Dairy farming remains the economic backbone of livestock farmers in Zimbabwe.

Milk and
dairy products forms a vital source of nutrition, livelihoods (food security and poverty
alleviation) opportunities for farmers and other stakeholders. However in my farm, milk
productivity per animal is low despite the technological advances in animal breeding and
value addition. Therefore as a manager to alleviate these challenges, following strategies will
be put in place on performance management systems.

Performance management is the process of creating a work environment or setting in which

people are enabled to perform to the best of their abilities. It is the main vehicle by which
managers communicate what is required from employees and give feedback on how well they
are achieving job goals (CIPD, 2009). That system has to be a self-adjusted and continues
process. Performance management assumes that the increasing of individual performance
will lead to growth and new skills deployed, potential to the improvement of organization
performance.

An organization which is good at performance management supports its clients

to achieve the organization’s goals. Gradually, performance management became the most
important management tool that allows managers to be sure that all the human resources
aspects from their activities are correctly interpreted. This allows line managers to be sure
that their subordinates know what to do, have the necessary competences for that, and fulfil
their tasks at adequate standard.

As a farm manager of dairy farm which is experiencing low milk production because of the
following factors which are, poor strategic focus, weak leadership support, poor stakeholder
review, lack of simplicity, poor and inadequate pasture, poor communication channels and
feedback, poor diseases control methods, inadequate infrastructure, unskilled labour,
inappropriate breeds among others. The farm faced these challenges for the past two years
which affect the revenue at large. Therefore, the following performance management systems
are put in place to improve milk production at my farm.

Improve on strategic focus. The manager’s overall strategy and goals must be integrated into
performance management process so as to deliver real business value. A well-designed
process begins with focus. Having too many farm diary goals and relying on a “cascade”
process will likely leave employees feeling confused, unaligned, and inefficient in milk
production. Then as a manager I will simplify and prioritize farm goals, and focus my
performance management on a few critical goals that are key to high milk production. Then
help employees understand how their everyday work and individual goals will help achieve
these objectives.

Improve timely and meaningful feedback. As a manager I make sure formal performance
review will improve and quickly provide feedback because delays make employees feel
blindsided, and this can lead to disappointment, confusion, frustration, and disengagement.
Disengaged employees are less productive and less motivated to improve their performance.
Furthermore, I will train junior managers to provide timely, meaningful feedback when
positive behaviours or performance issues occur. Waiting too long to give feedback hurts
employee’s morale, engagement, and ultimately business performance.

Improve good leadership support. Management and leadership team must support and help
drive performance management. Leaders have to be committed and actively engage teams in
performance management activities, and provide support and recognition to junior managers
and employees who exhibit the expected behaviour and actions. Without leadership support,
performance management will not be successful no matter how well-designed the process is,
and this will worsen the problem of low milk production at a farm.

Revise stakeholder review. When designing performance management process, as a manager

we should involve major stakeholders early on in the planning phase since they are the future
users of the system. Without proper consultation with key stakeholders, performance
management process may not address all the needs of increasing milk production, and risk
losing time, resources, and buy-in implementing a system that no one wants or knows how to
use.

Implementing proper training and communication. Without proper training and development,
leaders and workers may not fully understand what are best ways of using available resources
to improve milk production particularly in the implementation phase of these resources, it is
crucial to have good, relevant communications to explain the benefits of effectively use the
available resources, and provide ongoing training to help leaders and workers obtain the
appropriate knowledge, and skills to properly engage their teams in milk production in
various departments.

Appropriate recognition and rewards. Rewards are extremely important in recognizing and
promoting top performance in milk production, and to keep employees engaged, motivated,
and inspired about their future in high milk production and improvements. An effective
rewards and recognition program should have clear expectations and criteria around what
types of behaviours and actions are rewarded that drive high milk output.

Simplicity and balanced score cards. Whether manager currently have performance
management in place or not, the process ultimately implemented should be simple, easy to
understand and use. Employees should not have to spend hours to learn new processes and
tools in producing high volumes of milk, or to look for the performance-related information
and forms they need. Bad performance is costly and delivers very little value in milk
production, and can actually lower employee engagement level and harm levels of milk
output. But when done right, the impact of effective performance on milk production is
significant. Not only increases revenue growth but will also stop top performers from walking
out the door.

Poor and inadequate pasture. Good pasture management is one of the most important aspects
of successful high milk production. As a manager I will improve and manage the production
of good pasture for example assigning and monitoring workers. Once an improved grass-
legume pasture is established it can remain productive and weed free, providing large
amounts of good quality feed for dairy cows, bulls, and young stock for many years.

Assessing the appropriate level of stocking. The farm manager establishes well-trained
employees to monitor the feed supply (pasta re) availability of the farm at least twice a week.
The purpose of this is to match feed supply (pasture growth) with the needs of the animals.
Small fluctuations in feed supply due to short periods without rain can normally be accounted
for by a little supplementary feeding with elephant grass or similar. If on the other hand
pasture availability is too little or too much, changes in the way the farm is run should be
made as soon as possible, as even though it may not be observable, production will be
suffering.

Improved dairy animals and other farm technology. Clearly, use of exotic cattle genetics is a
rapid and potentially sustainable path to higher milk productivity. At the same time, the
failures caused by importing high-grade animals should be noted and avoided. Breeding
strategies need to address the realities of climate and disease risk. Given appropriate breeding
strategies and disease control measures, however, it is possible to develop and sustain cross-
bred dairy production systems; such systems have often played a key role in dairy
development. Where relative land and labour values constrain uptake of specialized fodder
technologies, a potential avenue for increased productivity is through improved ‘food-fodder’
crop varieties, bred to increase the fodder quality and digestibility of the straws and stoves
they produce.

Conclusively, in the long run I will merger performance management and incentive
management for high milk production on my farm. Smart organizations pair their
performance management with an incentive management process. The two systems have a lot
in common, from defining roles and setting goals to reviewing and rewarding employee
behaviour, and as such, do very well when run simultaneously. Using incentive management
also means that the all-important ‘reward’ step of performance management is done properly.
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