Developing People And Organizations In The UK Government: A Case Study On Shire County Council

Strategies undertaken by the UK government to address local government challenges

The article gives an overview of developing people and organizations in the context of strategies undertaken by the United Kingdom (UK) government for outlining how the  local government addresses challenges for not only ensuring community leadership but also improved services within  the controlled budgets’ along with ensuring better response for changing the customer needs and expectations. The Shire County Council pursued the strategy in an effort for responding to the central government. Based on the strategy the council initiated certain central elements to the change process that included development of the organization, development of the capacity of  leadership, development of workforce capacity and skills, recruitment, resourcing and retention and rewards and payments. These objectives had manifold implications on the employees and the various departments of the council. The article however provides an answer to the various questions related to how the changes process affects the Shire County Council. The first question of the article relates to the steps taken for reducing voluntary redundancy while the second question discusses about benefits ofthe formal management system. The third question is a discussion on the career development opportunities for the outsourced staff while the fourth question focuses on the policies and practices of career management for the achievement of the strategic objectives of the council. The fifth question highlights the benefits of diverse workforce.

1.The council could have adopted the following steps for reducing the voluntary redundancy:

1. Freezing of Recruitment: Shire County Council should make sure that in critical times it is necessary for working with existing resources that will also lead to cost control (Liapis and Thalassinos 2013). This implies taking advantage of the natural wastage without undertaking replacement of exiting employees, workload reallocation and reshufflings of the workers for controlling the headcount.
2. Elimination of Voluntary Overtime: ShireCounty Council must also take care of reducing any voluntary overtime of the employees to reduce redundancy (Ryan and Wallace 2016). The human resource (HR) should communicate this to the workforce so that they are able to understand the reason for elimination of the overtime since in some cases it might not please if they considered it a part of regular salary.
3.  Providing Discretionary Benefits: The council should also re-evaluate the benefits of the employee (Claassen 2013). During the years of boom, benefits primarily attracted the top employees however this might not be the scenario in the sectors where there exist more applicants compared to the jobs. Therefore, the council must undertake extreme care for the removal of the contractual benefits.
4. Reducing Working Week and Work Hours: ShireCounty Council should undertake regular review of the working situation so that the return to the full time arrangements for working can take on an immediate basis (Golden and Figart 2013).
5. Freezing or Reducing Pay for Staffs: The council can avoid redundancies by balancing the act of reducing pay or freezing (Gunnigle, Lavelle and Monaghan 2013). This is done either through means of rewarding the employees and boosting their morale.
6. Promoting Arrangements for Job Sharing: The ShireCounty Council must adopt job-sharing arrangements that will help multiple people filling in a single job role (Michielsens, Bingham and Clarke 2013). The benefits of the arrangements ensure necessary cost saving on the pay roll and encourage teamwork and training.
7. Identifying and Encouraging Opportunities of Secondments: The council should encourage secondments as it provides an essential means for the staffs gain further  knowledge and branch out.
8. Agreement on Sabbaticals of the Senior Staffs: To ensure reduction of redundancy the council must grant sabbaticals for the career development of the employees. Sabbaticals are granted for different reasons including research, study, voluntary work and travel.
9.  Offering Opportunity for Purchasing Extra Annual Leave: The ShireCounty Council must offer the staffs with the opportunity of buying an extra leave on an annual basis at the cost of the salary on pro data basis (Todd and Binns 2013). However, this is only possible on a temporary basis and there should be documentation of the arrangement for all concerned staffs. 

