knowledge and support to the new and less experienced employees of the isolated locations of MiningCo. The team will manage specific issues of different locations and overall impact on the employees through effective communication. To analyze the issues and discuss the solutions, all the members of the crisis management team should participate proactively. The potential stakeholders with elect the leader of the team through mutual consent and general voting. The members will exhibit participative behavior for all the individual locations.
Reward system
Being a member of the crisis management team is a big responsibility to an employee as it needs high attention and ability to make prompt and necessary decision. The job profile also brings good amount of stress and workload. The major role in the team will be played by the Regional Crisis Management Team Manager, who will be initiating all the communications and necessary actions. He will also be responsible to motivate other members of team by implementing various methods. To recognize the skills and performance of the team members, there will be monetary rewards and bonuses. Apart from that, different types of benefits will be provided to specialized advisors, such as, the HR officers will be provided with advanced technology to increase their efficiency and effectiveness of the job. The senior members will be promoted to a higher designation of a training officer or advisor of any department. This will help in knowledge transfers across the team and the business units.
Conclusion
The business report focused on the impact of performance management initiative on the motivation of the employees, emergencies leading to hysteria among the employees to leave the organization and recommendation on employee retention policies, and formation of Crisis Management Team to handle the crisis situation encountered in different isolated location of MiningCo. It is observed that performance management initiatives play a major role in increasing the employee motivation and it should be introduced to retain the skilled and experienced employees travelling to isolated locations. Since the units act as single entities, there are certain problems faced by the units and employees must be retained by providing incentives and other scopes of growth. Lastly, it is observed that, as old employees are retiring and there is lack of new talents in the pool, a substantial talent gap is created and to handle that situation, a skilled and experienced crisis management team should be created, which would act proactively in different isolated locations of the MiningCo.
References
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