Performance Management Processes: Objectives, Implementation And Training

Discussion

Performance Management Processes is used to analyze and increase the effectiveness of an employee. This process includes both the manager and employee to work together to effectively increase one’s contribution towards their organization. It is not just a process of verbal activities but includes setting goals, assessing activities everyday and providing necessary coaching to the employee to ensure their success.

The main aim of this report is to develop and assess performance-based objectives of organization and its implementation to provide the necessary endings to the organization. This report also discusses about the necessary training activities or remedial actions that are included in the performance management process.

The performance based process for an employee working in a company, which wants to implement e-commerce business (Olugu and Wong 2012), needs to analyze every perspective available in the company.

• Firstly, information needed is to be provided in the report. The information includes sales, traffic and presentations of the websites
• It includes digitization of the company where the company will be digitally active and all the performances including sales and goods will be monitored in the back office.
• Analytical applications like Google analytics or other sources are likely to be used to get the general ideas of conversion tracking.

An example of an operational plan for a Sport Management Company is shown here. Firstly, the company organizes visits to schools to get new and fresh talents. Secondly, the company advertises various major events. Thirdly, social events based on sports are initiated to make the program more appealing. Lastly, the company communicates with their members through newsletters and email.

This section of the report deals with the key performance indicator (KPI) standards and competencies.

Sales KPI: 

Key research areas	KPIs
Customer satisfaction	Customers are greeted within five minutes of entering the store
Orders are recorded with 99% accuracy
Hands are washed before every food order is prepared
Financial performance	Revenue forecasts are completed by July 31st each year
Five sales are to be made per week
Office supplies are ordered within monthly budgets
Pays are calculated with 100% accuracy
Management processes	Facilitate weekly team meetings
Minutes of meetings are recorded and distributed to participants within 24 hours of the meeting

For an e-commerce store, three KPIs are listed which will help analyse the performance management process of the organization involved.

Sales KPI:

• Daily and monthly sales are included in the sales KPI. This KPI analysis should be analysed to get the required sales and the revenue that is targeted by the organization
• Average daily sales made by the store

Management KPI:

• Daily visitors in the website
• The sources of traffic

Customer service KPI:

• The email count of customers
• The phone call count of customers

A formal meeting for performance-based process requires written invitation to the employees working there (Heinrich 2012). The letter will inform the employee about the performance-based process, which will be sufficient for him/her to join the meeting. The letter will also hold the right to attend the meeting by the employee. Generally, a span of 5 days is given for a formal performance based process.

Firstly, the formal performance management meeting is conducted where the employee’s line manager will address the concerns of the meeting and providing guidance to them by giving appropriate examples and evidences. The employees are then allowed to give evidence stating their reasons in the meeting.

Secondly, a written performance warning is issued to address the problems. It involves two steps. The first step involves issuing a written formal performance warning which will include the nature of the issues that should be addressed. The warning will also inform the employee about the decrease in performance which will be reviewed for 6 weeks. If performance is not increased, then another formal meeting will commence which will issue another formal warning to the concerned employee.

After the issuing of final warning, if performance is not increased in the review period, another formal meeting will commence where the main ideas will be to discuss about the final decisions, which may include dismissals or transfer.

Performance-based processes must recover many dire employment situations. These include:

• Employees working in an insurance company are required to attend weekly meetings. However, some of their staffs work from home. The workers are needed o attend the meetings via Skype.
• A dog food manufacturing company wants to increase their sales in supermarkets and thus wants the salespersons to do so. More promotions are required where salespersons need to involve themselves with customers.
• A car detailing company wants their workers to work on four cars on their whole 8-hour shifts, but some of their employees work half time The workers who works half time, needs to work in a minimum of two cars in a day.
• A logistics company require their drivers to get wages on a fixed monthly basis. However, the company has many drivers who are hired as rentals and needs to be paid by the hour. The number of rental drivers is required to be decreased and more fulltime workers should be recruited.

Stakeholders are those people who have or can have a direct influence in the company (Needham et al. 2012). They are employers, customers, suppliers, community and the owners.

Activity 1

Performance based system is an extensive process to determine and analyse the key problems of a company and then analyse the solutions to that problem. It has five key features.

