Structuring Individual Performance Targets: Strategies For Enhancing Employee Development And Communication

Structuring individual performance targets

Write an essay on Structuring individual performance targets.

The newly appointed Divisional managers has made a lot of efforts to change the ongoing situation where employees are often expressed dissatisfaction with the pay freeze and evidence suggested that in general the firm is as the poor employer. An individual performance is the main drivers of the growth of the organization in relation with its set goals. The newly appointed Divisional manager of Steel Company has identified that the desired outcomes will be accomplished, or achieved through contribution of individuals or teams to the organization’s strategic goals. Though the approach of dividing teams with the specific job responsibilities is a good approach to make the entire workplace more organized, but there is a gap of understanding regarding the uncertainty emerged amongst employees who are assigned with specific job responsibilities. Employees along with the appointed team leaders find difficult to operate due to lack of training provided by the management of Steel Company. According to Mahadevan and Mohamed (2014), the amplified focus on performance at all levels in an organization arises from the pressure of internationalization and the competitive edges in order to survive in the global market place. At the given organization, the divisional director should focus on the skill development plan such as the value creating skills, competencies, and abilities of the organization’s workplace. This will develop a sense of competency at the individual level to perform as being the assigned member of the team. To structure the individual performance target, each employee needs to undergo with specific role design (Van Dooren, Bouckaert and Halligan 2015). In this context, the divisional director tries to organize and design a role to provide the vehicle for implementing performance plans and expectations. In the performance target sheet, role design should determine task-related attributes needed by the manage (De Waal 2013). Secondly, the managerial leadership should predominantly determine the behavioral attributes such as cultural backgrounds, preferences and many others. This is a major determinant of the employee’s development and his/her job satisfaction.

Furthermore, structuring performance appraisal such as attractive bonus, incentives shall be set out with the production target so that the each employee enhance their commitments to accomplish the target of the organization. Additionally, it is important to evaluate that the aim of the individual’s performance must aligned with the broad objectives of Steel Company. In that case, the management needs to monitor whether a comprehensive efforts would be provided by individuals. It has to do with measurement results in the form of performance achieved from an individual in comparisons with the expectations expressed by the organization. Here individual KPI’s will be monitored by their corresponding team leaders which will help to maximize the returns of the organization. In this way, an effective performance of employee will contribute and reflect in organizations’ bottom line in terms of achieving its planned goals.

Process of PMS to enhance employee development and communication

Performance management refers a process to ensure all employees are aware of the standard of performances as well as the objective of individuals. The purpose of the PMS is to “assess and ensure that the employee is carrying out their duties in an effective and satisfactory manner, which certainly contribute to the overall objectives of the business” (Rabl et al. 2012). According to Buckingham and Goodall (2015), this system is responsible for strategically improve employee engagement. According to the given case study, the newly appointed divisional director has followed the participative style of management to manage people and try to engross them more into their assign job responsibilities. This participative approach insists management people to improve employee’s development and engagement along with communications as well (Goetsch and Davis 2014). Further the company needs to improve managing performance of employees which involves i) maintaining a positive approach to work, ii) updating and revising initial objectives, standards of performance and job competency areas as conditions change, iii) requesting feedbacks from works managers, iv) providing feedbacks from work manager, v) advising career development experiences and vi) employees and work manager working together, managing the process of performance management.

To improve the performance development and communication of employees through the effective performance development process, the following approaches are relevant:

Focusing more on collaboration:

By focusing more on collaborative act from the perspective of responsible leaders with their employees is essential for improving employee engagement at workplace (Ittner and Keusch 2016). In this way, the company will get a more accurate picture of employee performance.

Taking negative feedback into constructive ideas:

Identify and teach from negative feedbacks allow Steel limited to coach their employees and give them the constructive feedback they need to succeed. This process increases the employee-employer responsiveness in their operational activities.

Empower employees:

Empowerment is the key to making people efficient (Rummler and Brache 2012). This will make the business communication more productive within the workplace. Here the participative approach of the divisional director will be favorable because the management of the given organization allows employees to engage in decision making process of the management.

Building the communication open and transparent:

Transparent communication between employer and employees create a stronger communication which helps employee learn how their performance goals fit into the objectives of the organization (Buller and McEvoy 2012).

Improve real time feedback:

By getting feedbacks on time is extremely significant because it ensures better employee-employer responses and improves the identified operational defects as well.

Focusing more on collaboration

An integrated process of performance management provides a systematic link between strategies of organization, wealth and processes (Jiang et al. 2012). According to Denisi and Smith (2014), it is an ample management process framing the continuous improvement journey of the organization. An integrated ongoing process includes “focuses priorities on results, integrates measurement, facilitates analysis and action, encourages continuous improvement and refines and reinforces accountability” (Pollitt 2013).  In this context, the integrated functional and non-financial performance measures are directly practiced with other HR processes. In the given scenario, the owner manager of Steel limited requires to create better performance appraisal process for their employees to enhance more committed towards their work. Thus, an active participation and supports of the human resource mechanism must articulate the knowledge, skill, ability and competency that are deemed to be most instrumental for achieving positive outcomes of Steel Limited.

By setting the target of the performance of an individual and constantly evaluating performances and provide appraisal against such deliveries are inter-connected (Akinbowale, Lourens and Jinabhai 2014). If the owner manager is ready to provide incentives, bonus and undergo with internal individual or team reward systems on the basis of the team performance or organizational performances, then it will motivate each employee and an effective organizational performance will be achieved concurrently. Designing the relevant skills development training programs for their employees, thus, needs to be incorporated by the human resource department of Steel Limited. Therefore, an integrated performance management system shall be practiced with the active contribution of human resource processes. Measuring performance and promoting an environment of continuous improvement by involving all members of organization is the ultimate requirement for integrating performance management process with other human resource process.

In the competitive business environment, employee retention is the most challenging part for human resource department (Kehoe and Wright 2013).  By acknowledging the performance in terms of financial rewards is, thus, an essential to ensure the employee satisfaction. Employees of Steel limited are expressed their discontent because of the imposition of freeze payment structure and there are no occupational privileges have been provided by the owner manager. By the introduction a scheme by the divisional director where team performances against the production target is linked to the bonus to team members is indeed a good approach. However, this would be advisable to maintain a systematic procedure and a structural use of the performance monitoring tools at the workplace. Using effective performance appraisal system is one of the most comprehensive and common which could have been used by owner manager of the given organization. On the other hand, measuring employee performance qualitatively in order to present productivity tests by the management is another option to monitor the individual performance (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). Proportionate financial rewards must be provided as per the performance standards and records maintained by the owner-manager of Steel Co. These will give motivation and job satisfaction to all such employees who have been working in this organization since long period of time. 

References:

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Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong’s handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers.

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DeNisi, A. and Smith, C.E., 2014. Performance appraisal, performance management, and firm-level performance: a review, a proposed model, and new directions for future research. The Academy of Management Annals,8(1), pp.127-179.

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Kehoe, R.R. and Wright, P.M., 2013. The impact of high-performance human resource practices on employees’ attitudes and behaviors. Journal of management, 39(2), pp.366-391.

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