An Analysis Of Performance Management Strategies Business Essay

“Performance management (PM) includes activities to ensure that goals are consistently being met in an effective and efficient manner. Performance management can focus on the performance of an organization, a department, employee, or even the processes to build a product or service, as well as many other areas.”

In both definitions it is clear that performance management is process of continuously measuring performance of each individual in organization to achieve set goals. To check that organization is performing in right way, we use performance management strategy or system to measure performance of specific department or employees or to measure performance of whole organization.

Performance management talks about important and broader issues of organization. It gives procedures to organizations to achieve their goals. Performance management links all people, teams and individuals associated with business. Performance management should include:

Performance management throughout the organization for individual, team and increased productivity of organization.

Development is also very important for improved performance. Unless there is no development plan for employees in organization there will be no performance improvement.

Organizations should ensure that employees are encouraged and motivated to fulfill their responsibility.

How It Works?

As performance management is very key part of organization to make organization work effectively. So this strategy should be structured properly. There should be a performance management framework to operate it effectively and efficiently in organization.

Tools of Performance Management

Performance Reviews

To measure performance management there should be regular reviews of individual’s performance. There should be performance review meetings to evaluate performance management. The meetings should be properly managed and planned to measure.

Learning and Development

Most famous and successful organizations give importance to employee development for increased performance of organization. With the help of performance reviews employees can be encouraged to look for deficiencies in them. And it should be responsibility of organization to provide learning and development schemes. Organizations which have high emphasis on individuals learning have emphasis on performance improvement indirectly.

Measurements

Organizations which want to measure performance management effectively, there employees or individuals should know that on what criteria or through which procedures their performance is going to be measured. Organizations should measure performance on fairly and honest basis.

Pay

In many organizations performance management is related with performance related pay. Performance related pay is important tool in many organizations to motivate employees through performance related pay.

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT STRATEGY OF DERBY CITY COUNCIL

I have taken the performance management strategy of DERBY CITY COUNCIL as example to evaluate their strategy. I am going to evaluate their performance strategy of 2007-2010.

Objective

The basic objective of performance management strategy of DERBY CITY COUNCIL is to manage performance across council and the steps they will use to achieve their goals.

They have described everything in their strategy that what they are going to achieve and how they will achieve.

Importance of Performance Management

As from definitions it is clear that performance management strategy is used to make organization more effective and to engage every employee in development of organization. So DERBY CITY COUNCIL has taken the importance of performance management very seriously as well. Performance management strategy make council to look for current status of their work, monitor for problems and issues arising, how to solve them and plans to implement their strategy.

Performance management strategy is important to DERBY CITY COUNCIL for number of reasons.

Improving Services

Council is always here to improve services for people. So that’s why performance management strategy is very important to council as they want to continuously improve services for people. They are focused on achieving right goals according to needs and expectations of local people and community. And their strategy helps them to look out their progress in achieving those goals and to look for any issues occurring in their current plans or not. And according to council their strategy is main key to improve their services continuously for people.

Motivating staff

For DERBY CITY COUNCIL their performance management strategy is not only to achieve goals like to improve services of people. For council effective management strategy is that which motivate their staff to understand them what is their role in this strategy, how much they are involved in achieving goals set by council for local people and whether their staff is getting fit into framework set by council to achieve their targets. That’s why council has described in their workforce Development Plan the scheme called Achievement and Development to stay connected with staff and promote their learning and to motivate them to fulfill their individual duties to achieve organizational goals.

Meeting Government Expectations

Performance management strategy is important to council because they want to meet government expectations. As performance assessment which is annual assessment by local authorities to measure performance or achievements of council in last year. So to meet government expectations performance management strategy is important to them.

Demonstrating Value for Money

Council tax is always concern for local residents, and they want to see that while council is doing or improving services for them or not. So this strategy is important to them to make a clear vision in local community about their value of money and council is continuously working for improvements.

Purpose of Strategy

For DERBY CITY COUNCIL, purpose of their performance management strategy is to

Establish strong planning and performance framework to continuously improve services.

To implement performance management system to measure performances of individuals and of organization.

To achieve their set goals and targets.

To be classified as four star council by meeting government expectations by continuously improving services for people.

