BSBHRM512 LEARNER 1

Develop performance management processes

 Three objectives for performance management

Performance management frameworks are designed with the objective of improving both
individual and organizational performance by identifying performance requirements,
providing regular feedback and assisting the employees in their career development.

Performance management aims at building a high-performance culture for both the

individuals and the teams so that they jointly take the responsibility of improving the
business processes on a continuous basis and at the same time raise the competence bar
by upgrading their own skills within a leadership framework. Its focus is on enabling goal
clarity for making people do the right things in the right time. It may be said that the main
objective of a performance management system is to achieve the capacity of the employees
to the full potential in favour of both the employee and the organization, by defining the
expectations in terms of roles, responsibilities and accountabilities, required competencies
and the expected behaviours.

The main goal of performance management is to ensure that the organization as a system
and its subsystems work together in an integrated fashion for accomplishing optimum
results or outcomes.

The major objectives of performance management are discussed below:

 To enable the employees towards achievement of superior standards of work

performance.
 To help the employees in identifying the knowledge and skills required for
performing the job efficiently as this would drive their focus towards performing the
right task in the right way.
 Boosting the performance of the employees by encouraging employee
empowerment, motivation and implementation of an effective reward mechanism.
  Promoting a two-way system of communication between the supervisors and the
employees for clarifying expectations about the roles and accountabilities,
communicating the functional and organizational goals, providing a regular and a
transparent feedback for improving employee performance and continuous
coaching.
 Identifying the barriers to effective performance and resolving those barriers
through constant monitoring, coaching and development interventions.
 Creating a basis for several administrative decisions strategic planning, succession
planning, promotions and performance-based payment.
 Promoting personal growth and advancement in the career of the employees by
helping them in acquiring the desired knowledge and skills.

Some of the key concerns of a performance management system in an organization are:

 Concerned with the output (the results achieved), outcomes, processes required for
reaching the results and also the inputs (knowledge, skills and attitudes).
 Concerned with measurement of results and review of progress in the achievement
of set targets.
 Concerned with defining business plans in advance for shaping a successful future.
 Striving for continuous improvement and continuous development by creating a
learning culture and an open system.
 Concerned with establishing a culture of trust and mutual understanding that fosters
free flow of communication at all levels in matters such as clarification of
expectations and sharing of information on the core values of an organization which
binds the team together.
 Concerned with the provision of procedural fairness and transparency in the process
of decision making.

The performance management approach has become an indispensable tool in the hands of
the corporates as it ensures that the people uphold the corporate values and tread in the
path of accomplishment of the ultimate corporate vision and mission. It is a forward looking
process as it involves both the supervisor and also the employee in a process of joint
planning and goal setting in the beginning of the year.
  One example of a process for KPI setting

Step 1: Get very clear about what a KPI or performance

measure truly is and isn’t.

If we want to develop KPIs or develop performance measures that are meaningful, we have
to start with a solid understanding of what meaningful means. Too many people mistake the
following things as KPIs or performance measures:

 Positive participant satisfaction surveys

 Implement new recruitment system by June

 Employee Productivity

None of these are true performance measures or KPIs, because none of them are clear,
unambiguous or quantitative. The first one is a data collection method (a survey). The
second is a milestone (an indicator of project progress, not performance). The third one is
just some vague and undefined concept that could be interpreted in different ways and
measured in even more different ways.

S t e p 2 : E v a l u a t e y o u r e x i s ti n g K P I s a n d p e r f o r m a n c e m e a s u r e s
to decide what to keep and what to cull.

If you don’t currently have a robust and proper approach to develop KPIs and measures, it
doesn’t mean all of them will be bad. Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. It’s
certainly worth a little bit of effort to evaluate your existing KPIs and measures, so you can
keep the good ones and cull the bad ones.