The benefits of a formal performance management system include:

1. Helps in Maintaining Consistency:  The formal performance management system ensures consistency in the selection of the employees for transfer, promotion or other actions. In addition, the system helps in matching the right person for the right job (Bednall, Sanders and Runhaar 2014).
2. Creation of Motivation: The performance appraisal system helps in identifying exceptional people suitable for rewards like transfer and other related policies (Mone and London 2018). This helps the employees in realizing that organizations identifies and rewards achievement that acts an encouragement for others in improving their performance.
3. Creates Morale and Ensures Retention: Motivated employees remain royal that helps the management in gaining success in retaining valuable employees at times when the workforce represented more mobility (Bach 2013). Moreover, presence of morale helps in making a pleasant workforce with increased output on a per hour basis.
4. Focus on Employee Evaluation: The performance management system helps the organization in employee evaluation that might help in accurately judging and rewarding the employees. Having responsible employees will drive the organizational towards financial gain.
5. Creation of Training Needs: A formal performance management systemalso acts a remedial means for making the employees better. The performance management system helps in identifying weaker employees who are in the dire need for training.
6. Identification of Weaker Employees: The formal performance management system also helps in identifying the weaker employees. The management is increasingly willing in dismissing inadequate and unproductive employee.

b. Different Methods of Measuring Performance 

The measurements for employee performance helps in deter mining an employee compensations, determination of employee status and the determining the opportunities for the advancement. The various methods of measuring employee performance include:

Method of Graphic Rating Scale: This represents an ideal method for the work environments that are production oriented and mostly fast paced in the beverage and the food industry (Mir and Pinnington 2014). The method consists of a rating scale that lists the performance standards and the job duties in a scale ranging from 1 to 5 for rating the performance of the employees. This particular method just like the other methods requires some amount of preparation. However, the method is quite quick which acts as an additional advantage for the supervisors who is responsible for managing larger departments or works in an ambience that hardly leaves scopes for the workforce management.

Method of Management by Objectives (MBOs): This method is useful for measurement of the employee performance in the managerial or supervisory positions. The method begins with identification of the employee goals (Hilsdorf and Kropp 2014). The next step of the method includes setting the timelines for the achievement of every goal. However, throughout this process of evaluation the manager and the employee meet on a quarterly basis for discussing the progress of the employees and the necessity of resetting the company goals. The performance of the employee measured by the number of goals accomplished within the given frame of time.

Method of Forced Ranking: The forced ranking method measured the achievements of the employee achievements against peers, instead of undertaking a comparing the current evaluation period of the employees with his own performance in the past (Chenhall, Hall and Smith 2013). Therefore, forced ranking ensures creating a competitive work ambience.
 

Case study of the Shire County Council’s central elements of the change process

3.a. Reducing Employee Turnover 

To reduce the employee turnover Shire Council must adopt the following steps:

1. Ensure Integration of Hiring Process with Business Forecast: At the first place,Shire Council must hire employees who culturally as well as behaviourally fit for the job (Mowday, Porter and Steers 2013). One should ask behavioural interview questions to the employees for finding out their reaction to specific situations. This will help the candidates in eliminating themselves whenever they feel the situation to be unsuitable.
2. By Offering Competitive Benefits and Pay: Employees expects well compensation so that they can cover the standard expenses like the utilities, housing and food. Therefore, Shire Council must do a good market research on the wages and offer competitive pay and benefits to the employees that will help in reducing turnover.
3. Encouragement and Praise to the Employees: Employees requires recognition and encouragement. Thus, Shire Council should at times congratulate its employees for their work. This helps in creation of a positive work environment where employees not only feel respected and acknowledged but at the same time motivated and desired.
4. Showing them Career Path: Shire Council must show the employees a path of projected growth   in their career that helps them in giving a sense of purpose and direction. This will not only prevent stagnation but will also enhance the knowledge skills of the employees.

b. Improve Career Development Opportunities for Outsourced Staff 

Initiating career development helps in the creation of healthy, happy and productive employees (Blustein 2013). It ensures providing the employees with well being and security. However, the improvement in the path of career development opportunists for the outsourced candidates is achieved by adopting the following steps:

