Category: Performance

Summary: Case Background and Essential Details

Kaufland GmbH has been experiencing significant problems with its performance over the past few years. Jess Westerly was assigned to explore the reasons for the organization to fail in the target market. According to the findings of her study, delays, and the lack of supervision over the communication processes between the managers have led to a drop in quality. Furthermore, it was discovered that the emphasis should be shifted toward cooperating with small and medium-sized organizations.

Therefore, the promotion of more rigid control over quality and communication, as well as a significant change in the field consultants time management strategy, was offered, yet with little success, since the company members were very resistant to change. Westerly was given another chance to help the company improve its performance. The lack of proper understanding of how communication at Kauflauf GmbH worked made Westerly fail to deliver her ideas to the firms leaders. Therefore, a more coherent analysis of the internal issues at Kauflauf had to be carried out.

Thesis Statement

The paper will analyze the problems in Westerlys approach toward changing the companys performance management. The results will provide suggestions about how Westerly can improve her current strategy toward promoting change. By building stronger relationships with the company and understanding the intrinsic specifics of its operations, Westerly will be able to shape her suggestion in the way that will motivate the staff members to change the traditional behaviors and accept the ones that are currently viewed as profitable (i.e., cooperation with small and medium customers, time management improvements, etc.).

Identification of the Key Stakeholders: The Participants That Matter

In the case under analysis, several; stakeholders must be singled out. Managers should be listed as the first group of stakeholders that needs to be taken into account. Sensing the resistance among the staff members and not wanting to accept the risks, the managers are refusing from the strategy suggested by Westerly. Employees are the second group; although they might not be as visible as managers, they, nevertheless, define the success of the firm to a considerable extent.

The threat of disrupting their work routine and introducing challenges into their responsibilities are the key troublesome issues for the target participants. Fearing to fail to meet the new requirements and unwilling to sacrifice their comfort, the staff members are very resistant to change. Customers constitute the third group. They are concerned about the quality and demand that the services and products offered to them should meet the set standards. Since the change may disrupt the production processes for a certain amount of time, the quality issue may become a problem.

Jess Westerly as Assistant Product Owner: Causes of the Problem

Problem Statement

Jess Westerly had trouble implementing changes to the companys sales call patterns because she had a rather vague concept of how the organization operated. Particularly, how the relationships between the key stakeholders were structured was dismissed by her. While her quantitative analysis of the factors that affected the companys operations was quite impressive, the analysis of the qualitative aspects of the companys operations, particularly the paradigm of interactions between the staff members, could have been explored in greater depth. With data and logic on her side (Gabarro & Kaftan, 2012, p. 9), Westerly needed a more employee-oriented approach.

Short-term Problems and Solutions

Reconsideration of the approach toward the analysis of the case should be viewed as the key short-term goal for Westerly at present. Particularly, the framework of the company analysis must include the assessment of the relationships within the organization. The factors that contribute to the increase in the staffs motivation levels will also have to be identified and classified accordingly. Thus, the premises for a more coherent approach toward enhancing the companys performance can be developed.

Long-term Problems and Solutions

Going into further detail, one should bring up the fact that Westerly overlooked the intrinsic factors affecting the employees motivation. Particularly, Westerly suggested changing the time management paradigm without analyzing why it was established in the first place: Only 35% of the consultants time went to customers who produced 85% of revenues (Gabarro & Kaftan, 2012, p. 7).

Furthermore, the relevant business suggestions, such as the shift of the corporations focus toward the cooperation with small- and medium-sized enterprises, are also worth appreciation as valuable and important pieces of advice. The overall framework that Westerly designed for Kauflauf works fine as an outline. It serves as a solid platform for the further improvement of the firms performance in the target market, even though, in practice, it misses the crucial element that is an in-depth understanding of what makes the company tick and on what principles the interactions between the staff members are built.

Suggestions: Criteria and Alternative Solutions

Criteria

A positive change in staffs behaviors should be considered the key success criteria. Furthermore, the efficacy of the strategy can be measured by an assessment of the staffs motivation rates. Thus, progress can be measured.

Alternative Solutions

The introduction of a new set of values and a different leadership strategy could be viewed as the foundation for altering the current communication approach used in the company. As a result, the basis for meeting the customers needs can be created. To be more specific, it is recommended that a heavier emphasis should be placed on the promotion of Corporate Social Responsibility (SCR). Furthermore, the use of laissez-faire and transformative leadership should be considered a possibility since they will help shape the staffs behaviors efficiently.

Theory

Viewing the problem from the perspective of the Rational Choice Theory (RCT), one will conclude that the actions of the company members are quite understandable. The necessity to conform to the established standards stems from the willingness to choose the solutions that seem the most rational, i.e., the ones that lead to the maximization of the current utility (Sonnenberg, 2014). However, once the priorities set at meeting the personal needs as opposed to promoting corporate growth and professional development, the identified strategy turns out to be detrimental to the economic success of the firm (Barnes, 2014). Therefore, RCT will help shed light on why the company managers refuse to accept the seemingly logical solution provided by Westerly.

Recommended Solutions: Communication-Related Actions to Be Taken

Who and What: Managers and Corporate Standards

Claiming that Westerly cannot do anything for Kauflauf would be quite a stretch. What she needs is a better approach toward motivating the company members to change their traditional patterns of interacting and making decisions in the context of the organization. For instance, Westerly should consider communicating closely with the members of the companys managerial team. Also, the opinions of other staff members will also have to be taken into account.

By exploring the specifics of the corporate culture, the values that it has set, the degree of autonomy that it has given its managers, etc., Westerly will be able to develop the communication approach that will allow getting her message across and develop the change management framework that will help the company members adjust to the new patterns of interacting with each other and making company-related choices. To promote its concept successfully, Westerly will have to find a balance between the necessity to control the quality of the performance and the need to provide the managers with enough responsibility.

In other words, more structure and stricter controls (Gabarro & Kaftan, 2012, p. 3) will have to be implemented. Thus, the time management issue must be preceded by the strategy that will help promote greater responsibility among the employees, enhance their motivation, and encourage them to make decisions based on the current needs of the company. Thus, the necessary changes will occur. The identified step is, however, only possible after a detailed assessment of the firms organizational culture, the relationships between its members, the values that its members view as foundational ones, etc.

Pros and Cons

The opportunity for a significant improvement of the firms performance, as well as an increase in the motivation levels among the staff members, can be viewed a the essential advantage of the chosen approach. Indeed, with a better understanding of how the organization works, Westerly will be able to convince the employees to change their current organizational behaviors and accept their responsibilities. Particularly, the time management issue will be addressed successfully. However, it will take time to plant the necessary ideas into the staff members minds so that they could accept the new performance standards. Herein lies the key disadvantage.

When and How: Immediate Use of Interviews and Surveys

With the above information in mind, it is strongly recommended that Westerly should place a very heavy emphasis on the significance of communicating with the representatives of the organization at all levels, from top managers to the executive department. Interviews and surveys must be conducted so that a clear depiction of the corporate relationships could be retrieved. Furthermore, the identified tools are bound to serve as the foundation for developing an idea about the specifics of the corporate hierarchy. Consequently, a more coherent approach toward meeting the needs of the companys members as the changes are administered to the firm can be built.