For DERBY CITY COUNCIL effective performance strategy not only requires good strategy but also organizational culture which supports this strategy by encouraging staff to improve their services.

Performance Framework of DERBY CITY COUNCIL

Their performance framework includes community strategy, corporate plan, business plans, team plans and individual plans.

In framework council used community strategy to set the long term visions and targets for local community. It’s a long term strategy to improve services which can be renewable.

The Council corporate plan is to support community strategy how they will focus on continuous improvements and key actions to be taken for improvements.

Business plans in performance framework are there to describe how each section of council work for improvements.

Team plans will demonstrate employees to develop their understanding that how they will individually or in teams contribute for improvements.

For council performance framework has to be clear, accurate and timely planned.

What Council is Aiming to Achieve?

Through their strategy council want to create an environment where every individual knows his/her contribution towards improving services and feel motivated and encouraged to manage their own performance effectively.

Council Main Principles

Council target is based on five principles which lead towards improvement.

Balanced measurements

For every process three elements are always important like inputs, outputs and outcomes. According to council as outcomes are always important for end users but they want balanced set of all measures means inputs, outputs and outcomes in their strategy to improve services.

Strong Decision Making

For council strong decision making is very important to them. As it is their one of main principle that decisions maker should be confident enough in information which he/she is using for decision making. They should use data of good quality to make decisions. The data or information which is used for decision making should be accurate, strong and relevant.

Clear

The performance information must be clear and should be accessible to all users.

Goal Oriented

Information should be goal oriented, focusing on key goals and targets to be achieved.

Individual role

Every individual must know his/her role in managing performance and key actions towards improvements.

How Council will achieve his Vision?

In this section council will deliver his strategy to achieve their goal. For council there are some sections which should be fulfilled to make their strategy successful.

Role of Leader in Culture of Performance Management

A performance management culture is climate or environment in which organization is working. Through performance management culture every employee and individual knows the values and vision of organization and their own roles to achieve those goals for organization. It encourages and motivates individuals to act in their role properly and perform their duties.

As it is important for everyone to manage performance culture, but it should be lead by effective leader who has strong leadership skills. Like in performance framework of DERBY CITY COUNCIL there should be effective leader to lead corporate or business plans.

Strong and confident leaders know what kind of performance is required and have ability to clearly communicate every individual’s role towards improvement. They make clear to everyone that these areas are to be focused or improve and whose role is required or important in this issue.

Advantages:

Managers or leaders set clear goals and expectations across all employees which are continuously monitored.

With performance measures there are continuous appraisals.

DERBY CITY COUNCIL has culture where excellent performance is praised and shared across council.

Clear Roles and Responsibilities

To make their strategy effective council has described every individual’s roles and responsibilities in their performance management strategy.

Some roles are described below:

Corporate Directors:

Take operational responsibility of key actions to be done by council.

They continuously review performances.

They made actions required regarding data quality for decision making.

They ensure that performance is under consideration in department.

Performance Board:

This board monitors that performance management strategy is implemented properly or not.

Heads of Service

They identify opportunities for improvement in strategy or performance management system.

They monitor underperformance and their responsibility is to take necessary actions when required.

Cabinet

Their responsibility is to deliver council priorities.

They review performance every three months and take actions if performance is not managed properly.

They have also responsibility of measuring either value for money is achieved or not.

Council

Their role is to provide clear vision and to make corporate plan accordingly.

They approve all budgets.

They ensure every achievement.

Audits and Accounts

Their role is to maintain the internal environment controlled and managed.

All Staff

Know what their roles and contributions are required by council to achieve goals and improvement in services.

They know what is vision of team in which they are working and what are the visions of stakeholders?

What are their own personal goals and what they require to improve in themselves?

Internal Audit

They have to assess overall procedure implemented for producing performance management.

They check procedures which are high risk.

Advantages

Everyone knows what performance framework is and know that improving services for local people is vision of council.

Every member plays an important role in monitoring and managing performance management strategy.

Continuous and Strong Performance Information System

Council performance information is regularly used by group of people, employees, individuals and stakeholders. The Council use performance eye as main tool to analyze, collaborate and reporting performance information to all of them. The system is accessible to all staff so that’s why information is clear to all staff.