1. Beginning with a Plan for Career Development: Creating career plan for the employees by aligning business goals with objectives of the plan. There exist five elements that helps in designing a plan for improved  career development plan and these includes  meaningful work, improved education and health,  increased in the opportunities for growth, enhanced  income, and higher productivity and  time.  
2. Setting Work Schedules with Clearer Goals: Setting up the work schedules that helps the employees to breathe and pause. It is necessary for giving the employees time for relaxing otherwise it will burn them completely and allow them in pacing themselves.
3. Continuously Training the Employees: Works in the same job for a while becomes monotonous for the employees therefore opportunities for additional training helps in boosting the self worth and confidence of the employees. Shire Council should incorporate training for the outsourced that will help them in adapting and surviving.
4. Providing Opportunities for the Career Growth:  Employment growth is something employee looks forward at the beginning of their career. Although a career upliftment will come as additional responsibility, it helps in motivating the employees in performing well.
5. Cultivating Mindset of Growth amongst Employees: In absence of promotion, employees can achieve financial growth through availability of various reward programs in the form of long-term incentives
6. Creation of a Fun-filled and Motivated Work Environment: Although financial rewards are important but they are not the only factor that contributes to improvement in the engagement of the employees and enhancing their motivation towards work. 

4.For achieving the strategic objectives of the Shire Council there should be assistance of career management theories and practices (Al Ariss, Cascio and Paauwe 2014). The theories of career management fall under three categories which include theory of process, theory of the content and the theory of the process and content. Based on these categories theories of career management includes Holland Theory, Bandura Theory, Parson Theory, Krumboltz Theory and Super Theory. However the implementation of the Holland theory of career management might help the council in achieving the strategic objectives. This theory put forward that in making a career choice most of the people prefer jobs where they can be around others who are similar to them. According to this theory, people are in the search of environments that ensures in helping them in using their abilities and skills along with expressing their values and attitudes thereby undertaking enjoyable roles and problems (Patton and McMahon 2014). Thus, as per this theory, determination of behaviour represents an interaction between personality and the environment. The theory also portrays that most of the people fits into any one of the six personality types which includes realistic, artistic, social, investigative, conventional and enterprising. On the other hand, the career management practices include:

• Providing the Career Planning workshop and Employee Assessment: This implied the implementation of the workshops where the employees can take charge of the careers starting with the assessment of their interest, values and abilities.
• Conduction of Career Coaching Workshops for the Managers:While the employees learns in  taking charge of their individual careers, managers are gradually learning the ways for supporting such efforts through becoming familiar with  not only the career assessment but also the planning process
• Establishment of Career Centres for the Employees: This implies setting up of the internal career centres where the employees seek help for the self-assessment.
• Ensuring Open Business Briefings:For meet the employees halfway in the process of  planning their career should  discuss the strategic decisions in an open forum and ensure planning  that might influence  jobs or skills necessary for the future
• Creating of an Internal Network of the Information Providers: This leads to the adoption  of a network for people within an organization who express willingness  to talk and learn about the nature of work job qualification
• Maintenance of the Internal Job and Talent Bank:This portrays the creation of an on-line service where the employees are able to learn about  the open positions and  skills necessary for them
• Establishment of the Individual Learning Accounts:This leads to the creation of individual accounts for learning, providing desired amounts of money and time that the employees are willing to spend on internships, classes, or the other available learning opportunities based on their choice. 
• Beginning of a Mentoring Program:Implementation of mentoring programs proved effective in enhancing the retention of the employees by about 77 percent.

The employer could be more inclusive and encourage the promotion of diversity includes by adopting the following strategies (Barak 2016):

1. By Acknowledging the Difference:It is necessary for admitting the fact that people vary from one another in terms of gender, race, religion, management style or personality
2. Providing Bias Free Implicit Training:In spite of bias free thinking, judgements often creep in due to life experience and socialization. Incorporation of implicit bias free training helps in creation of a safe place for raising awareness and teaching tools for changing behaviour.
3. Allowing the People to Learn by Doing:Allowing people are acting out of the norm by ensuring that they learn by doing acts as more powerfulin unearthing attitudes that are deeply held.
4. Encouraging the Process of Personal Evaluation:This implies ensuring acceptance of overall diversity for opening up the mind
5. Valuing Diversity: Possessing perspectives which reflects an inclusive behaviour helps in valuing diversity. 