It is also crucial to get the staff members and managers priorities straight. The drop in the levels of independence in decision-making and the shift toward a more rigid time management framework can be regarded as the primary factors that trigger an immediate drop in motivation levels among the staff. Therefore, it is imperative to introduce the corporate standards that will compel the employees to adopt the suggested behaviors. Particularly, the description of the increase in sales levels and the promises of the possible financial opportunities (e.g., rewards, incentives, etc.) that the target population may receive as a result should be considered a possible tool for enhancing the growth of the motivation rates among the staff (Topolosky, 2014).

Conclusion: Changing the Sales Call Patterns at Kauflauf GmbH

Administering changes in the context of a company that is represented in the target market well and has a long history and rigidly structured hierarchy is an extraordinarily challenging task. Because of the lack of focus on the intrinsic characteristics of the organization, Westerly failed to convince the managers to accept the suggested changes. However, by building a stronger bond with the company members and understanding how the relationships between them work, Westerly will be able to deliver her message in a convincing and efficient manner.

References

Barnes, B. (2014). The elements of social theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Gabarro, J. J., & Kaftan, C. (2012). Jess Westerly at Kauflauf GmbH. Harvard, MA: Harvard Business School.

Sonnenberg, B. (2014). Dependencies and mechanisms of unemployment and social involvement: Findings from the socio-economic panel study (SOEP). New York, NY: Springer Science & Business Media.

Topolosky, L. (2014). Linking employee satisfaction to business results. New York, NY: Routledge.

Tesla, an American electric car manufacturer, hit record highs. According to Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) (2021), in 2020, the value of Tesla shares has grown almost tenfold  from $ 88.6 in early 2020 to $ 864.2 on January 27, 2021. Shead (2021) notes that much of this growth was driven by expectations that the electric car producer would be included in the S&P 500. However, according to Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) (2021), peaking at $ 900.13 on February 25, 2021, the companys quotes fell 24.5%, closing trading on July 2 at $ 678.9 per share. Although today there is a decrease in the companys quotes, there is room for growth because the company showed impressive results against the background of insufficient production capacity.

The success of Tesla shares is primarily due to the record number of sales. Shead (2021) claims that by the end of 2020, the companys sales amounted to about 500 thousand vehicles. Moreover, the current trend underscores growing investor confidence in the future of electric cars and Teslas transformation from a niche automaker to a global leader in green vehicles. The increase in the value of Tesla shares is associated with significant subsidies from the states. In many countries, including the USA, China, and Saudi Arabia, the companys cars can be bought with a tax deduction. It helps to enhance the companys sales, which significantly increases the value of the stock. Therefore, the success of Tesla shares is due to the increase in sales, the rise in popularity of electric vehicles, and subsidies from state governments.

Introduction

In 1985, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Merck established a new committee aimed at analyzing and reviewing personnel practices and policies. The case reveals that the biggest challenge affecting this pharmaceutical company was the best way to reward and identify exceptional and talented workers. The absence of an effective employee performance appraisal system made it impossible for the company to offer adequate rewards and compensation depending on the contributions of workers. This gap requires a new or superior model in an attempt to improve productivity and minimize turnover.

Background

For many years, Merck has been using these three Hay points to compensate its employees: problem solving, know how, and accountability. The surveys undertaken annually resulted in pay increases for individuals with better ratings. Salaries were capped at around 125 percent of the set control point (Murphy, 1990). Despite such procedures, the company did not have an effective performance appraisal system. The findings of the report revealed that managers gave normal ratings of 3 or 4 to the targeted employees (Murphy, 1990). Despite such ratings, the company continued to perform averagely. With such issues in place, many workers believed that the level of turnover would increase significantly in the future and affect organizational performance.

Causes/Analysis

The current predicament affecting this company is attributable to the nature of the established performance appraisal system. The use of Hay points can become an effective model for identifying employees contributions and rewarding them accordingly. Unfortunately, those in charge fail to consider the achievements of exemplary employees and treat majority of them as average in terms of performance. This gap explains why jobs should be measured based on a systematic framework that fosters consistency and fairness (Murphy, 1990). Managers fail to consider the significance of parity and transparency when appraising their workers. This malpractice makes it impossible for them to feel empowered and continue improving organizational performance.

Alternatives

After examining the predicaments affecting this company, there is a need for its leaders to consider various alternatives that can transform the current situation. The first one is to revise the existing performance appraisal and salary administration. The rationale behind this alternative is that it will address the current gaps and empower more employees (EL-Hajji, 2015). The second option is doing away with the existing system and introducing a new one. This model should be informed by the challenges and problems different stakeholders present. The rationale is that the approach will address the outlined issues and eventually deliver positive results. These two options will deliver various consequences, such as reduced turnover, increased performance, and desire to increase profitability.

Proposed Solution

The most realistic and suitable solution is to revise the existing performance appraisal system. The first change is to ensure that employees are rated accurately or rationally depending on the aspects of the Hay scheme (Khan, Khan, & Khan, 2017). The second one is focusing on practices that can maximize the level of retention. This option is the best since it is affordable and less expensive for the company. It is also capable of transforming the established practices within a short period (EL-Hajji, 2015). The anticipated consequence is that the organization will overcome the current predicaments and increase workers contributions.

The best follow-up actions revolves around supporting the outlined option using a powerful change model and implementing the concept of continuous improvement (Idowu, 2017). These initiatives will promote sustainability and ensure that emerging issues are addressed. In conclusion, this solution is effective and capable of making the Merck a profitable organization in its industry.

References

EL-Hajji, M. A. (2015). The Hay system of job evaluation: A critical analysis. Journal of Human Resources Management and Labor Studies, 3(1), 1-22. Web.

Idowu, A. O. (2017). Effectiveness of performance appraisal system and its effect on employee motivation. Nile Journal of Business and Economics, 5, 15-39. Web.

Khan, Z., Khan, A. S., & Khan, I. (2017). Impact of performance appraisal on employees performance including the moderating role of motivation: A survey of commercial banks in Dera Ismail Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Universal Journal of Industrial and Business Management, 5(1) 1-9. Web.

Murphy, K. A. (1990). Merck & Co., Inc. (A). HBS No. 491-005. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School.

Introduction

This paper focuses on and calculation and discussion of Walmarts financial performance in comparison with Targets performance using financial ratios. In particular, 21 financial ratios are used to compare the companies performance in terms of profitability, liquidity, efficiency, and financial gearing. First, the paper provides calculations of ratios in a table format. After that, the paper focuses on the discussion of the probable causes of the differences in the performance.

Ratio Calculations

Table 1 below provides calculations of the financial ratios for Target and Walmart. The data was taken from the companies consolidated financial statements for the FY ended in January 2022.

Table 1. Ratio calculations (all numbers in millions except for ratios)

Ratio Analysis

Profitability

Walmart has a lower profitability measure in net profit margin with 2.41% in FY2021-2022 against Targets 6.64% in net profit margin. The central reason for the difference is Targets better ability to manage its costs. Targets costs of goods sold (COGS) were 71.4% in FY2021-2022, while Walmarts COGS were 75.56%, which negatively affected the companys net profit margin. Similarly, Targets selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) expenses were 18.88% in FY2021-2022, which is significantly lower than Walmarts 20.75% in the same fiscal year. It should also be noted that Walmarts decreased profitability is not associated with depreciation or interest costs. The analysis revealed that Targets depreciation costs were 2.24% from net sales in FY2021-2022, which is higher than Walmarts 1.88% of total sales for the same fiscal year. Similarly, Targets interest expense was 0.4% in FY2021-2022, which is higher than Walmarts 0.32% for the same fiscal year.