• Specific tasks are required to be set-the goals set by the leader should be accurate, specific, time-bound and relevant. This will help the employees to work with a high satisfaction.
• Specifying priorities-the managers are required to divide the work between the employees and to give them priorities in their work.
• Performance tracking-the managers should track the performance of each employees every day.
• Feedback-after assessing the performance, managers must give constructive feedback to the employees.
• Pay with performance-employees must get satisfaction by working hard and being rewarded from the company.

For a data-entry staff in an organization, the comparative method for performance base system is used. This type of approach is used to rank the employees working based on their performance from highest to lowest performers.

The dialogue said had many weaknesses that might lead them not to get a good performance based process.

• Penny is not supportive towards Eric.
• She is partial to Alex as she presumes that Alex does fine work.
• She is also denying the right to get an appeal to Eric.
• She is rude and harsh.
• She also did not tell the proper procedures for appeal to Eric. 

Eric: ‘Hi Penny, I just wanted to ask you a question about my recent performance appraisal.’

-Penny: ‘Can you please come at some other time? I’ve got some important things to do at the moment.’

-Eric: ‘Oh, umm I guess it could wait . . . it is just that I’m not sure that my appraisal was done fairly and I wanted to ask you what I could do to appeal some of the information that was in it. Do we have a set procedure for that?’

-Penny: ‘Can you please tell me who did your appraisal?’

-Eric: ‘Alex did it but we had a disagreement last week and I think that might have influenced him.’

-Penny: ‘Oh well, I really don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about. Alex is always very fair with his appraisals. But if he criticised your performance I’m sure there is a reason behind it’

-Eric: ‘So are you saying that here is nothing I can do about it?’

-Penny: ‘Sure you can, you have to implement the proper procedures for giving an appeal.’

• A number of employees are not telling customers about warranties on products as they believe the details of the warranty are too complicated
• An organisation’s line managers are not handling arguments between employees well as they have poor conflict management skills
• Many employees are failing to proofread the product descriptions they have written for placement on the organisation’s website as they believe that this should be done by data entry staff
• Claims staff in an organisation is failing to call customers to tell them that their claims have been denied, as they feel they are not paid well enough to tolerate customer abuse

• Many employees are not providing a report that summarise their sales each month as they were unaware that they were required to do so
• Many employees are failing to cross-sell to clients because they are unsure as to how to introduce the topic of complementary products into conversations with clients
• Staff are not recording points earned for purchases on a client’s loyalty card because they do not know how to do that at the same time as processing sales

The performance based system of a suit manufacturing company needs to analyse the main cause of return for the suits. The company needs to analyse the main reasons for their reasons. The manufacturing department needs to be notified about the problem and should be asked to review the problems.

A line manager needs to analyse the performance of the employees regularly. In the absence of regular checks, employees can show signs of laziness. The manager can also bring out the best out of the workers by complementing them on their hard work.

The management needs to check with the employee regarding the reasons for their late comings and poor work. If the problem is due to some major issues then the problem needs to be sorted out, else warning will be given to the employee for improving his/her work.

The employee needs to be explained about the details of working. The employee needs to be properly instructed and advised by showing them the proper way to do business.

If the requirements needed by an employer are not met, then the company holds the right to terminate the employee. Even after giving proper training to the employee, if performance does not increase, termination will be done stating the reasons for it.

Poor performance must be dealt accordingly. The sales team is not too efficient but they do their job and this cannot be the reason to terminate them. As such, they need to be advised regarding bonuses and other benefits that will be given if they exceed their target giving them a second chance. If they do not abide by, then termination will be in progress.

Activity 2

In cases like this, the employer can request an unpaid leave. The employer do not need to resign for this but can apply for an unpaid leave. The company must sanction this request.

If the employee has not increased their performance even after getting new coaching and instructions, the company may terminate their employment due to unreasonable behaviours.

Poor performance review id needed. As such, the employer is required to follow up with the employee to know the details about such conduct. If satisfactory reasons are found from the review, then company needs to review whether they will transfer the employee or terminate them.

The manager is advised to warn the employee as drug relatedness is not tolerable by any company. If this behaviour is continued, then the company needs to terminate the employee.

