Free Custom «Maximizing the Utilization of Human Resources» Essay Paper

TASK A

Due to the recent results from an employee survey which indicated that the employees have not been receiving adequate employee appraisals, we have come up with ideas on how to improve the performance of the employees and the appraisal systems of the company. A performance appraisal system is a way of evaluating the performance of the employees of an organization in terms of quality, quantity, time and costs (Pritchard, 2005). There are several benefits that the company can gain from an effective performance appraisal system. The company needs an appraisal system that is well prepared and well presented. An effective performance appraisal system will benefit the appraisee, the appraiser and the company. The benefits to the appraise increased motivation and job satisfaction, they will understand better what is expected of them and how they can meet these expectations, they will have an improved working relationships with their managers and they will also gain personal value and appreciation. The benefits to the appraiser will be the opportunity to develop individual jobs; they will also be able to get job satisfaction, the opportunity to make their priorities right and also form productive relationships with their staff members. The benefits of the company will be increased performance in all sections of the company, improved overview of the tasks of all the stakeholders of the company, improved communication in the company and creation of a good culture in the company. The general optimal benefits of an effective appraisal system will be motivation and satisfaction of all the stakeholders of the company, training and development of staff, recruitment and induction of employees and their evaluation (Pritchard, 2005). Other benefits that an organization can get from a good appraisal system are career management where employees will be able to evaluate themselves and set their goals which will drive their career towards a positive gain, objective assessment where both employees and employers will be able to set the right objectives that are achievable and beneficial to each of them as individuals and also to the company and improved performance.

Before developing an effective performance appraisal system, there are pre-appraisal activities that have to be carried out. The pre-appraisal activities that should be carried out are planning, documentation, review of past appraisals, work standards and communicating the system. The appraiser who is usually the manager should plan for the appraisal by identifying the need for the appraisal, the costs involved and the benefits of the appraisal. The appraiser should then put all the considerations such as the costs and the requirements on paper. This is necessary because the documentation will make the process look official and there will be no information forgotten because all of it will be recorded on the paper. The manager then can review the appraisals that have been done in the past so that he can determine the methods that have been used in the past, their effectiveness and if there are any improvements that need to be made. The appraiser will then set the work standards of the appraisal process. The standards will be necessary if the appraisal process has to be effective and be of quality. The standards to be set are those that are reasonable and can be achieved and the company should be able to reach those standards. The appraiser will then communicate the appraisal system with the authority concerned. Communication is important for any process in the company and it helps to make the intentions of the appraiser known to the authorities so that they can also plan and be ready for it. After the appraisal process then post-appraisal activities must be carried out to ensure that the appraisal process is effective and successful. Some of the post-appraisal activities include post appraisal meeting, communicating performance, planning and setting new targets. After the appraisal process, the stakeholders involved have to hold a meeting after implementing the appraisal process so as to discuss the way forward and how to evaluate, assess and maintain the appraisal process and its performance. The appraiser has to communicate how the appraisal process is doing, whether it is effective or not to the managers or to the relevant authority. This is important because it will help the managers to know whether the appraisal performance was worth carrying out or not. The appraiser then has to plan on how to maintain the appraisal process and how to make the process better. New targets then have to be set because the appraisal process will have made several changes to the company and therefore adjustments have to be made to the process as well to accommodate the changes. Any appraisal system will have feedbacks from different parties who have an impact on the company. These feedbacks will be mostly on the performance of the employees. The company should therefore be more careful with the feedbacks they receive from the appraisal and how they handle the feedbacks. This is because several things might go wrong when feedbacks are given back.

One of the things that might go wrong is that it can lead to employees being dissatisfied. They can be dissatisfied with the whole appraisal process or the actions taken during the appraisal process or even the feedbacks given. Another thing that might go wrong is that it can lower the morale of the employees. If the employees are under constant watch or if their evaluations show poor results then they will lose the psyche to continue working or to work hard and this will affect their productivity and that of the company. The feedbacks will also make the employees to feel as if they are incompetent because their evaluations will be poor and it will seem that they are not competent enough. The feedback will also raise rejections from employees about the system of the appraisal used in the company. This will harbour the appraisal process. The managers should try and deliver an optimized appraisal process by taking the following steps. First, they have to set the goals effectively. Vague goals will not give the optimal value of the appraisal process. The managers should therefore set goals that are specific to what is needed by the appraisal system; the goals should also be measurable, achievable and realistic and time bound in that they can be achieved by a certain reasonable period of time. Secondly, the managers should begin with performance planning if they have to achieve an optimal value. After setting the objectives, the managers must engage in performance planning for the year in question. They can do this through communication of the objectives and setting of an action plan. This will ensure that the process gives an optimal value. The managers also have to ensure that the supporting processes of the appraisal process are ongoing so that the performance appraisal process can be well created and be of optimal value. The managers should also improve the productivity of the employees by managing their goals effectively and making changes to the performance plans and tackling problems and complains. Managers should also get information from several different sources so that they can improve the appraisal process and make it have an optimal value. After implementing an appraisal process that is of optimal value, the company has to work with employees to further their career goals. This will have several benefits to the company.