Advantages:

Performance eye tool includes all visions of performance management including value for money.

Wide use of performance eye tool by all members, employees and stakeholders.

While developing performance eye data quality is taken seriously.

Local people get informed about council performance and progress in achieving their goals.

Continuous Assessment of Performance

Measurement of performance honestly and actively is very important part of performance culture. Council has taken this point in consideration as well to take effective actions against underperformance, ensuring right actions to be done to bring performance back to action. Council considers their employees to be best source for their success and their development is necessary for council’s future. It is very important to agreeing objectives with employees, giving them appraisals on their achievements and addressing their development needs in right and set path.

Outcomes:

Council continuously manages poor performers and rewards good performers and work for their development.

Learning and Development

Learning forms the basis of development of performance managed culture of organization. Here learning is about collecting information about what plans has worked and what has not worked. Organizational performance board is there to improve learning and to view which actions are necessary. Training and development is always important for exploring knowledge of every individual in every organization and at all levels. With performance management strategy a separate training plan is implemented as well in relation with performance for support and development of individuals.

Outcomes:

Sharing of knowledge and learning between all departments of council and other stakeholders.

With help of different plan, more structured learning with performance management strategy.

Main Steps in Delivering our Strategy

Council has delivered their performance management strategy in the form of short term, medium term and long term goals.

Short term Goals

Short term goals are those goals which are to be achieved in 1 year or shorter period of time.

Improved areas of underperformance through strict and strong action planning and benchmarking.

Council does benchmarking to compare his results with successful results achieved by other same type of organizations. To look at their planning and way to achieve targets.

Training of performance tools to all staff to improve performance managed culture.

It is short term goal of council to train all staff to how to use performance tool to stable the culture of organization. Council wants to achieve this goal in short period of time to improve performance for community.

Communication of performance information with local community.

Council wants to achieve this target in of communicating its progress to local community, and to tell them how they are progressing, how they are working , how they are converting resources into improvement for community. So there should be clear and transparent communication with local community.

Celebrating the achievements.

Council wants to celebrate and wants to tell to local community that they are achieving their goals and proved increased performance.

Medium Term Goals

Medium term goals are goals which are to be achieved in period of 1 to 2 years.

Review of performance eye

It is target of council to review performance eye tool according to council and future needs. After review, if council requires further changing’s, needed to be done effectively.

Improvements in Learning and Development

Learning and development scheme should be reviewed half yearly or yearly to manage performance effectively. If performance management is not working effectively it can be due to no learning and development as well. So its council target to review their learning and development plan continuously.

Long Term Goals

Long term goals are those goals for council which they want to achieve in period of three years.

Change to Performance Management System

Implement changes to performance management system to work it more effectively and issues which has affected the performance management of organization.

Changes to Individual Performance

Council wants to implement changes to every individual performance to make them more effective for organization. It is a long term goal for council to check individual performance management to check who needs learning and development.

Conclusion

Performance management strategy is used to measure performance of individual, team and or organization as a whole as well. With the help of this strategy organizations measure how effectively their employees as individual working and how much efficient is organization working.

With the help of performance management strategy

Everyone came to know that how much they are contributing towards organizational goals and targets.

Everyone ensures that what is organization expecting from them and they has skills and support to achieve this or not.

Effective communication increases in organizations between all employees.

Managers encourages individuals to do best they can and opportunities of learning and development.

Performance management strategy of DERBY CITY COUNCIL has describes some main principles which are important for them in their strategy.

They have given importance to:

Being clear and transparent to your staff about what is performance.

Understanding to employees how they can improve performance management culture.

Every individual should be focused on his own contributions needed by organization.

Decision maker should be confident and strong enough in decision making. Decision maker should have good quality of data.

Recommendations

As I have evaluated strategy of DERBY CITY COUNCIL. They have given every information about how they will implement their strategy and what are important key roles to them for effective strategy.

One thing which seems wrong to me in their long term plan is about changing of individual performance in long term plans.

In my point of view, individual performance should be monitored continuously and sudden plans should be implemented to change in their individual’s performance.

If they need some improvement learning and development plan should be applied effectively.