The manager needs to report to this problem in a very cautious manner. The manager need to get the fact that the employee is not satisfied with the current job position. The employee will be given a chance if vacancy shows up in the company. If he/she can perform well in the interview, then they will get the job or else they have to stick with their usual job.

The first process of solving dispute is to listen to both parties. The manager and the employee is needed to be heard. There claims will then be reviewed and applied accordingly. If the company head determines that there is a fault in the performance report, he/she can re do the report fairly.

If by resolution, the action is justified, then the employee needs to get another chance to work her experience and get promotion. The employee needs to work hard and the manager needs to advise her on the process.

This section lists 13 questions that every employer asks before terminating an employee (Mowday, Porter and Steers 2013).

1. What to do if the employee is under a bargaining policy?
2. What are the presence of past practices to handle with the issues that are being faced from this employee?
3. What are the relevant employee policy?
4. Is the employee known to his attendance and performance?
5. If the issue faced is minor, has the employee received any warnings?
6. Is the reason for firing is given in the termination letter?
7. Will the employee be shocked by this or not?
8. Is the issues for this been documented?
9. Is there any proof for misconduct, if any?
10. Has the employee given any reasons for this?
11. Is the managers responsible for termination is biased?
12. Does the issue feel right?
13. Is there any discussion with senior regarding the termination?

After the termination process, the employee should be asked to leave the company. The manager needs to report the matter to the seniors and the formation of a recruitment board is required to get fresh candidates for that vacant position. In the meanwhile, the employee will be given sufficient time to leave. The line manager needs to explain the termination policy to the employee and the reasons for termination.

The performance-based reports should be documented. The main documents are required to be given sufficient evidence to support the documents (Toplak, West and Stanovich 2013). Specific examples are required to be given in the document regarding the performance basis. The relevant examples includes reports and data gathered.

The documented outcomes need to be securely stored in the computer database. The database must be password protected and must provide security to the user. Efficient personnel must do the making and storing of the documented report only. This will help to give protection to the documented reports and other people will not be able to access them.

A great idea should be rewarded if implemented rightly. However, budget is the driving force of a company and if any report violates the fact, then the report can not be justified. Hence, even if great proposals are made, if budgetary aspects are not justified, then the report will not be accepted.    

Activity 3

Performance feedback plans are developed to implement the performance report made. The planning process includes the steps that are followed to make a performance report (Rummler and Brache 2012). It includes revenue forecasting where the revenue made is followed, data collection where the data to be reviewed is needed to be analysed, objectives that are required to be met, plans of the company that are being implemented and lastly any development programs that are being reviewed in the report.           

For a e-commerce based job, the performance feedback from employees include the effective gathering of information and applying it to get relevant data. For a regional manager, the certain requirements are needed to increase the performance. The work environment is one factor to increase performance. The sales KPIs and management KPIs should be also included in the report.

Many training methods are being given by organizations to effectively train their staffs to do the required work. However, to know the outcomes of the given training to the staffs, there must be an evaluative process to measure the return. This section deals with five strategies to know the outcomes:

• Satisfaction reaction-the most basic of methods where each successful participants of training are handed out a survey form. That form is used to get the required responses.
• Knowledge-the second method is to get an examination after the training to get information about the perceived training.
• Behaviour changes-where certain surveys or information before and after the training to see the difference in acquired changes in behaviour.
• Improvement in business-this method shows the effective changes in business acquisition after providing training. If there is no such changes, that means training is not done properly.
• ROI-return on investment is the last method used where the entire invested amount for training is calculated to get the net profit. If there is no profit, that means training is not properly done and vice-versa.

The knowledge-based method is the most used and extensive way to get training outcomes. It uses an examination review to find the level of perceived training in each of the candidates. Examination based routine is very useful because it changes the behaviour of the candidates to accept the training and perform well.

Firstly, training is given to handle equipments. The first task is to make products before selling them and thus, training is given here. Secondly, training is given on making receipts of orders. After making the products, the second task is to sell them. Lastly, training is given to supervisors to write reports. This is the last task that is usually done at the end of the shift.