Start by setting up an evaluation framework, maybe even just in a spreadsheet (use this
template), that contains the criteria for excellence KPIs or measures. These four steps for
killing off zombie KPIs will give you a simple process for the evaluation.
Then, as you gather all your existing measures and KPIs into your evaluation spreadsheet,
quickly audit each one to be sure it has the complete essential details that every measure
needs.

And bear in mind that it’s never good to have too many KPIs. So if you find that everything
that moves has a measure, you might want to add an extra iteration of culling to your
evaluation process.

Step 3: Make sure your goals are measurable before you

develop performance measures.

Have you noticed that most KPI conversation start with someone asking a question like this:
“So, what could we measure?” Wrong question. It leads us down a rabbit-hole as we rush to
quick-fix KPIs. We end up creating the wrong KPIs for the goals we have. Or we end up with
very trivial measures that don’t help us make better decisions.

Meaningful performance measures start with measurable goals. This means that your goal
needs to be worded clearly enough and specifically enough that you can imagine how you’ll
recognise when it becomes real. So you might first want to check if your current goals are
measurable, and also use this recipe to write measurable goals.

Step 4: Don’t use brainstorming to set KPIs! Use this

deliberate technique instead…

When Alex Osborn invented the creativity technique called brainstorming, I wonder if he
had any idea just how extensively business would apply it. Almost every meeting uses some
kind of brainstorming event. But there’s one meeting where we really should leave it off the
agenda: the meeting to develop performance measures.
Brainstorming generates very lame KPIs. A KPI brainstorming session, for the goal of staff
engagement, produced this list of actions, vague concepts, milestones, indirectly related
measures, and trivial counts:

 Turnover

 Sick days

 Retention rate

 Introduction of talent management

 Overtime

 Staff survey

 Engagement index

 Staff satisfaction with their job

 Leadership development

 Performance management

o ROLE PLAY WITH THE MANAGER

In our we have discussed the various things which helps the management to
make the work easier faster and convenient. There are some important
things we are discussed in the role which are as under:
Role of Top Managers in Performance Management

The top managers play a lead in the entire process by setting trends for the lower rung and
acting as role models for the employees. Their responsibility is to design policies which
ensure an efficient management of performance in an organization and to define and act
upon the core values relating to performance. Top management plays a vital role in
convincing the line managers that performance management can be instrumental in the
achievement of business goals and thus ensure that they take this aspect seriously in their
work front for maximizing employee satisfaction and productivity.

Top managers are expected to develop a high performance culture in an organization by

ensuring the following:

 By communicating an organization’s mission and values to its customers and

employees.
 By clearly defining the work expectations and communicating to everyone for
ensuring success in the achievement of business goals and facilitating an overall
performance improvement.
 By keeping the employees informed about their progress towards the achievement
of goals and suggesting corrective actions for non-achievement of performance.

Role of Top Managers in Performance Management

The top managers play a lead in the entire process by setting trends for the lower rung and
acting as role models for the employees. Their responsibility is to design policies which
ensure an efficient management of performance in an organization and to define and act
upon the core values relating to performance. Top management plays a vital role in
convincing the line managers that performance management can be instrumental in the
achievement of business goals and thus ensure that they take this aspect seriously in their
work front for maximizing employee satisfaction and productivity.

Top managers are expected to develop a high performance culture in an organization by

ensuring the following:
  By communicating an organization’s mission and values to its customers and
employees.
 By clearly defining the work expectations and communicating to everyone for
ensuring success in the achievement of business goals and facilitating an overall
performance improvement.
 By keeping the employees informed about their progress towards the achievement
of goals and suggesting corrective actions for non-achievement of performance.
 By establishing a shared belief amongst the employees regarding the importance of
continuous improvement in performance.

 By establishing a shared belief amongst the employees regarding the importance of

continuous improvement in performance.

