The Performance Management Process at Omega Inc - Case Study Example

THE PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT PROCESS AT OMEGA INC Introduction Omega is a small manufacturing company whose achievements depends on the sale representative hired by it is varies franchise dealers. With its growing business was a need to put performance management process in place to stay at the top against its competitors. The company a greed to support and partially fund the training programme for the sale representatives while the all the franchise owners were in agreement to establish performance management system, they together created performance management system in which, they conducted job description analysis and gave it to all the sale representatives. “Franchise wide mission statement primarily based on the need to provide quality customer service, posted in all franchise offices and each franchise owner spoke to his employees about the contribution made by individual sales representative in achieving their mission.” Prerequisites There was no proper Selection of sales representatives by Omega INC through implementing an appropriate selection process which, entirely left to the franchise owners with their own interests at heart. The values or mission statement of an organization usually indicate normal way in which staff should behave, or as organizational code of conduct, that organizations should take the leading role in promoting acceptable behaviour which will enable the organisation to achieve its objectives and use performance management to develop those behaviours in their employees. On the other hand, promote long term sustainable success, competitive advantage that will act as a form of transformation to a highly specialized, skilled, developed and energized employee. There is a number of important prerequisites for proper functioning of performance management system in an organization that requires all levels of participation among employers and employees involved in an organization. The employer’s support, motivation and commitment were important for building a sound performance working culture among the sales representatives across all the franchise. Every organization performance standards be definitely stated and understood by all staff and employees to make sure that there is achievement of realization of customer relations. The role of sale representatives is precise and concise for achieving sales quotas to meet the set standards of performance set by Omega’s sales target for high customer satisfaction. And there be properly defined linkages to all departments, for effective coordination of the said performance standards in order to achieve their goals. To achieve high performance standards, open and fair communication across the board to motivate employees. Therefore, communication is paramount requirement for performance management for proper clarification of requirement and enabled the salesperson to understand the code of conduct or required code. Evaluation methods of important performance parameters are put in place to measure their outcomes. Consistency, commitment of recognition of high performance, unbiased application, recognitions and incentives placed within framework of performance management to motivate sales representatives. Proper organizational training provided to sales representatives according to their needs, regular assessment and regular review of performance to motivate them to performance better. Planning Franchise wide mission statement drafted in drafting of a customer friendly sales strategy which, gives priority to quality customer services as the major force in customer value. Usually companies struggled to set standards that would precisely indicate growth and maturity of the companies performance indicators assessment processes. (KPIs) The analyzed studies demonstrated a significant association between the use of MCS and PMS on the overall organizations’ performance. Firstly, the use of different MCS and PMS promote the strategic implementation and the execution of organizational goals. Secondly, performance measurement rose as a key factor for SMEs success in the accommodation industry turning the Kaplan and Norton’s methodology into a very useful tool for measuring performance and management control. (Sainaghi 2010) The franchise identified customer satisfactions as the main objective of the company, and went on to train it is work force for better customer relation management. The “People Process Framework” indicates which practices, were crucial in linking organizational goals with performance. The key concept was the transfer of code of conduct down to the employees’ level, to translate set standards into team and individual goals. To provide a proper cooperation among the franchises and its sales representatives, by taking this step every salesperson at the franchise could assess how their participation was influencing their company’s success. Also suggested that individuals who know their expectations performed better therefore, it is important that while setting goals, the transfer and accepting of goals be all inclusive process. Omega and franchise owners set goals, without involving the sales representatives. It was more effective if the sales representatives involved in the setting of goals as opposed to assigning them. The use of sakes quotas solely used to improve performance; there it was important to define expectations, for job satisfaction, to promote self-esteem through achievement of goals and to improve quality of services. The franchise owners created a mission statement which, they shared with their employees by posting it on the noticed board at all franchise offices. By evaluating the purpose of sales quotas and concluded that franchise owners and salespersons needed more specialized training on how to set sales targets, to ensure specific alignment to the overall company objectives. The quality or values of an organization usually reflects the code of conduct for employees to follow. Companies should put more importance on how to identifying appropriate code of conduct which, will achieve their organizational standards, use performance management to come up with proper code of conduct that will enhance it image, in order to promote performance based culture at all franchises. On the process provide competitive advantage, long term growth success to transform to a highly specialized, skilled, and motivated sale representative. Omega management board sets the quality standards of performance management system through defined means of selection and identification of standards that meet their requirements and how they are to deliver these standards. It is these stamen of intend that acts as a catalyst of driving the company towards success while helping it to improve its customer services to maintain upper hand in the market. Through “People Process Framework” which is a multiple, descriptive