There may be several reasons for such a difference in net profit margin. One of the possible reasons for low net profit margin is the low prices of the goods. However, comparative analysis of prices between Target and Walmart revealed that the prices were almost the same, with a slight difference in favor of Target, showing that shopping in Target was associated with 0.9% savings in comparison with Walmart (Balestra, 2021). Another reason for the differences in prices may be associated with supply chain costs. Walmart operates in the US, Puerto Rico, Canada, China, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Britain, Argentina and South Korea (Walmart, 2022). This implies that the company needs to maintain a more complicated supply chain in comparison with Target, which operates only in the US (Target, 2022). Moreover, sales may be lower in the countries with lower quality of life and the cost of sales and associated SG&A may be higher. Additionally, Walmart launched a new membership program, which offered unlimited free shipping (Walmart, 2022). This program may need more time to repay for itself.

Another measure of profitability is return on equity (ROE). Targets ROE was 0.54 in FY2021-2022, while Walmarts ROE was only 0.15 for the same year. However, it should be noted that the difference in ROE may be associated with Targets higher equity multiplier, which is demonstrates a higher level of companys financial leverage.

Liquidity

Liquidity was measured using two financial ratios, including current ratio and acid test ratio. The current ratio demonstrated of two companies was comparable, with 0.99 for Target 0.93 for Walmart in FY2021-2022. The companies performed similarly in terms of acid test ratio, with 0.35 for Target 0.28 for Walmart in FY2021-2022. The results of the analysis demonstrated a high reliance on inventory in terms of current assets, which may be difficult to turn into cash. The analysis demonstrated that Walmart required lower liquidity due to high inventory turnover, which was 10.05 for Walmart in FY2021-2022 in comparison with Targets 7.52. Therefore, Walmart could allow to operate with a lower liquidity.

Leverage

Financial leverage was measured using debt-to-assets ratio and equity multiplier. Targets debt-to-assets ratio was 0.25 for FY2021-2022, while Walmarts debt-to-assets ratio was 0.14 for the same fiscal year. Walmarts relatively low reliance on debt to finance its assets be associated with the fact that Walmart needed to operate with lower risks due to international supply chain maintenance.

Efficiency

The companies efficiency was measured using return on assets (ROA), total assets turnover (TAT) ratio, current assets turnover (CAT) ratio, sales-to-cash ratio, accounts receivable turnover (ART) ratio, sales-to-PPE, sales-to-store, sales-to-employees, and sales-to-square feet. Targets ROA was 0.13 for FY2021-2022, while Walmarts ROA was more than twice as low with 0.06 for the same year. However, Walmart demonstrated a better ability to turn assets into sales, as its TOT ratio was 2.32 in comparison with Targets 1.94. Similar situation was with the CAT ratio, which was 4.85 for Target and 7.0 for Walmart. Similarly, analysis demonstrates that Walmart used its PPE more efficiently to generate sales, as its sales-to-PPE ratio was 6.01, while Targets ratio was 3.71. The ART ratio was high for both companies with 77.32 for Target and 68.57 for Walmart, demonstrating that Walmart requires overall more time to collect money on credit sales.

Walmarts ability to generate sales from property is explained by the company embracing online sales. Walmart took advantage of trends to online sales due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which allowed the company to increase it sales (Walmart, 2022). Target did not demonstrate such a focus on online sales despite systematically increasing its capacities to fulfill online sales (Target, 2022).

Conclusion

In order to explain the differences in efficiency, it is crucial to look at sales-to-store, sales-to-employees, and sales-to-square feet. Both companies sales-to-store ratio were relatively the same with $53.98 million of sales per store for Target and $53.64 million of sales per store for Walmart. Similarly, Targets sales-to-employees ratio was $230 thousand in sales for employee, while Walmarts sales-to-employees ratio was $250 thousand, which demonstrates a relative parity in the matter. However, Walmarts sales-to-square feet ratio was significantly lower ($297.99) in comparison with that of Target ($415.22). This demonstrates that Walmarts stores are larger that Targets store, while they provide similar sales. As a result, Walmart has additional expenses associated with maintaining larger stores, which leads to lower net profit margin and low ROA. Therefore, it is crucial that the company increases its efficiency of store area to improve its performance.

References

Balestra, D. (2021). Target vs. Walmart Price Comparison: Which is Cheaper? Koopy. Web.

Target. (2022). Annual report 2021. Web.

Walmart. (2022). Annual report 2021. Web.

The play Never the Sinner by John Logan delivers an ambitious and explorative experience. It is directed by Charles Falcon, who did an outstanding job of managing the team. The world premiere of the play being reviewed was held in Stormfield Theatre in Chicago. The Never the Sinner was presented by the San Antonio College Department of Fine Arts in Texas. The dates were from the 7th to 17th of February. The main topic and plot of the play revolved around Nietzsches idea of Ubermensch or Superman. The story is about two male characters with perfectly comfortable lives who proceed to commit horrendous crimes in order to exercise their superiority. The play outlines how arrogance can lead to a path of self-destruction.

In general, the casts overall performance was highly believable and outstanding because the pacing and speed of storytelling were slow and yet entertaining. However, there were minor issues related to their teamwork, which seemed in need of further improvement. The dialogues and communicative parts between characters were a little lagging, which hindered the fully immersive experience of the play. Nonetheless, the given issue was present only during the first part, and then later, the cast had given an excellent performance.

The team had achieved its goal of delivering an idea of Overman and the concepts behind Nietzsches views. The story and the performers fully reveal how the underlying philosophy can be manifested in real life.

The main characters are Richard Loeb, played by Ryan Willis, Nathan Leopold, played by Gabriel Gonzales, Robert Crowe, played by Eric Quiroz, and Clarence Darrow, played by Kyle Pichot. The reporters #1, #2, and #3 were performed by Stephen Mullen, Trinity Stevens, and Ernesto Dominguez, respectively. The character of Nathan Leopold Jr. was the first one to appear; therefore, there was an immense responsibility for delivering an impressive start. Gabriels performance was perfect, and he can be considered the strongest performer due to his charm and charisma. Although all cast members showed an outstanding performance, Kyle Pichot, who played Clarence Darrow, was not as loud as it was needed to be. In addition, Kyle gave delayed responses several times through the play.

Scene designer Nathan Thurman did a fantastic job making every scene as believable as possible because the viewer could forget that it was all staged. Background, set designs, costumes, and props were satisfying additional elements to the overall play because they created a fully immersive experience. However, the sound and lighting needed some improvement because it seemed that occasionally the viewer could not hear the performers key phrases. Moreover, the light was not bright enough, which made some key scenes dim. It is clear that the current technology allows eliminating the technical problems of lighting and sound effects.

In conclusion, the performance and production of the play Never the Sinner by John Logan was an outstanding and highly immersive experience, and the team did an excellent job of delivering the main message. The main characters were successful in expressing and stimulating correct emotional states. In addition, their charm and charisma enhanced the believability factor even more. Although the technical part had some minor problems with lighting and sound design, in general, every detail was in place. The costumes and props delivered an authentic experience, and the stage management led by Arianna Angeles demonstrated a high level of professionalism.

