Performance Management - Essay Example

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT Introduction Employees of an organization contribute a lot in its growth and development. Human resource management (HRM) system facilitates the company to develop different functions which help it in maximizing the performance of its employees. Management of a company spends huge amount of time in managing its organizational members with the help of human resource systems and policies. Different functions and activities of HRM contribute a lot in satisfying the employees and building good relationship with each other. Performance management system is an important part of HRM. With the help of this system a company motivates its employees to delivery good performance. 1. Job description of a retail sales associate Retail sales associate are very important part of retail business. They directly interact with the customers and contribute a lot in satisfying them. Sale of a retail company highly depends on the behavior and approaches of its sales associate. Performance of retail sales associates is influenced by their skills. Job description of a retail sales associate helps the business in hiring desirable salespersons. Job responsibilities External Have to help the customers by giving information about the products which the customers are selecting or purchasing. Sales associate has to recommend the customers in choosing the best products among all other products. Have to give excellent service to the customers. Build good relationship with existing customers Acquire new customers Influence people in purchasing products. Identify the needs and requirements of the customers. Assist customers in lifting products. Behave politely and pleasantly with the customers. Internal Managing merchandise on the retail shop. Displaying products in the retail stores. Greeting the people who are coming in the stores. Attaining the sales meeting. Have to achieve the sales target. Skills Required Detailed knowledge about sales techniques. Able to work in changing business environment. Good communication. Must be very interactive. Can easily convince customers. Have to be quick learner. Educational qualifications Minimum education – Graduate. Candidates having certificates in marketing or retail business will be preferred. 3. OBM plan in defining four key behaviors The theory of organizational behavior modification (OBM) involves with changing behavior of the organizational members and their performances. This theory considers two important things which influence the performance of the employees. As per this theory a behavior which produces positive effects or consequence tends to become repeated. The organizational members become motivated to perform that specific type of behavior which helps them to get some positive results. Another thing which influences the performance of the employees is the behavior of the seniors towards them. The senior organizational members like managers, team leaders can change or influence the behavior of the employees by giving punishment or rewards to them. In the retail business for delivering successful job, sales associate needs to have some key behaviors which help them in achieving the goals and objectives of the business. These key behavioral factors are as follows: Confidence: The sales associate needs to very confident for performing their job. Sales associates need to interact with the customers directly. If they are confident about what they are saying and about their knowledge then they can convince the customers easily. It is easy for the sales associate to influence the customers with their high confidence level. Customers tend to trust the sales associate who are confident about themselves. The company can modify the confidence level of its sales associates by giving them proper knowledge about its different types of products through various types of trainings. The retail managers or the other senior organizational members can assist the sales associates in solving any problem or performing any difficult activities. This will help the sales associate to increase their confidence level. By this process the sales associate of the retail business will become capable enough to deal with different types of customers and situations which will facilitate the company in increasing its sales. Good relationship of the sales associate with the management of the company will be established by this. As a result the company will be facilitated in retaining its employees. Flexibility: The ability of a person to change itself as per the changing situation is called flexibility. A retail sales associate needs to be very flexible. The business environment of retail business is changing a lot. The demands and needs of the customers are also changing. Therefore flexibility in the behavior of the employees will help them to adopt and adjust with the functions and practices of the business. Flexible behavior often helps the employees in developing many new things. The company can enhance flexibility of its employees by changing some of its strict rules and regulations. The top organizational members need to interact frequently with the sales associate for making them understand about the importance of having flexible behavior (Bamberger and Meshoulam, 2000). Respectful: The customers of the retail store should always be respected by the sales associate. The sales associate must know how its respect the customers properly. As per OBM theory the managers can help the sales associate to learn the ways they should respect the customers. For motivating the sales associate the company should provide reward to the person who will be able to satisfy the customer by his decent behavior. Patience: This is one of the important behavioral features as sales associate needs to have. There are different types of customers a sales associate deals in a day. With the help of strong patience, a sales associate is able to deliver good performance. The retail organization can train its employees in an effective way which will help it in increasing the patience level of its sales associate. This will help the company in satisfying its customers. 