Role of Line Managers in Performance Management

The line managers or the front line management play a very crucial role in implementing
and enacting the HR policies. Hence, it is very important for the management to ensure that
the line managers possess a right attitude towards the performance management
approaches and equally possess the right competencies for executing it. The line managers
mostly consider the performance management process as a mere bureaucratic chore and
hence they consider it as a sheer waste of time. Some managers lack the required skills for
reviewing the performance of the employees, providing feedback and identifying objectives
along with them. These limitations can be overcome by adopting the following remedies:

 By providing leadership from the top.

 By communicating with the line managers about the importance of performance
management in driving successful results and how it is a part of their responsibility.
 By maintaining simplicity in the overall process of performance management.
 By reducing the pressure from the line managers by making the process an ongoing
one instead of an annual review.
 By involving the line managers in the design and development of the performance
management processes by representing them in pilot studies.

Implementation planning for performance management processes

Performance objectives

Performance  To enable the

management objectives employees towards
achievement of
superior standards of
work performance.
 To help the
employees in
identifying the
knowledge and skills
required for
performing...
 Boosting the
performance of the
employees by
encouraging employee
empowerment, ...

Action plan

Action Resouces Strategy/tactics Timeline

Implement an E Plant and Invention of new 2 months

 commerce equipment technology
strategy needed to attain
the objectives
To provide Six delivery Feedback from the 1 month
effective service drivers, four customers
and to build warehouse staff,
consumer five technical
relations staffs, training
experts and other
staff members
required to
provide services to
the organisations

To provide Training to the Provide full training 3 weeks

training to the staff and to the
staff people and external trainer
managers and technology
expert

Written reflection of process undertaken to develop and implement performance

management processes

An organisation’s success is not just dependent upon having the right strategy and
resources. It is also reliant upon the ability of its management to harness, direct and support
teams and individuals to engage in delivering the organisation’s mission and objectives.

Managers play a critical role in delivering performance. Managers need to be able to

consistently deliver performance and results and get the best possible performance from
the teams and individuals they manage.

Effective performance management enables employees and teams to understand the goals
of the organisation and to identify how individual and team outputs contribute to the
achievement of organisational objectives in line with organisational values. The integration
of people, planning and performance with organisational objectives develops individual,
team and organisational capability leading to higher performance.

An effective performance management process helps to establish and support the link
between strategic business objectives and people’s day-to-day actions and tasks. An
effective goal setting system, combined with a process for tracking progression can
contribute significantly to individual, team and organisational performance.

An effective performance management process enables first line managers to evaluate and
measure individual and team performance and to evaluate performance and productivity.

This are achieved by:

 Aligning each employees’ day-to-day actions with strategic business objectives

 Providing and make clear accountability related to performance expectations
 Document individual performance to support career planning decisions
 Establishing focus for skill development and learning activity choices such as skills
matrix.
 Creating documentation for legal purposes, to support decisions and conflict
resolution

Many of the practices that ideally support performance also impact positively on job
satisfaction, and employee engagement levels.

Some of the recommended performance management practices include:

 Providing individuals and teams members with clear, constructive feedback

 Define and communicate clear performance objectives.
 Review performance and deliver incentives in a fair and consistent manner
 Providing relevant learning and training development opportunities
 Recognize and reward strong individual and team performance.
 Link performance to compensation and recognition.
 Identify clear career progress routes for employees.
 In business management, a learning organization is a company that facilitates the
learning of its members and continuously transforms itself. [1] The concept was coined
through the work and research of Peter Senge and his colleagues.[2]

Learning organizations develop as a result of the pressures facing modern organizations; this
enables them to remain competitive in the business environment There is a multitude of
definitions of a learning organization as well as their typologies. Peter Senge stated in an
interview that a learning organization is a group of people working together collectively to
enhance their capacities to create results they really care about. [4] Senge popularized the
concept of the learning organization through his book The Fifth Discipline. In the book, he
proposed the following five characteristics:[5][6]