Sales and marketing is an important aspect in any company without which, the company cannot survive. To ensure a company always meet their target, effective planning and learning should be enhanced to give them the qualitative advantage. Three training providers are associated with the report. Firstly, Richardson is one sales training company. Secondly, Imparta is another such company providing industry training in sales and management. Lastly, BTS is another company providing sales training in industry.

To collaborate for industrial training, Imparta is the first one that comes to mind. Imparta is a company that helps to provide performance improvement in marketing and sales. Imparta is the best solution for giving industrial training. It provides international training through their wide range of trainers. Thus, Impart is a great way of giving training to the staffs.

Quality assurance standards (QA standards) are a method of standard that is implemented by organizations across countries to provide services and products with great quality to clients and customers (Thompson and Lockie 2013).

QA standard training can be monitored by implementing certain steps that are present in this section:

• Quality and appropriate standard related documents are gathered and analysed
• Personnel involved in research should always remain updated to training and standards
• All research and development should be made in accordance with company policies
• Specific rules and tasks will be given to all personnel which should be followed
• A database is maintained which includes the descriptions of each and every personnel

Remedial action is defined by a change in a product or service given from a company to their clients or customers. The most effective remedial ways are the repair and rework. Most organization use the remedial actions when a product or service is reported to be defective than the rest of the manufactured product..

Activity 4

This section includes a letter to the training provider regarding some problems faced in training sessions.

To

Imparta Ltd

London, United kingdoms

Sub: Problems faced during training sessions.

This is to inform the respected authorities of Imparta Ltd. regarding some of the problems faced during training sessions by some of our candidates. The training provided were digital in nature and our staffs were not conversant with the ideas proposed. This has imposed many problems to our staffs, as the processes used in our infrastructure are not digital. Hence, please oblige with my concern, as this is a serious problem and if no solutions are provided, then there will be no outcome of the training provided.

Sincerely,

ABC solutions pvt ltd

The training activities that are provided needs to be analysed to know the outcome of the training applied. To know this, Kirkpatrick’s Four-Level Model of Evaluation (Kennedy et al. 2014) is used to determine the outcome. The first level includes reaction evaluation. For example, reaction surveys are used to know the reaction given after the training. The second level includes learning where the data from untrained employees are compare to trained ones to evaluate their performance. The third level is the behavioral changes, which takes place after the training sessions to know the amount of training perceived. The last level is the result evaluation where the results expected are compared to the actual result to find the success of the training given.

This section includes a report of success of learning and training to a company.

Training is essential to increase the performance of the staffs working here. The lack of knowledge present in the staffs of a company is being made up by providing appropriate training. This report is to provide emphasis on learning and training on the development of successful activities.

The training methods provided here is the Kirkpatrick’s Four-Level Model of Evaluation, which is used to determine the outcome. The first level includes the reaction evaluation. The second level of this model includes learning. The third level is the changes in behavior. The last level is the evaluation of result.

The developmental activities can also be achieved by providing training in different aspects like soft skills, personal skills, technical skills and leadership skills. Thus, it is concluded from the report that learning and developmental activity training is a great and effective way to increase the performance of the company involved.

Ten characteristics of a learning organization that is included in this section:

• Senior officials are seen as business representatives from both outside and inside the organization.
• Ease of access by employees and effective learning methods are provided here.
• Providing quantitative and qualitative ways of measuring outcomes is always a priority.
• A percentage of total budgets are always allocated towards learning and training.
• The managers to check for effective performance always ensure learning and routine checks.
• The demands from stakeholders regarding learning and training are ensured.
• The results from these training processes are seemed to be trustworthy by the stakeholders.
• The policies and standards are present to promote learning and development of talents.
• Continuous strategic methods are implied to provide better learning every time.
• The successful adaptation in presence of immediate or sudden risks is a feature of a learning organization.

Performance management is an effective way of synchronizing the role of a worker in line with that of the employee. However, discrimination is not accepted in performance management (Robinson et al. 2013).To make performance reports, the employer must not judge a person by their health or personal status. The presence of irrelevant characteristics in workplace can also be a form of discrimination, which should not be present.