Introduction

The extent to which employees in the service industry are able to fulfil expressive display needs at work is paramount in service performance (Grandey 2003). Firms will only succeed in delivering good service and maintaining positive customer relationships when their employees on the front line can keep their emotions in check and express positive affect in service interactions (Liu, Kwan & Chiu 2014).

Obviously, employees who are able to fulfil the requirements will perform well compared to those who cannot. However, beyond the visible behaviour and abilities lay important employee personality, organizational factors, customer behaviour factors, and job performance evaluation and testing methods that play a direct or an indirect role in influencing negative or positive job performance of service employees.

Kotler et al. (2009) explained that employees play an important role in building a companys reputation. They do this because when there is no physical product sold by a company, customers will rely on the impression they get from the employees to form an opinion of the company. Understanding that employees in the service offering companies are also brand ambassadors, marketers, and customer relations persons of the company informs various company strategies on improving performance. There are a number of factors that organizations must provide to ensure employees in this case perform optimally (Kotler et al. 2009).

In most cases the absence of a positive influencing factor will result in less than optimal performance, while in other cases it is actually the presence of a strong negative factor that negates the positive influence of other factors and causes sub-par job performance. The following section reviews both positive and negative factors and their influences on job performance in service industries.

Positive factors and negative factors

Research on service contact workers and general workers job performance influencing factors has been carried out for more than a decade. However, a majority of the research is in physical contact, such as sales representatives and convenience store clerks. Meanwhile, most of the business community is moving toward e-commerce and customers are relying more on information and communication technology as their first medium for interacting with companies. It is important to also look into service contact employee job performance in occupations that allow telecommuting.

Yi, Nataraajan and Gong (2011) examined the consequences of employee performance when an employee receives little attention from customers. The research was part of a wider understanding and awareness creation of the role of customer behaviours in influencing service delivery. According to the research by Yi, Nataraajan and Gong (2011), customer behaviour may be positive, as in the case with citizenship behaviour, or it may be negative.

Either way, it will still influence employee satisfaction, although the actual level of influence will vary with the intensity of behaviour expression. This goes a long way to add to the existing theories that put customer behaviour as an important factor for service co-creation. The key fact to note is that customers are playing a part in influencing how employees perform their duties, although the effect is not direct and certain. First, customers affect the satisfaction of employees. It is from the job satisfaction that one can come up with a verdict on employee job performance effect, which would link back to specific customer behaviours (Yi, Nataraajan & Gong 2011).

Service providers have a number of motivations for managing their presentation of emotions in service encounters. For example, where they seek to please customers, they have to comply with employer prescribed job expectations on emotional expression (Julian 2008). Employees have to hide their actual feelings and put on an artificial reaction or action that allows them to perform their job effectively. With sufficient psychological empowerment, a majority of employees are able to display the right attitude and behaviour towards customers (Spreitzer 1995). From this understanding, one can tell that the ability of an employee to express or suppress a number of feelings will influence the given employees job performance significantly, as evaluated by an organizations management.

Sectors that allow employees to also act as customers are many, with the main ones being retail stores, restaurants, manufacturing firms, and financial institutions (Dabholkar & Abston 2008). These sectors allow employees to change roles and see what kind of service they are getting from their respective companies, just as ordinary customers do (Gianfranco 2013). The ability and option give employees a chance to model their customer related behaviour to the correct guidelines of their companies and their expectations as customers, which should eventually lead to improved job performance by the employees.

The role of employees as customers is critical to organizational performance, just as it is critical to individual employee performance. After recognizing that contact employees have a dual role, respective organizations need to support the dual existence with appropriate organizational factors and undertake internal marketing. This intervention communicates the organizations intention to make employees feel as part of it when acting in either of their dual roles. It also lays the foundation for building long term relationships, which would then promote both employee and customer citizenship behaviours (Dabholkar & Abston 2008).

Better treatment of employees by firms that recognize the dual nature yields better employee patronage (Koster, de Grip & Fouarge 2011). Eventually, there is a cycle of success that develops, where the implementation of the internal market yields benefits to the organization and the employee job performance, which affect contact interactions of employees and outside customers, as well as other employee-customers (Dabholkar & Abston 2008).

The key element to promoting the practice is consistency, so that job satisfaction, which ends up influencing job performance, improves (Koster, de Grip & Fouarge 2011). As such, the presence of abusive supervision will act as a negative influencing factor (Tepper 2000). Initial interventions may not show up at the companys bottom line, but continued focus on both employee performance and internal marketing through non-financial marketing like recognition, motivation, and empowerment will have a powerful positive effect on job satisfaction over the long-term because of the multiplying effect of the relationship growth (Dabholkar & Abston 2008).

In a typical workplace, the motivation for employees can be influenced by status striving instances or accomplishment striving instances, which relate to specific personality types. The former matches extraversion, while the latter relates most with conscientiousness. The nature of motivation determines the influence on job performance, with status striving motivation having a direct effect, while accomplishment striving to show an indirect effect usually linked to the former.

However, the claim of influence superiority is often disputed by the fact that most customer-contact jobs already favour extraversion and would show a remarkable improvement in job performance when the extent of extraversion is the subject of study. Nevertheless, with ICT allowing various forms of customer-employee contact to happen other than direct sales and marketing, the effects of other personality types on motivation and their relationship to job performance could be examined.

Service industries face a challenge of getting service employees who can serve customers well, despite the decrease support and resource provision by their employers. Service worker divisions are supposed to deliver favourable results, even when they are the main victims of resource cuts and downsizing (Harris et al. 2006). These organizational constraints cause stressful environments within organizations and affect employees who are in contact with customers. Given that job resourcefulness, sometimes promoted by internal marketing, is beneficial to overall work performance, it is only logical that companies would concentrate their efforts on reducing role stressors and increasing service employee resourcefulness to generate better job satisfaction and performance (Dabholkar & Abston 2008).

On the other hand, personality has already been shown to affect employees resourcefulness and job performance as a service worker significantly, partly due to the nature and demands of service work. However, even with the right environment and support, the lack of a proper assignment of jobs and the existence of role conflict force service employees to divert their focus from work to non-core job duties. A consequence of the diversion is a decrease in job performance, as measured by various employee evaluation methods (Harris et al. 2006).

Harris et al. (2006) already asserted that the combination of role stressors, personality, and environmental factors have a major influence on behaviour. Therefore, the management of these factors will definitely affect perceived and actual job performance in service work settings. However, positive outcomes only arise when the management of one factor does not have antagonistic effects on the realization or management of other factors named above.

An important point here is that much of the outcome considered in such situations comes from the examination of interpersonal factors influencing job resourcefulness and customer orientation. It does not touch on organizational culture, which other researchers have studied to find its role in job performance. Nevertheless, the discussion is still valid in its present form because it yields a better understanding of how the various motivating factors interact at an individual employee level.

Overall, the management needs to balance its focus on role stressors, which include ambiguity and conflict of roles, effect on job resourcefulness, and the focus on job resourcefulness on job satisfaction. Biased focus on any causes less than optimal results, which may misinform future strategy on organizational performance (Harris et al. 2006).

Testing and evaluation are common ways used to determine and classify high-performing service employees (Licita et al. 2003). With personality tests, employers have a credible tool for making promotion, training and employment decisions concerning employees. Five-factor personality test models are the most popular for their comprehensive ability and ease of application.