1. Systems thinking. The idea of the learning organization developed from a body of
work called systems thinking.[7] This is a conceptual framework that allows people to
study businesses as bounded objects.[6] Learning organizations use this method of
thinking when assessing their company and have information systems that measure
the performance of the organization as a whole and of its various components.[7]
Systems thinking states that all the characteristics must be apparent at once in an
organization for it to be a learning organization.[6] If some of these characteristics are
missing then the organization will fall short of its goal. However, O'Keeffe [3] believes
that the characteristics of a learning organization are factors that are gradually
acquired, rather than developed simultaneously.
2. Personal mastery. The commitment by an individual to the process of learning is
known as personal mastery.[6] There is a competitive advantage for an organization
whose workforce can learn more quickly than the workforce of other organizations. [8]
Learning is considered to be more than just acquiring information; it is expanding the
ability to be more productive by learning how to apply our skills to our work in the
most valuable way.[9] Personal mastery appears also in a spiritual way as, for
example, clarification of focus, personal vision and ability to see and interpret reality
objectively.[10] Individual learning is acquired through staff training, development and
continuous self-improvement;[11] however, learning cannot be forced upon an
individual who is not receptive to learning.[6] Research shows that most learning in
the workplace is incidental, rather than the product of formal training, [3] therefore it
 is important to develop a culture where personal mastery is practiced in daily life. [6] A
learning organization has been described as the sum of individual learning, but there
must be mechanisms for individual learning to be transferred into organizational
learning.[8] Personal mastery makes possible many positive outcomes such as
individual performance, self-efficacy, self-motivation, sense of responsibility,
commitment, patience and focus on relevant matters as well as work-life balance and
well-being.[12][10][9]
3. Mental models. Assumptions and generalizations held by individuals and
organizations are called mental models.[6] Personal mental models describe what
people can or cannot detect.[13] Due to selective observation, mental models might
limit peoples’ observations. To become a learning organization, these models must
be identified and challenged. Individuals tend to espouse theories, which are what
they intend to follow, and theories-in-use, which are what they actually do. [6][7]
Similarly, organizations tend to have 'memories' which preserve certain behaviours,
norms and values.[14] In creating a learning environment it is important to replace
confrontational attitudes with an open culture[11] that promotes inquiry and trust.[3]
To achieve this, the learning organization needs mechanisms for locating and
assessing organizational theories of action.[7] Unwanted values need to be discarded
in a process called 'unlearning'.[14] Wang and Ahmed[8] refer to this as 'triple loop
learning'. For organizations, problems arise when mental models evolve beneath the
level of awareness. Thus it is important to examine business issues and actively
question current business practices and new skills before they become integrated
into new practices.[15]
4. Shared vision. The development of a shared vision is important in motivating the
staff to learn, as it creates a common identity that provides focus and energy for
learning.[6] The most successful visions build on the individual visions of the
employees at all levels of the organization, [11] thus the creation of a shared vision can
be hindered by traditional structures where the company vision is imposed from
above.[3] Therefore, learning organizations tend to have flat, decentralized
organizational structures.[7] The shared vision is often to succeed against a
competitor;[8] however, Senge states that these are transitory goals and suggests that
there should also be long-term goals that are intrinsic within the company. [6] On the
 other hand, the lack of clearly defined goals can negatively affect the organisation, as
it cannot attain its members trust.[16] Applying the practices of a shared vision creates
a suitable environment for the development of trust through communication and
collaboration within the organization. As a result, the built shared vision encourages
the members to share their own experiences and opinions, thus enhancing effects of
organizational learning.[9]
5. Team learning. The accumulation of individual learning constitutes team learning.[3]
The benefit of team or shared learning is that staff grow more quickly [3] and the
problem solving capacity of the organization is improved through better access to
knowledge and expertise.[11] Learning organizations have structures that facilitate
team learning with features such as boundary crossing and openness.[7] In team
meetings members can learn better from each other by concentrating on listening,
avoiding interruption, being interested in and responding.[17] As a result of
development, people don't have to hide or overlook their disagreements. By those
they make their collective understanding richer.[6] Team learning is at its best: The
ability to think insightfully about complex issues, the ability to take innovative,
coordinated action and the ability to create a network that will allow other teams to
take action as well.[18] Team's focus is on transferring both quiet and explicit
information across the group and creating an environment where creativity can
flourish. Team learn how to think together.[6] Team learning is process of adapting
and developing the team capacity to create the results that its members really want.
[6]
Team learning requires individuals to engage in dialogue and discussion; [3]
therefore team members must develop open communication, shared meaning, and
shared understanding.[3] Learning organizations typically have excellent knowledge
management structures, allowing creation, acquisition, dissemination, and
implementation of this knowledge in the organization. [8] Team learning requires
discipline and routines. Discipline in team helps members and leaders to use tools
such as Action-Learning-Cycle and Dialogue.[17] Team learning is only one element of
learning cycle. For the cycle to be complete, it has to include all five principles which
are mentioned above.
This combination encourages organizations to shift to a more interconnected way of
thinking. Organizations should become more like communities that employees can feel a
commitment to.

