Contemporary People Management Practices Assignment Sample

• Subject Name : Management

Importance of Measuring and Managing Employee Performance

“Human Resource Management (HRM) involves the productive use of people in achieving an organization’s strategic objectives and the satisfaction of individual employee needs” (Stone, 2014).

It is a well-known fact that an organization solely depends on its employees for making or breaking the organization. The employees are responsible for getting the tasks done, meeting deadlines, solving any issues and successfully performing all their duties in the organization. Keeping this in mind, it is essential for a good manager to maximize the productivity and morale of the employees by the application of various people management practices. The manager is responsible for the recruitment process, the training process, making and maintaining business strategies and other related functions. However, managing people can pose a lot of challenges and thus it is essential for a manager to understand the needs of his/her employees and act on them accordingly. There is a need for the manager to be systematic and come up with different strategies that helps in not only achieving all the goals set by the organization but also maintain employee satisfaction by keeping the employees motivated and contented within the organization.

There are various processes that can be optimized and various practices that can be implemented in an organization under the supervision of the manager to ensure that the employees are working efficiently and are satisfied with their work. Some of these practices and process are really essential to the workings of a particular company and maintaining a healthy work environment.

The recruitment and selection process is vital to every organization, and thus to every manager. According to Mayhew (2020) the recruitment or selection process of a qualified applicant can directly impact employee engagement. It is essential that when a position has to be filled, the proper job description and qualifications are properly stated. Along with that, a proper recruitment process should be developed and followed in order to minimize the expenditure of time, energy and resources (Cappelli, 2019). Along with assessing the candidates, the manager should be able to identify inconsistencies, make the candidate feel comfortable and provide a good representation to the organization. And not only that, the implementation of EEO (Equal Employment Opportunities) is a must, not only as a moral obligation but also to find the best person for the job. Discrimination of any kind should not be performed and neither tolerated. Unconscious bias is a real issue that has impacted hiring practices and thus the manager should raise awareness about that issue and provide training to anyone who performs the recruitment process (Henning, 2019).

When the recruitment process is being planned, various practices like filtering the candidates via evaluation of the application forms, creativity tests, making the candidates perform a group discussion or other related practices can be implemented in order to increase the efficiency of the interview process (Yarwood, 2020). The manger needs to evaluate what key traits are needed in the job that needs filling and then come up with the most efficient way to evaluate said traits (Yarwood, 2020). Hiring is a very important part of an organization and the process should thus be as smooth as possible.

Another practice very valuable to a particular organization is evaluation of employee performance and accordingly providing performance appraisals. A manager has to set a standard for organizational performance and ensure that measures are taken to promote such performances. Measuring employee performance is an important function as it helps working out the employee’s efficiency, identify the employees who need to work harder, deploy appraisals and increase the overall productivity of the workplace (Hamilton, 2011). Once the performance has been measured and evaluated, it is the manager’s job to provide feedback to the employees and help them overcome the difficulties they face while performing a task. This will not only improve the productivity and efficiency of the organization but also help the employees understand where they can improve, where they are lacking, what they are doing efficiently and how can they grow in the organization (Pollock, 2018). Consistent feedbacks from the manager also helps the employees get a sense of direction and builds better employee-manager relations (Pollock, 2018). However, it is important to note that constant feedbacks and appraisals can have a few errors and prejudices; and steps should be taken to ensure that such errors are minimum and the judgement is based solely on the performance of the employee. The manager should also chose a strategy that maintains the privacy of the employee and refrain from presenting feedbacks in front of his/her co-workers who don’t have any use of that information. Along with that, such appraisals should also be kept at regular intervals that aren’t too short or too long.

The manager’s responsibilities also include the implementation of an effective rewarding system for all the employees. Understanding the psychology of the human mind is of essence when an individual is responsible for overlooking the performance of various individuals. The human mind understands positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement: positive reinforcement is the processes of presenting a positive response/reinforcing stimulus after a desired behaviour to motivate such behaviours and negative reinforcement is the process of removal of a particular stimulus after a particular behaviour which also motivates that particular behaviour in order to remove the negative consequences (Prince, 2013). The manager can make use of such reinforcements or other such rewarding systems in order to guide the behaviour of the employees. Simple rewarding systems can also inculcate loyalty and a feeling of belongingness in an organization (Krivan, 2015).