In checking motivation at work, the five-factor model correlates with job satisfaction of employees to indicate personality traits that will improve satisfaction. The traits also find use in cases where employees consciously engage in acts that put the survival of the organization in the balance (Licita et al. 2003). Criminal acts like stealing and harassment are common examples. Still personalities help to identify potential deviants. For example, interpersonal deviance expressed by employees would be a risk factor to consider. While these features of personality trait point to a possible behaviour and outcome of employee engagement with work duties, they do not prescribe actual behaviour of what will take place (Chenet, Tynan & Money 2000).

As for job performance, conscientiousness is a key predictor of job performance. The other four factors; namely, openness to experience, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism still affect employee behaviour, but only to a lesser extent do they directly relate to job performance. Research by Licita et al. (2003) confirmed that looking at internal motivation can help predict self-reported performance in banking, restaurant, and health care industries. The researchers also confirmed that relying on the five-factor tests only has limitations. The authors went on to add that a full hierarchical model can account for more variance in outcome variables than a single five-factor model (Licita et al. 2003).

In service industries, the satisfaction of every customer encounter is a goal. While personality will play a role in employee and organizational role fit, its effect will not be fully visible as job resourcefulness acts as a buffer to role stressors, burnout symptoms, and front line employee service recovery performance (Ashill et al. 2009). Organizations have gone ahead and implemented high performance work systems (HPWS) to improve performance, but research by Chang and Chen (2011) shows that on an individual employee basis, the HPWS will work better when human capital and affective commitment are also available. This is a confirmation of the indirect influence of HPWS on employee job performance. The findings are relevant to this paper, given that the research by Chang and Chen (2011) was conducted in the service industry.

The rationale supported by the research is that when companies invest in high commitment work systems, they assist in employee human capital development, which ends up yielding excellent employee performance as employees increasingly become committed. It is the same thing with the argument presented above on internal marketing and improvement of job resourcefulness as elements that contribute to job satisfaction and eventually better job performance among service employees. The observation is clear in small professional service companies that rely much on front-line employees to deliver service in unique and valuable ways for the firm (Chang & Chen 2011).

Research by Liu, Kwan and Chiu (2014) shows that customer sexual harassment indeed has a negative effect on service employee job performance. It would then be interesting to find out how incidences of actual sexual harassment could influence job performance in instances where organizations are already providing and implementing all other positive practices for performance. Whether it is HPWS or customer orientation, as promoted by Brown et al. (2002), actual performance will rely on the combination of many factors and the influencing power of each.

For example, Liu, Kwan and Chiu (2014) showed that though sexual harassment by customers is a negative factor, its actual influence is mediated by difficulties that firms experience in implementing display rules. Here, the key point is not that there is reduced negativity in customer sexual harassment effects, but the inadequacy of affirming employee display rules hampers effective measurement of job performance. Essentially, this this hinders judgment of the actual impact of the negative factor.

Conclusion

Employee empowerment in the workplace will assist in improving an individual employees performance. However, the aspect of increasing job resourcefulness at the workplace is only relational and it can only work when other notable behaviour influencing factors and external environmental variables are favourable for excellence in employee work performance. Most of the research on service employee productivity and other academic material focus on the practical and theoretical perspectives of overall organizational performance. In this paper, the spotlight has been specific employee performance in light of various personal and organizational variables that affect production, both directly and indirectly.

In this regard, the paper shows that a majority of factors is neither negative nor positive, but their direct or indirect effect can readily be determined and observed in resultant employee behaviour. Issues such as job resourcefulness, internal organization, marketing to employees as customers, personalities, supervision, customer orientation programs, or strategies and actual customer behaviour towards employees are the main factors that will determine how capable an employee will be able to display the right behaviour. In addition, this paper also shows that testing methods used to evaluate employee performance and expression of rules for customer engagement by the organization also determine the extent to which employee job performance could be determined.

In the end, negative factors, such as customer harassment of employees or the lack of adequate job resourcefulness and poor employee personality and job needs fit can exist. However, the management can still miss out on opportunities to work on employee job performance, not because they do not recognize these negatives, but because performance measures are not congruent with the needs and capabilities of employees and they are not explicitly defined. This important confirmation shows that factors affecting service workers performance directly and indirectly, such as psychological empowerment, commitment, co-operation and abusive supervision, are all relative. Their review or study must always be inclusive of the individual employee internal and external environment, as well as the job and organizational context.

Reference List

Ashill, NJ, Rod, M, Thirkell, P & Carruthers, J 2009, Job resourcefulness, symptoms of burnout and service recovery performance: an examination of call centre frontline employees, Journal of Services Marketing, vol 23, no. 5, pp. 338-350.

Brown, T, Mowen, J, Donavan, DT & Licata, JW 2002, The customer orientation of service workers: Personality trait effects on self and supervisor performance ratings, Journal of Marketing Research, vol 39, no. 1, pp. 110-119.

Chang, P-C & Chen, S-J 2011, Crossing the level of employees performance: HPWS, affective commitment, human capital, and employee job performance in professional service organizations, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, vol 22, no. 4, pp. 883-901.

Chenet, P, Tynan, C & Money, A 2000, The service performance gap: Testing the redeveloped causal mode, European Journal of Marketing, vol 34, no. 3/4, pp. 472-497.

Dabholkar, PA & Abston, KA 2008, The role of customer contact employees as external customers: A conceptual framework for marketing strategy and future research, Journal of Business Research, vol 61, pp. 959-967.

Gianfranco, W 2013, Employee emotional labour and quitting intentions: moderating effects of gender and age, European Journal of Marketing, vol 47, no. 8, pp. 1213-1237.

Grandey, AA 2003, When the show must go on: Surface acting and deep acting as determinants of emotional exhaustion and peer-rated service delivery, Academy of Management Journal, vol 46, no. 1, pp. 86-96.

Harris, EG, Artis, AB, Walters, JH & Licata, JW 2006, Role stressors, service worker job resourcefulness, and job outcomes: An empirical analysis, Journal of Business Research, vol 59, pp. 407-415.

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Koster, F, de Grip, A & Fouarge, D 2011, Does perceived support in employee development affect personal turnover?, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, vol 22, no. 11, pp. 2403-2418.

Kotler, P, Keller, K, Brady, M, Goodman, M & Hansen, T 2009, Marketing management, 1st European Edition, Prentice Hall, London.

Licita, JW, Mowen, JC, Harris, EG & Brown, TJ 2003, On the trait antecedents and outcomes of service worker job resourcefulness: A hierarchical model approach, Academy of Marketing Science Journal, vol 31, no. 3, p. 256.

Liu, X-Y, Kwan, HK & Chiu, RK 2014, Customer sexual harassment and frontline employees service performance in China, Human Relations, vol 67, no. 3, pp. 333-356.

Spreitzer, G 1995, Psychological empowerment in the workplace: dimensions, measurements and validation, Academy of Management Journal, vol 38, no. 2, pp. 1442-1465.

Tepper, B 2000, Consequences of abusive supervision., Academy of Management Journal, vol 43, no. 2, pp. 178-190.

Yi, Y, Nataraajan, R & Gong, T 2011, Customer participation and citizenship behavioral influences on employee performance, satisfaction, commitment, and turnover intention, Journal of Business Research, vol 64, no. 1, pp. 87-95.