b. Benefits of a Diverse Workforce

The benefits of a diverse workforce include (Podsiadlowski et al. 2013):

1. Leads to the Increase in Productivity: Diversity results in enhancement of productivity due to the increase of the employee morale and motivates the employees to work more.
2. Enhancement of Creativity:It increases creativity within the company due to the presence of the heterogeneous groups that results in cross-fertilizing each other within the company.
3. Promoting Company Reputation through Language Skills: There are many bilingual workers who remain at an advantage while dropping in an application for job because it might help in enhancement of the reputation of the company in a different location.

Conclusion: 

The report ends by throwing a light on the concept of workplace diversity and its importance. The report also gave an insight into the theory and practice of career management that Shire Council should adopt for achievement of strategic objectives. There is also discussion on how the council can reduce employee turnover and at the same time mention the means for improving career development opportunities of the outsourced staffs. The report also focuses on the benefits of formal performance management and the ways of reducing voluntary redundancy. 

References: 

Al Ariss, A., Cascio, W.F. and Paauwe, J., 2014. Talent management: Current theories and future research directions. Journal of World Business, 49(2), pp.173-179.

Bach, S., 2013. Performance management. Managing human resources: Human resource management in transition, pp.221-342.

Barak, M.E.M., 2016. Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage Publications.

Bednall, T.C., Sanders, K. and Runhaar, P., 2014. Stimulating informal learning activities through perceptions of performance appraisal quality and human resource management system strength: A two-wave study. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 13(1), pp.45-61.

Blustein, D., 2013. The psychology of working: A new perspective for career development, counseling, and public policy. Routledge.

Chenhall, R.H., Hall, M. and Smith, D., 2013. Performance measurement, modes of evaluation and the development of compromising accounts. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 38(4), pp.268-287.

Claassen, R., 2013. Public goods, mutual benefits, and majority rule. Journal of Social Philosophy, 44(3), pp.270-290.

Golden, L. and Figart, D.M., 2013. Working Time: International trends, theory and policy perspectives. Routledge.

Gunnigle, P., Lavelle, J. and Monaghan, S., 2013. Weathering the storm? Multinational companies and human resource management through the global financial crisis. International Journal of Manpower, 34(3), pp.214-231.

Hilsdorf, H. and Kropp, J., 2014. Performance criteria for concrete durability. CRC Press.

Liapis, K. and Thalassinos, E., 2013. A Comparative Analysis for the Accounting Reporting of “Employee Benefits” between IFRS and other Accounting Standards: A Case Study for the Biggest Listed Entities in Greece. International Journal of Economics and Business Administration, 1(1), pp.91-116.

Michielsens, E., Bingham, C. and Clarke, L., 2013. Managing diversity through flexible work arrangements: Management perspectives. Employee Relations, 36(1), pp.49-69.

Mir, F.A. and Pinnington, A.H., 2014. Exploring the value of project management: linking project management performance and project success. International journal of project management, 32(2), pp.202-217.

Mone, E.M. and London, M., 2018. Employee engagement through effective performance management: A practical guide for managers. Routledge.

Mowday, R.T., Porter, L.W. and Steers, R.M., 2013. Employee—organization linkages: The psychology of commitment, absenteeism, and turnover. Academic press.

Patton, W. and McMahon, M., 2014. Career development and systems theory: Connecting theory and practice (Vol. 2). Springer.

Podsiadlowski, A., Gröschke, D., Kogler, M., Springer, C. and Van Der Zee, K., 2013. Managing a culturally diverse workforce: Diversity perspectives in organizations. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 37(2), pp.159-175.

Ryan, L. and Wallace, J., 2016. Annual hours, workplace partnership and mutual gains: exploring the links. Employee Relations, 38(2), pp.248-266.

Todd, P. and Binns, J., 2013. Work–life balance: is it now a problem for management?. Gender, Work & Organization, 20(3), pp.219-231.

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