Simpler reward methods can also be used by managers which can be financial or non-financial. Such rewards include incentives, holidays, flexibility in work hours, insurance, better packages and career security. It is important that the employees feel motivated and work to the best of their calibre in a particular organization. Such rewarding systems can be time based, result based or skills and knowledge based. The manger can start by rewarding and recognizing the small efforts taken by employees that usually go unnoticed and can further move into a well-developed rewarding system.

The implementation of proper ethics is a must in an organization. It is the manager’s job to define the proper ethical code and make sure that it is strictly adhered to throughout the organization. Being ethical is essential to fixing problems and improving processes (Sporleder, 2020). It is important to remember that the workplace behaviour of an individual affects his/her performance and the performance of the employees working with and around that individual. Establishing ethics is also essential to maintain a healthy working environment that refrains from hampering any employee’s growth. A proper code of conduct and set of values should be established by the manager and proper regulations must be implemented to ensure that decorum is maintained. Not only that, managers can also establish ethics in an organization by sending appropriate messages and setting a standard for the acceptable behaviour (Meyer, 2019). Apart from this, other healthy management practices that every manager and organization should inculcate are training and coaching sessions in order to teach the employees the proper work code and expectations, a formal reviewing of performance and creating detailed action plans to develop the employees’ performances (Sawalha, 2016).

Establishing an efficient system of performance management can be a long process which shows time to rake shape and start showing results. However, it is important to understand the importance of such practices and the need for such practices in a particular organization. Instead of relying on conventional practices, every organization is encouraged to perform an in-depth analysis of the organization and come up with a personalized plan related to the practices that need implementation in the coming years. The performance plan should be shaped according to the resources of the organization and proper importance should be distributed amongst the essential and non-essential practices. Instead of complicated plans with no guaranteed results, managers should opt for simpler plans that are easy to implement and keep track of. These practices should also be evaluated on a regular basis in order to track their performance and make any necessary changes if required. Lastly, the manager should ensure that while implementing all these practices the productivity of the employees or the organization aren’t affected in any manner. The implementation should be smooth and shouldn’t disrupt the flow of the organization.

References for Contemporary People Management Practices

Cappelli, P. (2019). Your Approach to Hiring Is All Wrong. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2019/05/recruiting

Hamilton, S. (2011). Importance of Measuring & Managing Employee Performance. Retrieved from https://work.chron.com/importance-measuring-managing-employee-performance-28231.html#:~:text=Measuring%20and%20managing%20employee%20performance,improve%20your%20workplace’s%20overall%20productivity.

Henning, A. (2019). Interview discrimination - ensure your recruitment process is fair. Retrieved from https://www.cv-library.co.uk/recruitment-insight/interview-discrimination-recruitment-process-fair/

Krivan, C. (2015). 10 REASONS TO RECOGNISE EMPLOYEE ACHIEVEMENTS. Retrieved from https://www.power2motivate.com/news-blog/blog/10-reasons-to-recognise-employee-achievements

Mayhew, Ruth. (2020). "The Importance of Good Recruitment & Selection" Retrieved from https://bizfluent.com/info-8166508-importance-good-recruitment-selection.html.

Meyer, T. K. (2019). How Leaders Determine Workplace Ethics. Retrieved from https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5608-workplace-ethics.html

Pollock, S. (2018). Why You Should Be Offering Frequent Performance Feedback. Retrieved from https://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/2018/02/07/offering-frequent-performance-feedback/#:%7E:text=Performance%20feedback%20helps%20employees%20grow,whole%20operation%20better%20as%20well.

Prince, K. B. (2013). The Difference between Positive/Negative Reinforcement and Positive/Negative Punishment. Retrieved from https://bcotb.com/the-difference-between-positivenegative-reinforcement-and-positivenegative-punishment/

Sawalha, S. (2016). 11 Performance Management Best Practices. Retrieved from https://atmanco.com/blog/hcm/11-performance-management-best-practices/

Sporleder, J. (2020). Ethics in the Workplace | Why Integrity Matters. Retrieved from https://www.payscale.com/compensation-today/2020/02/ethics-in-the-workplace

Yarwood, D. (2020). How to Hire the Best Candidate (Not Just the Best Interviewer). Retrieved from https://recruiterbox.com/blog/how-to-hire-the-best-candidate-not-just-the-best-interviewer

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