Background

Looking back at my experience working as a server at (each w lahum) I would have to say that while the job was not easy, it was good enough in terms of the salary that we were given as well as the hours that we were supposed to work. However, there is one person there that I do not remember with fond memories and that is (Insert Name of Coworker Here). He always arrived late for work (one hour late every single day), left early so that he would not have to help with cleaning the restaurant, had a generally disagreeable attitude when it came to getting along with the other servers, and lack any enthusiasm or initiative in doing his job.

One day I could have sworn that he came to work drunk since he was not thinking properly, kept on crashing into things, and had the nerve to just sit down and take a nap during the busiest hour of the day since he did not feel well. Our manager was far too kind for his good when it came to dealing with (Insert Name of Coworker Here). He did not penalize him for his lateness, he allowed him to act disrespectfully to his fellow servers and other employees and even let him act in an atrocious way to our customers. I once saw (Insert Name of Coworker Here) shove a tray at a customer with some of the contents of their drinking spilling on the tray without even offering a single apology.

For me, such behavior is unacceptable given that in my years working in the hospitality industry, all employees in the restaurant, no matter if you are the manager or janitor are expected to treat customers with respect. I could honestly swear that his sheer indifference towards people drove customers to our rival, Al Hallab, across the street. He even had the nerve to have a 2-hour lunchtime every Friday and explained his one-hour lateness by telling the manager that he would make it up later in the day by staying 1 extra hour. He never did and he is usually the first one of us to leave.

Explanation

When looking at the behavior of (Insert Name of Coworker Here) it can be deduced the problem may be due to a lack of motivation on his part to work.

Based on various studies, it was determined that employee motivation played an important role in talent management practices due to its correlation in creating employees that are more motivated to work, more interested in their job, and, as a result, stayed longer with their respective companies.

Motivation is a crucial aspect of talent management since no matter how well a company develops its employees through a plethora of training programs and seminars if said employees find little willingness to apply what they were taught productively and enthusiastically then the training itself would have been useless venture (Levin, Hansen, and Laverie, 379-393). This is evident in the case of (Insert Name of Coworker Here) where he lacked the desire to be working at the restaurant as a server let alone try to be good at his job.

Employees that lack sufficient motivation with their current position have been shown as being more likely to leave for greener pastures as compared to employees that have been sufficiently motivated by their company (this was seen 5 months later when he left the company).

Recommendations

As indicated by Levin, Hansen, and Laverie (2012) four characteristics are in demand within the most enterprise, namely: high market responsiveness, fast developments, low cost, and finally high levels of creativity, innovation, and efficiency (Levin, Hansen, and Laverie, 379-393). What must be understood though is that such characteristics are dependent upon the type of employees that are the backbone of the company wherein through the utilization of a variety of management practices a seamless integration of vertical and horizontal means of collaboration need to be implemented to create a stable organizational structure for proper operations and product development.

This is where the concept of talent management enters the picture. Talent management can be described as the process by which a company develops an employees skills throughout their time within the company to take on a variety of job roles as well as to manage their progress up the corporate ladder through a variety of leadership roles

(Levin, Hansen, and Laverie, 379-393). In the case of (Insert Name of Coworker Here), upper management within the company could implement a variety of talent management practices to fix his behavior to a certain extent. For example, since (Insert Name of Coworker Here) is always late for work the company could implement an employee bonus program that rewards hard workers and those who fulfill certain standards of attendance.

By doing this, this would encourage (Insert Name of Coworker Here) to start coming to work on time for a change instead of always coming in an hour after the normal start of business operations. On the other hand, another potential avenue of approach that the company could use to fix the attitude of (Insert Name of Coworker Here) is mentoring. Mentoring in the case of enhancing employee performance involves guiding an employee via either a team leader or an adjunct employee that is willing to take them under their wing so speak to help adjust to the various aspects of the job, teach them how to do it well and guide them as they advance.

The advantage of this particular method is that it eliminates the dissatisfaction employees have with a job by enabling them to see the bigger picture and have them develop a development plan from which they can ascertain what they want out of their current job. It must be noted though that while this method is effective it hinges on the fact that the mentor will have time to address and guide the concerns of the person that he/she is mentoring.

While during my time at ( each w lahum) I tried to mentor (Insert Name of Coworker Here) as much as I could despite being in the same employee level, it simply did not work due to the number of customers that I had to attend to at the same time. In instances where there is sporadic mentorship what often occurs is that employees fall back into old habits and job dissatisfaction occurs as a direct result. (Insert Name of Coworker Here), despite my best efforts, showed a lot of job dissatisfaction as evidenced by his constant complaints about how hard the job was.

What I understood from this experience is that mentorship is not as effective as a process/program instilled by a company that creates the necessary self-motivated interest within an employee and as such should not be considered 100% effective. To this day I suspect (Insert Name of Coworker Here) continues to complain without really doing anything to make the job better.

Is (Insert Name of Coworker Here) a problem that cannot be fixed?

When it comes to (INSERT CO-WORKER NAME HERE), the main problems that I see are that he lacks initiative, is incredibly lazy, does not attempt to be pleasant to customers, and constantly arrives to work late. Despite all attempts by myself and the manager at the restaurant, nothing seems to work and in the end, his performance got worse the more we tried to help him. It is based on this that I believe that he is a problem that cannot be fixed given the numerous attitude problems he has and his lack of dedication to do a good job.

How can the Company Avoid Such Problems in the Future?

The current generation of employees is called Generation Y who has the distinction of bringing their tech-savvy skills to the workplace, are natural born networkers, and are achievement-oriented as well. It is based on this that for the company to avoid hiring workers like (Insert Name of Coworker Here) and to start getting the employees they need, it is important to create benefits and perks that would attract good members of Generation Y to the company.

Studies such as those by Clark (2007) reveal that one of the qualities that increase the interest of individuals from Gen Y for particular types of jobs is the inherent flexibilities found within a given position. The concept of flexibility can range from the scheduling and time-off policies that are in place within the company to how a job allows its employees to be creative with what they do instead of following rigid corporate policies (Clark, 2007). What you have to understand is that compared to previous generations, Gen Y places a higher level of importance on the concept of the work-life balance wherein each aspect complements the other.

By presenting potential employees with the opportunity to personally adjust their schedules within a reasonable level as well as allow them an appropriate level of freedom in taking time off due to various obligations involving their personal life, this results in a greater level of employee retention as compared to setting a rigid corporate policy. Going back to the correlation between creativity and flexibility, it must be noted that individuals from Gen Y are far more technologically sophisticated as compared to their counterparts from previous generations.

Not only that, they have been taught to be more independent when it comes to accomplishing certain tasks and solving problems. As such, it is recommended that to attract Gen Y employees it would be necessary to create an internal business culture that fosters creative thinking. By implementing such benefits at ( eash w lahum), the company will be able to avoid hiring people like (Insert Name of Coworker Here) since they would have a wider array of potential employees to choose from.

Works Cited

Levin, Michael A., Jared M. Hansen and Debra A. Laverie. Toward Understanding New Sales Employees Participation in Marketing-Related Technology: Motivation, Voluntariness, and Past Performance. Journal Of Personal Selling & ales Management 32.3 (2012): 379-393. Print.