Grievances are a procedure followed by an employee where they address their issues of misinterpreting or misunderstanding company policies (GEN 2017). The grievance policy is usually a procedure of steps followed by the employee. The first step is to find whether there is any grievance, if there is union representatives to be solved will review it. After this, the next higher level of managers will review it and this process will go on to the highest level of management in the organization to resolve the issue. If resolving is not done, an outside person reviews it.

Activity 5

There are three models discussed in this section.

Firstly, the feedback sandwich model where feedback is started with a positive feedback and then a constructive or destructive assessment is given. Then, the feedback is closed with a good statement that will please the reader (Keller et al. 2014). Secondly, the feedback behaviour impact is another model where the situation for defining the feedback is given followed by the behaviours associated with it. The feedback is closed with the impact got from the feedback. Lastly, Pendleton’s model is another way where the positive behaviours are given first followed by the skills required to achieve them. The feedback is closed by providing the ways to achieve targets differently.

Skill development can be achieved by mentoring where the employees are mentored on their tasks. On job training is another way to achieve skill development. Academic courses can also improve the skill sets of a person. E-learning and webinars are found to be effective for development of skills in an individuals.

The best methods for performance management are the graphic ratings, management by objectives and forced ranking. Graphic ratings are a process where the evaluator bases a performance on a scale of 10 to give ratings. Management by objectives is another way where set of priorities are given for a task and performance is measured for the completion of those tasks. Forced ranking is a way where all the performing employees are retained and the non-performing ones are removed to get productivity from businesses.

Performance management is required to be aligned with business objectives (Rabl et al. 2012). The metrics provided in a report gives many questions which involves the aligning of metrics with employees and managers to get a just review and if the report is an annual or a frequent one.

Conclusion:

Thus, it can be concluded from the report that performance based systems are an effective way to know the outcomes of an organization. The outcomes are either for or against the budget and provide a way of profit or loss made by the organization. Thus, this report addresses the effective training and planning methods that are needed for the report to be made. 

References:

Olugu, E.U. and Wong, K.Y., 2012. An expert fuzzy rule-based system for closed-loop supply chain performance assessment in the automotive industry. Expert Systems with Applications, 39(1), pp.375-384.

Heinrich, C.J., 2012. Measuring public sector performance and effectiveness. The SAGE handbook of public administration, p.32.

Needham, D.M., Davidson, J., Cohen, H., Hopkins, R.O., Weinert, C., Wunsch, H., Zawistowski, C., Bemis-Dougherty, A., Berney, S.C., Bienvenu, O.J. and Brady, S.L., 2012. Improving long-term outcomes after discharge from intensive care unit: report from a stakeholders’ conference. Critical care medicine, 40(2), pp.502-509.

Rabl, T., Gómez-Villamor, S., Sadoghi, M., Muntés-Mulero, V., Jacobsen, H.A. and Mankovskii, S., 2012. Solving big data challenges for enterprise application performance management. Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment, 5(12), pp.1724-1735.

Keller, B.W., Wadsley, J., Benincasa, S.M. and Couchman, H.M.P., 2014. A superbubble feedback model for galaxy simulations. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 442(4), pp.3013-3025.

GEN, G.P., 2017. Dispute Resolution.

Robinson, P.W., Pätynen, J., Lokki, T., Suk Jang, H., Yong Jeon, J. and Xiang, N., 2013. The role of diffusive architectural surfaces on auditory spatial discrimination in performance venues. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 133(6), pp.3940-3950.

Kennedy, P.E., Chyung, S.Y., Winiecki, D.J. and Brinkerhoff, R.O., 2014. Training professionals’ usage and understanding of Kirkpatrick’s Level 3 and Level 4 evaluations. International Journal of Training and Development, 18(1), pp.1-21.

Thompson, L.J. and Lockie, S., 2013. Private standards, grower networks, and power in a food supply system. Agriculture and human values, 30(3), pp.379-388.

Rummler, G.A. and Brache, A.P., 2012. Improving performance: How to manage the white space on the organization chart. John Wiley & Sons.

Toplak, M.E., West, R.F. and Stanovich, K.E., 2013. Practitioner Review: Do performance?based measures and ratings of executive function assess the same construct?. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 54(2), pp.131-143.

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