One of the benefits is that the employees will be more productive and their productivity will add to the productivity of the company. When employees are aware that the company is supportive of their careers and is helping them to develop their careers then they will increase their productivities. The employees will also be more competent and this will have positive impact on the growth of the company. Competency of employees is good for an organization because it reduces the rates of supervision and in turn lowers the costs of the organization such as the costs of supervision. Employees will also be motivated by the efforts of the company to improve their careers. Any motivated employee will always work hard and work towards improving the company. When employees of the company are motivated, they will have every reason to work hard because the working environment will be convenient for them and hence they will have little complaints but more work done. Motivation will also make the employees feel appreciated by the company and therefore they will be more psyched to do their work well because of the benefits that they are given and the supporting work environment with managers who are also supportive and not too strict with the employees.

TASK B

Organizations have to work in teams if they want to be more productive, efficient and effective. The company should be more engaged in assessing the team performance so as to improve the performance of the company and the productivity of the teams in the company. Good team work usually has a great impact on the performance of the organization. According to Pritchard (2005), an effective team usually helps an organization to obtain good results and strategic success. In these modern organizations it is very hard not to be working in a team. This is because if someone is not working directly in a team then they are involved in team work even indirectly. Schuster (2007) explains that it is necessary for organizations to assess their teams so as to determine their strengths and weaknesses. An effective team performance is necessary for the organization to ensure that teams are productive and work to the interest of the organization.   According to Schuster (2007), the performance of teams in an organization can only be improved and made better if the team is assessed and evaluated according to the standards that are required by the company. Assessing a team’s performance is not an easy task as many people might think. The management has to consider several things that will show whether the team is performing well or poorly, for example whether the target has been reached. The company can adopt a strategy that will help it in assessing the performance of the teams in the company. There have been several processes that were established for measuring the performance of teams in an organization. The organization should follow the following steps or adopt the following strategy when measuring the performance of the teams in the organization. First, the managers should identify the specific goals and objectives so as to determine what is to be measured. The managers should then develop performance indicators that will be used to measure the standards and outcomes that were identified when the goals were being set. Thirdly, the managers should build and maintain trust with the employees. It is necessary to develop trust so that the measures can be trusted as well with the employees and that way they can accept the measures and be motivated as well. The managers can now decide on which elements to measure. It is however advised that all the elements of performance should be measured if the true picture of the team’s performance and effectiveness is to be identified.

The managers should ensure that the system used to measure the performance is flexible enough to accommodate any changes. The management should also ensure that the system gives feedback so that improvements can be made. The managers should then analyze and assess the data that has been collected. The company should however determine the differences between evaluating the performance of a team and the performance of an individual. There are several differences between evaluation of a team’s performance and that of an individual’s performance. One of them is the parameters. In an individual’s performance evaluation, the main basis of evaluation is the individual’s job description which will be used to determine whether the individual is competent enough and is suitable for the position given. In a team’s evaluation, on the other hand, the main basis of evaluation is the goals of the team.

The performance of a team will show the performance of the team members. Another difference is the outcomes. On individual evaluation, the individual takes full responsibility in determining his or her performance while in the evaluation of a team the team’s output is the responsibility of every team member. Another difference is the goals. On team evaluation, the goals of the team are considered and used to evaluate the performance of the team as compared to the individual performance where the goals of the individual are considered. Another point of difference is compensation. The individual evaluation process has a direct link to compensation while in team evaluation it is difficult to award individual team members and therefore the whole team is given a compensation of some kind such as a team building outing or a better working environment

Task C

Succession planning is the process of transferring ownership and control from one owner to another owner (Carroll, 2008). Succession planning is very important in the human resource department. Succession planning helps in establishing the future management requirements of a company and identifying the candidates who are best suitable for those requirements (Carroll, 2008). The company should adopt succession planning process so as to ensure that it carries out internal selection which has several benefits to the company. Some of the advantages of internal selection are that the company will be able to easily predict the future performance because it is aware of the skills and abilities of the employees. The employee will also be more ready to take on a position in the company as compared to an employee from outside because of the training that he has undergone while working in the company.

Succession can be used by this company to promote employees whose appraisals and evaluations show a good performance. This will ensure that right people who know the job take over the company and the employees will also be motivated to work hard so that they can be promoted. The company should implement the following succession planning process. It should engage in human resource planning by determining the needs of the company for employees at the upper levels. It should also assess the needs of each position that is to be filled and develop the replacement chart for that position that will determine how employees are to be evaluated. The company should then develop managers who are suitable for the management positions. The last step is that the company should develop replacement charts that will show the bases of replacing the managers that are not performing.

Summary

Generally, the company has to ensure that employees are monitored and evaluated by putting up effective appraisal systems. These systems differ depending on the nature of the organization. Once the company has identified the appraisal system to use and planned for it then it should deliver a performance appraisal that has an optimal value. Performance appraisal will help in improving the performance of the employees in the company. The company should also invest heavily on assessing the performance of the teams in the company. This is because teams are more productive and efficient than individuals. The company should also consider engaging in succession planning. This will help in selecting the right employees for management positions and also help in motivating employees. The CEO should take the following steps to implement the key factors listed above. First, it should put up an effective system that will be used to appraise its employees so that kit can evaluate their performance and make improvements. The CEO should then assess the performance of teams in the company so as to determine the impact of these teams on the productivity of the company and decide whether to use teams or individuals. The CEO should then train and develop employees and then recruit them for management positions. This will ensure that the company has the right personnel at the top levels that has knowledge of and experience in the company.