The World of the Play

The play takes place in Victorian England where a young woman, who spent most of her life in various boarding schools, is preparing to meet her mother whom she has not seen for a very long time and knows almost nothing about. The womans name is Vivie Warren, and after graduating from the University of Cambridge, she started looking for potential suitors. A young man named Frank wants to marry her, but, in fact, is more interested in her money.

His father has a history with Vivies mother Kitty Warren and opposes the marriage. The play revolves around the relationship between Vivie and her mother (Shaw 83). Vivie did not know how her mother accumulated her wealth and when she finds out that Kitty runs a number of brothels in the city, she is mortified. The conflict comes from Vivies need to understand why her mother chose this line of work and whether any of the men who seek Vivies hand are suitable to marry her. In an insightful speech, Kitty explains that she was forced to become a prostitute due to the lack of options that Victorian England provided to women. Vivie understands her reasoning but is unable to accept it when she finds out that Kitty is still a brothel madam after the need for money has gone.

Themes

The themes of the play are surprisingly relevant despite its age. Mrs. Warrens Profession was written in 1893 by George Bernard Shaw. However, the sincerity and insight into the socioeconomic issues that the play provides are both simple and informed enough to have weight in the modern era. The primary theme of the play is the role of women in society and how the perceptions of it often limit the options provided to them. In the Victorian era, women were extremely limited in their career pursuits.

The majority could become factory workers, waitresses, or occupy other service positions, with rare exceptions allowed for wealthier women with status. Instead of following these career paths, Kitty chose to become a prostitute because they were paid better and received better treatment at their workplace. While the public opinion was against her, Kitty still became a wealthy woman who was able to afford high-class education for her daughter. Only by going against the societal norms for female employment was she able to achieve her goals, which suggests that there is something wrong with the society as a whole.

The second theme is less obvious but can still be found in the text of the play. It concerns the suitors of Vivie and why she decides to never marry at the end of the play. Throughout the play, she has to choice between a young man, who sees her as a meal ticket, an older man, who is handsome and well mannered, and an old man with a very poor moral compass. She chooses no one and seems to lose all faith in romantic relationships.

Each of the suitors saw her mostly as an object, or something they are entitled to instead of a person, and this feeling is the second theme of the play. Both themes suggest that the prejudice and false ideas about the role of women in the society only serve to make their lives worse and that perhaps they should be reevaluated.

The Production

The actors performed quite well, with Erika Sotos Vivie and Judith Scotts Kitty being the standouts of the cast. Their chemistry portrayed the complex relationship between the characters in an unusually relatable fashion. Jeremy Rabbs portrayal of Sir George Croft was also excellent and elicited appropriately negative emotions toward his character (Mrs. Warrens Profession).

Michael Michetti directed the play and chose to keep the production relatively minimal in decorations. While the scenery uses era-appropriate chairs and other furniture, the majority of the scenes take place against a blank background. However, this does not reflect badly on the production, as it brings additional focus to the characters and the work that costumers put into their outfits. The production as a whole left a positive impression, with none of the elements feeling out of place.

Personal Opinion

I found the play to be engaging from a dramatic point of view. The interconnection of the characters and the conflict that Vivie experiences were emotionally affecting and the unfortunate ending of her relationship with Kitty left me feeling slightly distressed. However, I really enjoyed the ending because it brought up an issue of acceptance of prostitution. Vivie was able to come to terms with her mothers past but still looked down on prostitution as a profession.

I believe it reflects how relatively progressive people often judge sex workers despite understanding the reasons behind their choice. While there are countries that hold a different point of view on prostitution, such attitudes are still present in our society. I would definitely recommend this play to people interested in complex relationships and social sciences.

Works Cited

Mrs. Warrens Profession A Noise Within, 2017.

Shaw, Bernard. Mrs Warrens Profession. Broadview Press, 2005.

Introduction

Grades are an essential part of almost every university class. What would happen if there were no grades ? Would your individual performance improve or decline? Similar issues take part between employees concerning their performance. Performance management involves assessing and communicating employee contributions. Rating employees’ performance is similar to giving them grades. In the employment context, important questions include the following : Do employees improve their performance when their contributions to the organization are measured? Is it helpful to give feed- back so that employees know how they are doing? Does effective measurement of individual contributions help in improving organizational performance?

Measuring performance and giving feedback does indeed improve employee performance. And improvements in individual performance trans- late into better organizational performance. Organizations have higher productivity when top management encourages supervisors to set goals, assess performance, and provide feedback to employees.One reason is that trust in management increases when performance is accurately measured and adequately rewarded. It can, in fact, play a major role in providing for an integrated and coherent range of human resource management processes which are mutually supportive and contribute as a whole to improving organizational effectiveness.

Performance Management Systems

Performance management systems involve numerous activities, much more than simply reviewing what an employee has done. These systems must fulfill several purposes. Moreover, they’re often constrained by difficulties in how they operate. It is a way to get better results by understanding and managing performance within an agreed framework of planned goals, standards and competency requirements. A system that helps in measuring and evaluating the connection between the efficiency of the work performance and the duties and responsibilities of the job it occupies , in a way that helps to identify the strengths and weaknesses in the past performance and determine how it’s possible to avoid the weaknesses and invest the strengths at the present and in the future .

Aims of performance management

Monitoring and evaluating individuals and organization performance is an essential part of handling human capital . It has several key aims.

1. Identifying the learning/development and performance enhancement needs of individuals
2. Identifying challenges or performance obstacles which require intervention
3. To identify people with potential for future promotion, supporting succession planning
4. Providing the basis for incentive decisions: qualifications for results-related rewards, competency-related promotions, merit awards and so on.
5. Improving contact between managers and team leaders on job problems, success and growth opportunities.

How Is Performance Management Strategic?

Although identifying high and low performers is an important part of performance management , it might not be the best approach for other organizations. In some cases, encouraging people to stand out from the crowd may discourage teamwork and harm employee motivation. Like other HR practices, then, performance management practices are most effective when aligned with an organization’s competitive strategy.

Emphasizing Either Merit Or Parity

Organizations tend to follow one of two approaches in measuring performance . Some organizations create a merit-based climate that emphasizes performance differences among employees. In other organizations, the system encourages parity, or a sense of equality, among employees.

Merit-Based Systems

The basic objective of a merit-based system is to create and recognize high performance in order to achieve superior outcomes. This is the approach with the underlying purpose of performance management being to encourage employees to perform at the highest possible level. Employees who produce the highest outcomes, or results, are given high marks. this is usually done through the use of relative measures that compare employees with each other. Success at work is defined not just as meeting a certain standard but as doing better than others. With a merit-based system, managers are also frequently required to place a certain percentage of employees in each rating category, which is called a forced distribution. Only a few can be given the highest rating, and at least some must be given the lowest rating. In summary, merit-based systems focus on bottom-line results and use relative measures and forced distributions to ensure that high and low performers are clearly identified.

Parity-Based Systems

The basic objective of a parity-based system is to encourage cooperation and allow everyone who meets a certain standard to be classified as a high per- former. Parity-based performance measures frequently focus on processes rather than outcomes. High performance is defined as following guidelines and performing behaviors assigned by supervisors. This usually involves absolute measures that compare employees with an established benchmark rather than with each other. Most parity-based systems also adopt a free distribution, which allows any percentage of employees to be placed in a particular category. For example, any employee who assembles a certain number of cell phones without error can be given a top performance rating, regardless of how many cell phones others assemble. Every employee can thus be a top per- former. In general, parity-based performance systems do not separate people into categories of high and low performance but rather encourage all employ- ees to perform above a certain standard.

