SUPPORTING GOOD PRACTICE IN PERFORMANCE AND REWARD MANAGEMENT
Purpose of Performance Management and Business Success
Performance management refers to a process of ensuring a given set of activities and outputs reach the threshold for organizational goals and mission. Performance management can be on a particular process in an organization, an employee, the organization itself and a department. Performance management is an essential tool that enables managers to monitor and evaluate the work of an employee or a department. The main reason for establishing and introducing performance management is to create an atmosphere where employees in an organization get the best out of their abilities for best quality outcomes effectively and efficiently
Performance management systems and programs help the management of a company relate between expectations, career progress, and goals. The goals of a company are always dependent on the finer details in an organization; that is, they narrow down to intricate performance and the fundamental parts that make up a department or a section which, in turn, constitute the entire organization. A small dysfunction in a department means advancing the failure of the organization as a whole. Performance management is, therefore, a practice in an organization that keeps the whole firm on the right hinges by ensuring departments as well as individual work to the best of their potential to enhance quality outcomes. The aftermath of performance management should be in line with the corporate processes with the organization, vision and goals.
Performance management programs utilize traditional tools like creating and measuring goals, milestones and objectives. Management performance also focuses on explaining the ideal performance of an individual in the organization. Additionally, the tools are used in adjusting the workflow, recommending new paradigms in the work environment, and the working environment is turned into a learning arena.
Performance management views individuals from a broader perspective in a diverse workplace system. Furthermore, it considers every individual as a crucial portion of an organization. Resultantly, checking on how they work to verify and align to vision is a critical move in achieving strategic goals. Performance management relies heavily on transparency, accountability and fosters a clear understanding of the corporation’s goals and vision.
The teams must have clarified tasks and commitment to a charter of communication, which is instrumental in the functioning of the organization. For the virtual teams to work together, some dynamics must be followed carefully, which include cohesion and team building, the virtue of working together to achieve a common goal. These virtual teams should be incorporated into a system that allows them to operate freely. They can maintain contact and trust among the team members, a critical practice that enhances the performance among the employees.
Management of the tasks and the team players is an essential tool in making choices for the right ways of working among the workers. When teams are appropriately managed, they are in a better position to solve any problems that arise and ensure tasks are done effectively. Nonetheless, there exist some advantages and disadvantages that come with virtual teams that range from costs to work dynamics.
Performance review for Abu Dhabi municipality
Abu Dhabi Municipality is among the significant governance structures in the United Arab Emirates. It is rated among the best-performing companies based on per capita income from financial sources. In this municipality, as a governmental organization, various steps were taken before the best performance circled with the vision of the city. These have made it become the best performing municipality in UAE.
The municipality organized its very first forum to review performance management in the presence of strategic planning and performance managers in various divisions. The primary purpose of the discussion was to collect views and coming up with the necessary advancements that were worth being incorporated in performance management in the entire municipality.
The performance manager, MR. Abdullah Al Dharmaki of Al Ain municipality highlighted the accomplished methodology that was used to develop the strategic plan on the projects as well as its phases. The key take away from Al Ain’s scheme is that project management aims at optimizing financial and human resources, which will lead to better performance in the municipality.
An insight of the company reveals that the management performance was facilitated by having the vision of the organization as the baseline. All the activities aim at achieving the vision of the governmental organization. Key performance measures include target setting, rewards system, information flow, systems and network and PMS change. As mentioned above, these are the key concepts in managing performance in a corporation.
The rewards system is a component of employee motivation and quality improvement. A motivated employee is a prerequisite to a better performing organization. Experience with the municipality of Abu Dhabi clearly states there are some reward system mechanisms upheld to manage performance. These include salary increments and the introduction of KPI, which tracks individual performance and affects the workers annually. An increase in KPI translates more benefits to the company. Additionally, information about performance smoothly flows between organizational departments. Similarly, the feeders are well established and managed to ensure accuracy in performance evaluation and help in maintaining the functional status of the rewards systems.
Performance Management
Clarification of tasks and processes, as well as goals in an institution, is crucial to success. With virtual teams, coordination is inherently more of a challenge because people are not co-located. Therefore, it’s essential to focus more attention on the details of task design for clarity and the processes that will be used to complete them, with specifics about who does what and when. Then periodically, do “after-action reviews” to evaluate how things are progressing and identify process adjustments and training needs.