process meant to improve short term sales quotas while planning for future success. This process explicitly indicates means through which the required results are obtained in guarantying success in the short, long term and defines the definite link among sales representative and the Omega business strategy. The franchise owners planned to improve the sales representative performance to enhance customer satisfaction, by training them and giving performance feedback every end month. Monthly sales quotas set for every individual sales representative. They gave training to improve their customer relationship skills and other motivations. The line manager provided regular communications to the sales representatives to evaluate their progress with regular meetings held for appraisals and monthly sales quotas used to measure their outcome of the training. More recently there was integration of a fifth entry for manufacturing performance management with down stream and upstream, production and strategic/marketing plans and sales quotas. (McGrath 2010) There is more demand for employee development, as every manufacturing company devote their time on how to improve on salesperson rather than sales quotas alone, stiff competition requires a combination of sales quotas, competencies and the recognition of sales personnel development through proper training and planning. By providing employees with the opportunity of enhancing their skills, which will improve their work performance without supervision and become more committed to the high quality customer services enhance increased sales. (Mikeal 2011) There was no performance appraisal form and lack of proper feedback mechanisms. The sales representatives were unable to assess their potential effectively, although “they met sales quotas for the first few months; franchise owners received complaint from their customers.” Proper budgeting and planning of employees training and development improved sales quotas performance but also had a positive effect on employees’ engagement, satisfaction and commitment. The importance employees training and development plans depended upon the franchise managers and their coaching skills to the success of providing meaningful results. Franchise managers had important role to creating the right atmosphere of motivation, learning, development and the resultant improved performance. Ensuring that franchise managers play a bridging role, for long term Omega’s business projections and a focus on the retaining of talent among its sales representatives within all franchise, the purpose of performance management therefore, underscores importance of the philosophy of the learning, promoting regular training for improvement of salespersons, emphasising of the need to acquiring of skills and talent in the short term to meet the Omega’s long term expectations. However, training, coaching and meeting sales quotas alone will not improve performance where the managers are unwilling to coach and motivate the salespersons, the managers did not allow the employees to participate in setting sales quotas, and after set the sales quotas, there was no monitoring mechanism for the salesperson to use to assess their owner contribution to their sales targets, there were no performance appraisal forms in place, the discussions not documented. Execution Holding regular performance training, coaching and review of salespersons to assess their performance and what kind of training they need. Coming up with an efficient incentive to compensate, reward and recognizing those salespersons that meet the said standards in accordance with the sales quotas or show improvement exceeding their expectations. Giving the salespersons responsibilities of choosing how to go about their work in order to meet the laid standards, In consideration of, giving power for the salespersons participation in setting sales quotas, policy-making, encouragement techniques and mentoring the salespersons to give their best while performing their duties. The balanced scorecard indicates ‘the model of six indicators at every stage of management linkage system that provides a strategic road map for implementation’. Kaplan and Norton’s six stage closed-loop management systems are: designed this model, by translation, alignment, execution plan, assessment criteria, training, trial, and using the strategy for performance management. (Kaplan and Norton 2010) The managers set sales quotas for each sales representative, and gave training to them. Review, feedback on performance in training sessions given to the sales representatives and made to recall their monthly sales quotas set by the franchise managers. Assessment Assessing and evaluating performance has been problematic HR area in terms of design and implementations; hence many managers tend to avoid this area of management. (Dessler 2011) Methods like, mentoring, coaching, training, job description, and incentives system be treated with urgency and as the traditional performance assessment process in which, the set standards and improvement need a continuous communication process to remind everyone the importance of performing throughout the month. Experts in the field underlie the importance of effective performance evaluation criteria that follows these features: there is active involvement of salespersons in decision-making process on how to improve their performance and sales quotas clearly identified through the planning of performance goals. Sales representatives required to show a grasp of the organization mission statement’s and the expected results when performing their duties. Employees to show their capacity to utilize their knowhow and skills to provide quality customer services. A clear logical set of performance-based activities that to follow was lacking. Provide a precise set of standards to enhance high degree of efficiency in response to the quality standard of Omega manufacturing company. Franchise owners in conjunction with Omega’s managers conducted job description analysis of the role of salespersons, and gave it all sales representatives. Franchise owners assimilated the mission statement and gave it to their salespersons in order to provide quality customer services. Performance appraisal makes the franchise more effective and efficient by providing enabling environment for high performance. (Grote 2010) through assessing salespersons at regular intervals, evaluation enables companies to provide a clear direction of excellence, methods through which to obtain results, and how much progress are making in achieving the goals set by the franchise. Through mentoring, coaching, empowering by delegating the authority of making individual decisions, giving them more responsibility to the salespersons to perform their duties. (Yasar and Zairi 2010) The salespersons had no mechanism of monitoring and evaluating their performance in achieving sales quotas, the performance review was not