3. Measuring current employees job performance behaviors The key job performance behavior of the current employees can be measured by implementing two ways. They are as follows: Monitoring: The team leaders or the store managers can monitor the activities and functions of the employees in a detailed way. This will help them to know and understand the process employees undertake to for achieving their targets and performing their jobs. By this process the company will have a clear knowledge about the job performance behavior of current employees. Role play: To measure the performance of the employees the team leaders or the top level organizational members can get involved in playing the role of customer in front of employees. By this process they will get accurate information about how the employees behave with the customers and what are their key behavioral factors which influence their performance (Daft, 2009). Two methods could be used for informing employees of new performance standards For communicating company’s new performance standards a training session can be organized by the company where the top officials of the company interact directly with the employees and describe them in details various new performance standard of the company. They can make the employees understand about the important of these standards in improving the situation of the company. The second method the company can apply is to informing the employees by sending emails to them. In the email all the performance standards will be mentioned in detailed way. This official written document will help the employees to know and remember all performance standards. 4. Two methods of providing feedback to employees The company can let the employees know about their job performance by providing a performance evaluation email to them. In this email the performance of the employees will be mentioned in details for a particular period of time. The reporting head of the employees and the HR members will evaluate their performances quarterly. Ranking will be given to the employees against other organizational members. This will help the employees to understand their performance and positions in the company. The retail business can implement appraisal or reward for its employees who are performing well. This plan will be implemented by the company half yearly. This process will facilitate the employees to understand the importance of their performance. Appraisal or reward will act as a motivational factor to them (Luthans, 2005). Two actions company leaders should take for reinforcing positive employee behaviors The leaders of the retail business should reinforce positive behavior among the employees by establishing some particular behavioral rules which the employees working in this organization needs to follow. Neglecting of these specific behavioral rules will become punishable offense for the employees. They will be answerable to their seniors for not following the behavioral rules. This will compel the employees in maintaining positive behavior. The leaders will also give rewards to the employees who will be behaving properly. Company leaders will provide rewards to them and they will be recognized within the organization for their positive behavior. Legal and ethical issues impacting performance management system Legal issues If the company gets involved in making subjective performance appraisal of its employees then it can create legal issues. The employees will be de-motivated to work in the company and they will leave the organization. If the employees’ appraisal practices are not valid then it can create legal problems. The employees will feel management of the company is only concerned about company’s profit. If the company discriminate the implementation and practice of its performance management system on the basis of gender, age, ethnicity etc. Efficient employees will not deliver good performance as a result productivity of the company will fall (Leopold, Harris and Watson, 2005). Ethical issues Errors in evaluating the performance of the employees create a negative impact on the management of the company. As a result the trust of the employees on the evaluation process of the company will be lost. Strong punishment of the employees against any wrong action can negatively impact his performance. The employees can intentionally perform badly for taking revenge on the organization (Robbins and Coulter, 2009). After delivering good performance if an employee receives negative rating then he will be not satisfied with the company which will influence them in lowering the productivity of the company. Conclusion Many activities and functions of a company are involved in performance management system. A company sets its goals and objectives and on the basis of that it sets the expected performance of its employees. Effective performance management system helps the companies in recruiting efficient people and enhancing their skills which create a positive impact on their growth and development. In this essay the performance management system of a retail store has been described in details. In this essay role and responsibility of sales associate has been described. Employees play a vital role in generating revenue by acquiring many customers. The person needs to have good sense of fashion. This case study highlighted that employees have to be aware of the rules and regulations of the company. References Bamberger, P., and Meshoulam, I. (2000). Human Resource Management Strategy. CA: Sage. Daft, R. (2009). Management. Masson: Cengage Learning. Leopold, J., Harris, L., and Watson, T. (2005). The Strategic Managing of Human Resources. Harlow: Prentice-Hall. Luthans, F. (2005). Organizational behaviour. New York: McGraw-Hill. Robbins, S.P. and Coulter, M. (2009). Management 10th ed. New Jersey, Pearson Education, Inc Read More