Commitment to a communication charter. The virtual teams do not communicate more frequently, and therefore, this makes it difficult for the deduction of states such as emotional conditions. The only means that make the teams more productive is by ensuring there is clear communication that makes them stick to the necessary duties within the organization. Creating a charter will make communication more efficient. Similarly, it will stipulate the norms and cultures that manage virtual communication meetings, such as limiting background noise and side conversations, talking clearly and responding in the shortest time possible.
Coordination
Agreement on the shared language is paramount in any firm since many teams may seem to be speaking the same style, but actually, they are not. Virtual teams are, in most cases, cross-cultural. Hence the conventional communication cues are not always the same. There must be interpretations of the phrases that are conflicting to promote clarity. The presence of cross cultures of the teams is a direct pointer to communication issues, and hence it is a strategy in the management of the business virtually. An excellent example of these teams can be from the UK and the USA. Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner (2004) described this case famously and said that the USA and UK are two structures divided by one language. The strategy is workable in this scenario of the USA and UK because of the dynamics in the use of English language, and thus, taking time to offer interpretations for common explicitly, shared and unfamiliar
Shared leadership is an essential emphasis and should be fostered. Defining competence aspects and deliverables and keeping track of performance is ideal. It provides a pushing force that keeps the team members focused and productive. Shared leadership provides a pulling force that includes the provision of opportunities or involving others in management teams.
An example is assigning leaders to special projects and sharing the best-identified practices in activities such as delegating a mentor to someone to help them gain much knowledge from the mentor’s areas of expertise. Virtual team-building exercise is an inclusive activity in this case. The new members on board can be advised to take part in the best practices such as team building.
Tools used
In most cases of virtual management teams, face to face conferring and video is sometimes impossible with many virtual teams and their processes of communication. Some methods and tools can be implemented in this case to cater for that.
The establishment of a code of conduct for virtual management is crucial. The teams are required to observe norms set with the aim of making virtual management as useful as possible. These practices include answering calls, time-to-time reports, availability conditions, and acknowledging emails, tweets, among others. These practices, when included in a code of conduct, there will be useful in management.
Face to face interactions can be implemented if possible or when there is an opportunity. This can be handled by dividing the team members the progress of the project and providing schedules. Team members should be kept on track by using a calendar. Providing a calendar of events and activities that are in the operations is necessary (Lumsden, Lunsden and wiethoff 2009). The schedule makes it possible for the members to communicate more frequently and come together with other team members.
Developing trust among team members a critical element. If I were to be trusted as a manager, I must believe in the members possibly to ensure the members reciprocate by taking the directives from me respectfully and professionally.
Task Management
The choice of the right team players ensures coherence in task performance. It entails choosing people who are hardworking, self-motivated, self-driven and honest as well as open to the manager and other team members. The team players should be people who are interested in the achievement of the goals of the projects. These are the ideal people to be chosen as the team players to make it productive and secure task management.
Define the team purpose- With a geographically dispersed team, members need to unite around a common purpose. Everyone must agree to the team’s goals.
Developing strong team dynamics plays a role in proper managing of relationships and cohesiveness between employees and departments. In creating new teams or integrating members into the group aims at managing relations between workers in an open office if complicated but much difficult when managing those all over the country or world. (Martin and Siebert 2016). Performance management involves practices that are hinged on developing the working environment as well as making it ideal for learning.
Performance management constitutes rewards management systems as a form of motivation for the employees in corporations. Besides setting goals and thresholds in an organization for improved performance, rewarding is an additional tool for effective performance management. Performance management and employee motivation relate directly to organization mission achievement and success. A motivated worker is one of the critical areas of performance management. The rewards system emanates from the strategic approach to accomplish an organization’s goals.
References
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Academies National Conference Myrtle Beach, South Carolina April 5-8, 2000 (Vol. 5, No. 1, p. 7).
Lumsden, G., Lumsden, D., & Wiethoff, C. (2009). Communicating in groups and teams:
Sharing leadership. Cengage Learning.
Martin, G., & Siebert, S. (2016). Managing people and organizations in changing contexts.
Routledge.
Nemiro, J. E. (2016). Connection in creative virtual teams. Journal of Behavioral and Applied
Management, 2(2), 814.
Romeike, P. D., Nienaber, A. M., & Schewe, G. (2016). How differences in perceptions of own
and team performance impact trust and job satisfaction in virtual teams. Human Performance, 29(4), 291-309.
Trompenaars, F., & Hampden-Turner, C. (2004). Managing people across cultures. Chichester:
Capstone.