adequate, there was no performance assessment forms and lack of feedback which lead to the underperformance of sales representatives. Review Even after setting up, a performance management system, the franchise owner had not put proper mechanisms on how to designing for performance standards to assess the required results and the expected performance goals against the obtained monthly sales quotas. Through proper job description, set target for individual salesperson, reviewing and giving feedback every month, regular evaluations, and hold the annual performance training and review. (Gold 2010) Study by (Humphreys and Trotman 2011) extended the work of by conducting an experiment on the effect of strategy information on judging divisional performance using the balanced scorecard. (Hoque and Adams 2011) Investigated balanced scorecard practices in a sample of Australian government departments. They found that the implementation of balanced scorecard performance measurement systems within the subject departments was not high. Their findings support their prediction that greater balanced scorecard system implementation associated with greater benefits for the department. Though, performance assessment applied as a process of evaluation and monitoring, short comings, happened especially where the managers and salespersons were overwhelmed. (Webster, Beehr & Love 2011) analysed stressors that could result in avoiding ambiguity, conflict, in order to increase job satisfaction and turnover. Salespersons frequently contradicted by management’s decision of implementing of the company’s’ performance target become afraid of the consequences of these processes to their work guarantees or even career development. In addition, inexperienced franchise managers may misunderstand sales representative’s involvement in giving directives rather than mentoring, training and support in managing their employees’ performance. (Gruman and Saks 2011) Hence not involving the salespersons in the critical process of decisions making and setting performance management system to provide quality customer services in order to meet the expectations of Omega company’s needs. (Chen 2011) Also uses DEA as a technique to analyze each unit’s relative use of inputs and its relative production of outputs in a hotel chain, proving to be a useful tool for multiple performance measurement. Through this approach, the hotels chain´s inefficiencies can be detected and managers can focus on improving performance. Back at work the franchise managers provided sales representatives with results of evaluation in regard to their performance goals, which did not give clear picture on which direction the company was heading in relation to its mission statement. Studies indicate the growing prominence of franchise owners with delegating performance responsibility to managers. The achievements performance management system placed in the hand of franchise manager and their interpretation of their roles in implementing these processes in managing the performance of sales representatives. Franchise managers are therefore important in achieving crucial results by motivating their sales representatives for perform better. The implementation of a performance management system within franchise is the sole responsibility of manager therefore; it is the ability, style and skill of the franchise managers that has an impact on the commitment and motivation of their sales representative. This in addition, there is evidence that franchise managers spent very little time on mentoring and coaching salespersons instead preferred to assess only sales quotas at the end of the month. There were no performance appraisal forms in place, and sales representatives lacked means in which to assess their contribution in achieving their quotas. The performance appraisal assessed only monthly sales quotas without measuring the ability of salespersons of handling customers, which denied the franchises from reaching their full potential hence contributing to lack of proper monitoring mechanism in providing high quality customer services. The evaluation process was of little importance to them and the assessment was generally performed without proper preparation, or training. (Spence and Keeping 2011) evaluation methods has changed from assessment issue to rates of recognition in which franchise managers makes, codes, and assesses performance to increase the accuracy of the appraisal system appraisal; at the same process, managers target the good relationship with their sales representatives, character and adopting to Omega company’s goals. This assessment system was ambiguous hence causing confusion and frustration. Meagre performing employees recognized through the assessment cycle and known feedback on how to develop. (Brown 2010) Renewal Providing support, guidance and mentoring to the sales representatives, by training and coaching them. The external competition leads to the need of attracting and retaining competent salespersons by fair monetary and other incentives compensation system. Sales representatives felt appreciated by the companies that had incentives in place to reward performing sales representatives. (Lai 2011) through the regular provision training, mentoring and coaching throughout the month for good performance, selecting of a training curricularum and required benchmarks to assess the results obtained against the Omega’s set standards and execution of efficient development system for improvement. Empowerment of sales representatives can create strong attachment and sense of ownership towards the franchise, by being more confident, motivated to perform better, hence increasing customer quality services. (Hummayoun and Saif 2010) Recommendation From this case study, they are a number of changes needed to enable the franchises run smoothly, in drafting of performance appraisals, the participation of employees is paramount to the success of customer satisfaction and mechanisms of the employees’ assessment are in place for their owner monitoring in meeting their performance targets. Conclusion For the success of the Omega manufacturing company there is a need of proper coordination of franchise management and its employees to empower them, through incentives like increment of salaries, motivation, training and coaching at regular intervals besides retaining and nurturing talent among its sales representatives across all franchise. Reference list Abdul Q and Sukirno, 2012 ‘an Empirical Analysis of Employee Motivation and the Role of Demographics: the Banking Industry of Pakistan Global Business and Management Research:’ an International Journal (4)1 Brown M, 2010 performance appraisal experience. Personnel Review 39(3) pp. 375-396. Chen Tien-Hui, 2011 ‘Performance measurement in a small Taiwanese hotel chain,’ Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, Vol. XX(X), pp. 1-9. 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