Functions of Performance Management

The performance management is especially concerned with individuals , processes, and organizational performance . To achieve this objective performance management performs a spread of functions.

• Create Healthy Work Environment:

HR or performance manager works with the employees, Their aim is to create an environment of openness, trust, mutual affection , team spirit and collaboration . In this environment only the manpower can be utilizing more effectively to contribute to organizational goals. They create environment with the support of HR policies, day to day dealing, welfare, promotion, discipline, incentives, training etc. It creates confidence in individuals to work without worry.

• Develop Performance Plans:

Management goes for planning of the job, competencies needed to perform the roles and standards required for performance of the jobs. It includes job description, job specification and fixation of job performance standard. Through these plans it is possible to determine the individual’s type required can be ascertained.

• Selection of Appropriate People:

It is important to carry out the different styles of people to do various types of jobs in the organization . The required type and number of people are to be selected from the aspirants. In order to perform the tasks at the appropriate time, they should be at the right location in the right time. This can be accomplished by proper training and selection of employees.

• Decision Regarding Performance Standard:

Performance management as a function of human resource management, management takes decision regarding the appropriate standards of the performance in consultation with top level management, head of departments and experts or consultants.

• Plans for Development of Employees:

Performance management is involved in the development of both employees and organization. It conducts orientation of the persons, provides education, and finds out the need for training and conduct training program for development of skills, knowledge and competencies. This can help in improvement of the performance of employees and company.

• Measurement of Performance:

After planning and development activities the following task of performance management is to measure the performance of the people at work. For measurement of performance the different criteria has been fixed such as output per hour/shift quality of work, behavior, discipline, level of commitment etc. This helps to find out the poor and good performers out .

• Conducts Performance Feedback:

After measurement of performance of all employees the management finds the slow moving persons. The aim of performance management is to figure out why they’re going slow. They hold coaching sessions for these individuals and give them feed back. They propose ways of improving their performance, too. It helps the individuals a lot to understand their abilities and difficulties. Through the coaching and counseling session the attitude of the employees is changed positive.

Methods of Performance Appraisal

There are a number of methods that are used to evaluate employee’s performance. It may be evaluated on the basis of his traits and attributes as well as on the basis of his work or results and objectives achieved by him. Thus his performance may be measured in terms of standards of his traits and general behavior on the job or in terms of results and goals. Some of the common techniques are given below:

Individual Appraisal Methods

1. Rating scale
2. Checklist method
3. Forced choice method
4. Critical incident method
5. Field review method
6. Performance test and observation method
7. Annual confidential reports (ACR)

Group Appraisal Methods

1. Factors and points method
2. Ranking method
3. Paired comparison method
4. Forced distributions

Other Methods Including MBO System

1. Self-appraisal
2. Appraisal by results or management by objectives (MBO) approach
3. 360o Performance appraisal
4. Behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS)
5. Cost accounting method

Traditional and Modern Methods:

1. The traditional methods are almost similar to individual and group appraisal methods.
2. Outcomes of Performance Management:

Financial Gains: Financial gains from performance management are following:

1. Improve productivity and production of the company.
2. Reduce costs due to honest and skilled employees .
3. Complete the projects well in time because everyone is giving his best performance at work.
4. Align the priorities of the company and individuals that avoids all delays in performance.
5. Through proper and timely communication, the objectives are clarified , and desired action can be accomplished by employees .

Non-Financial Gains: Non-financial gains from performance management:

1. Healthy working atmosphere avoids work stress of the employees .
2. Optimizes incentive plans to reach specific targets, not just business as normal.
3. Employees feel satisfied when the working environment is friendly.
4. Employees get opportunities for further career development, training and promotion etc.
5. A sense of belongingness, attachment and commitment develops among employees.
6. It leads to a high degree of motivation in employees and also generates a sense of commitment towards the organization.
7. Individuals recognize the value of their positions, and are committed to contributing to the organizational objectives.
8. Create transparency in approach and dealing among employees.
9. High confidence in organization and its different processes like salary, bonus, promotion etc.

Effective Management Control

1. Responsiveness to management needs and performing the tasks.
2. Displays better data relationships
3. Helps comply with inspection, audit and other regulatory requirements.
4. Simplifies communication of strategic goals and gets involvement of lower level employees too.

Effects of Positive and Negative Feedback.

Positive feedback increases motivation when it is linked to future goals. Positive feedback, then, creates a sense of accomplishment that encourages sustained effort as long as employees have goals that provide them with the opportunity to further excel. Employees who perceive negative feedback as criticism become less motivated and more likely to experience conflict with others. The basic problem is that people become defensive when they hear that they are not performing as well as expected.

The initial reaction of employees who have received negative feedback is to increase their effort. But they will continue to put forth greater effort only if they experience success or believe that success is likely. In other words, negative feedback only improves performance when people are confident that they can do what is necessary to improve.Building confidence and helping people see that they have the skills necessary to improve is therefore one important consideration in making sure that negative feedback improves performance.

The beginning of the 21st century appears to be ushering in a new era of human life with a number of very significant inexorable changes. The ever changing and developing technologies have changed the all round expectations of the people as a whole along with the library users. Users are not satisfied with traditional library services. Users are demanding modern, innovative information and knowledge support facilities from libraries, not only in the existing fields of engineering but also in a number of new fields that are emerging. For all the strengths and weaknesses, the government has launched the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) to equipment the strength effectively and to fighting weaknesses of the country. NKC has suggested for creating a knowledge based society to build up India as human resource capital of the world. NKC has given a very strategic role to Libraries and Information Centers to provide all the information and knowledge support to the process of economic development and growth. Thus the library professionals have an unfortunate opportunity to participate in the change of our strength into knowledge strength. In the process, library professionals have to face a number of challenges. Library professionals need to assess strengths and weaknesses of the field to overcome and get rid of the weakness of the same.

At present, library professionals have to acquire computer and communication skills and get in-depth training in use of institutional repositories, library management software package, radio frequency identification technology as part of their professional education and training. Library professionals need to perform their job with special combination of intellectual aptitude, computer skills, communication skills and managerial abilities all at a relatively high level. Library professionals need to attend short term courses, continuing self education, publish professional writing, presenting seminar and conference papers etc. to keep themselves updated.

The responsibilities of the library professionals have increased and changed tremendously with the changing environment of the libraries. The Autonomous Engineering College libraries of Andhra Pradesh are now moving towards modernization and they are successful to a large extent in meeting the demands of the users. Self-Assessment plays a vital role for the improvement of the library professionals by helping in different decision making policies of the libraries. Further it also helps a lot in the right direction to achieve organizational goal and for better performance of the library professionals.

These issues were in my mind before taking up the study area for the Ph.D. programme. Moreover, I have attended a number of professional events like seminars, conferences, discussions, workshops wherein self-assessment were the one of the focal areas. All these have worked in a positive way for taking up the study and research.

Keeping in mind all these, I discussed with my fellow professional friends, professionals working in various colleges at different positions and respected lecturers of B.L.I.Sc and M.L.I.Sc. Courses, including my research guide Professor Kodela Venkata Rao who has also advised me for undertaking the topic for my PhD.

I am confident that this study will ably guide library authority and library professionals for evaluating self-assessment and better professional performance.