     

Staff complaints need careful and proper handling. A grievance may concern an employee’s
role, their workplace or even another member of staff. Whether you’re an HR professional,
an office manager or the owner of the business, your aim in dealing with the grievance
should be to resolve the issue quickly and effectively. You need to ensure that your
employee gets a fair hearing and outcome, and avoid putting the business through a lengthy
or costly employee tribunal. Here are five key actions to deal with a workplace grievance.
 

1. Initiate the grievance procedure

By law, every company should have a formal, written grievance procedure. This written
procedure should tell employees whom to contact if they have an issue and should set out
the steps of the process and the time limits for each stage.
In many instances, the first step of the procedure may involve an informal discussion to see
if the issue can be easily solved. If it can’t, the employee will need to initiate the formal
process by submitting a grievance in writing. 
 

2. Investigate the grievance

While not always necessary, you may need to take some time to investigate the complaint.
In particular, if the issue involves other members of staff, they will need to be notified and
given a chance to explain their positions or to give their own evidence. Once you’ve
completed your investigations, you can arrange a grievance hearing. You’ll need to inform
all relevant parties, so that they can make their own preparations. 
 

3. Hold a grievance hearing

The next key action is to hold the formal meeting where the employee will set out their
grievance and provide any evidence to back up their case. All parties should attend this
grievance hearing. Employees have the right to bring along a colleague or union
representative. The employee should also be invited to explain how they would like their
issue to be resolved and what outcome they are seeking. You should arrange for formal
notes to be taken at this meeting, which you can then circulate to all parties afterwards. 
 

4. Make your decision and inform the employee

After the meeting, you will make your decision. You may decide to uphold the staff
member’s grievance in full or in part, or you may reject it. If you uphold it, or parts of it, you
need to identify the action that will be taken. Write to the employee, telling them what your
decision is. Explain the reasons for your decision and advise them what actions you will take
and what actions they should take. 
 

5. Further action

If the employee does not accept the decision, they have the right to an appeal. Again, your
policy should outline the appeals process that will be followed when an employee wants to
take the grievance further.
The employee should request in writing that their appeal be heard and inform you what
their grounds for appeal are. Where possible, to provide impartiality, the appeal should be
heard by another manager or director, and one who was not involved in the first
meeting. At the appeal hearing, you can examine the reasons for the appeal and any new
evidence. Again, after the hearing, you should write to the employee, informing them of
your decision and the reasons for it. If your employee still does not accept your decision,
they can pursue mediation or make a claim to an employment tribunal. 
It’s never nice to have to deal with a workplace grievance. Whatever the cause, and
wherever the blame may lie, at minimum it means that someone within your company is
unhappy. And that is not a productive situation in the workplace. Following these actions
will help you to resolve the conflict and respond to any problems as quickly and simply as
possible.