Options for Performance Measurement in CERAâ€Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: What Is the Options for Performance Measurement in CERA? Answer: Introduction: The human resource management within a business organisation takes one of the most significant roles in planning, designing and operating the entire functional operations as per the organisational objectives. Not only the materialistic resources but also both the internal and the external people are also under the sincere concern of the human resource management (Frosen et al. 2016). In providing the motivation to the workforce to meet the organisational objectives, the performance of the HRM is also significant. In this report, the organisational strategies and the performance of recent development are analysed. Along with this, the associated limitations are also focused. On the other hand, two alternative measurement approaches and indicative methods for each of the approaches are suggested for addressing the limitations. The performance of a business company is estimated by the development of the design and activities of the individual contribution. As stated by Huang et al. (2015), the measurement of the effectiveness of an organisational performance can be evaluated through the achievement of the organisational targets and benchmarks. Even through the performance appraisal, the current organisational strategies and the outcome of their application in business functions can also be understood. For CERA, it can be noticed that there are some issues and unsatisfactory factors in the service of the organisational management. However, Mark as the founder of the company has been taking and applying some necessary steps in order to eradicate the issues regarding the appraisal of the employee performance management. The limitations occurred in bonus, reward and geographical location of the organisational operations are all under the sincere focus of the entire organisational team. Limitations those are evident in CERAs individual performance measurement with reference to the organisational strategy of CERA and recent development in this HRM practice: In order to operate and measure a high-performance management system, it is necessary for the business organisations to clearly identify, set and create a communication among people. Through this, they can able to evaluate the skills and performance level of the entire team. In fact, the demonstration of the performance level is also helpful in the proper understanding of the organisational benefit. Real, Roldan, Leal (2014) have however argued that the limitations and barriers in the organisational performances with the application of the specific strategies and recent activities can also be identified through this performance measurement process. The Civil Engineering and Research Associates, better known as CERA, is situated in Sydney, Australia. It is basically a civil engineering company established in 2007 by Mark. With the progress of time, this company has become as one of the most influential and reputed companies in the world. The main reasons behind the growing reputation and acceptance level of this company are the design of the systematic planning, organisational structure, and management of the functional targets along with the satisfactory service provided by the organisational staffs. It is quite necessary to mention here that the intention of Mark to create an innovative business strategy of this organisation apart from the influence of its competitors has achieved the customer attention. However, in operating and providing the expected services to the customers, the management of CERA has been facing some noticeable limitations. One of the major limitations associated with CERA regarding the performance of their individual organisational strategy is the poor performance management quality. As stated by Lillis, Malina Mundy (2017), the success of a business organisation through the meeting of the organisational targets is hugely depended on the contribution of the staffs. However, the poor standard of the performance management sometimes creates employee dissatisfaction. The aim of the management of CERA is to provide helpful as well as high-quality solutions to their customers individually as per their needs and requirements. However, lack in the linking up the employee reward structure with the measurement of performance quality sometimes creates administrative issues (Liu et al. 2014). Even, the lacking in the rapid industrial development creates several negative impacts on the motivation of the employees to continue their works and also to encourage the government to focus on the organisational activitie s (de Waal Kourtit, 2013). The limitation in the number of the functional staffs is also a result of this limitation. Although the bonus scheme is good in this, however, it is not as per the necessity. According to Hair (2015), CERA has undertaken effective organisational strategy in order to overcome the issue of industrial limitations. The functional activities of the HRM, as well as the financial department, have been improved in order to measure the performance and contribution of an individual employee within the company. The HRM of CERA has also undertaken the strategy of advertising for the vacancy fill up (Glykas, 2013). It is quite evident that the internal faculty is not sufficient as per the scopes and opportunities of CERA and due to this, they have been deprived of getting several future scopes to improve. Along with this, the timely client services are also focused nowadays. Even in order to get a better market for the strategic expansion of their business; they have also focused on the broader geographic location in the recent days (Teeratansirikool et al. 2013). They have undertaken this strategy with an aim to occupy the regional market with the affluence of produc ts as motivated by their project completion capacity. Even the role of the Research and Development department is also significant to overcome civil development limitations. In order to measure the performance level of CERA, the management of this company has started to follow a scheme known as Performance Panning and Review (PPR) as per the pre-set objectives. Even the introduction of the cash rewards for the staffs as per the measurement of their performance level to meet the organisational goals is also another strategy applied by Mark as the founder and director of CERA. However, this strategy was based on the seniority of the staffs. The necessity to measure the individual performance management has forced CERA to implement some immediate steps. It has been observed from the feedback of Rachel, one of the team members of CERA performance management that the reward system allotted for the employees is not enough satisfactory. Even CERA has also been lagging behind in comparison with Amazon and Netflix. Therefore, it is also suggeste d to pay a satisfactory amount to them in order to encourage them to undertake the responsibility to complete any challenging project. Through all these, the limitations in research and development department have been trying to be controlled. It has been presented by some of the team members of CERA that the present condition of the performance tracking quality is not up to the mark. Bryman Bell (2015) have opined that there are also some legal obligations that are needed to be maintained by an organisational management during the measurement of performance and quality measurement. Mark has stated that the conversation with the members of Civils and Contractors Federation has provided him an idea regarding this. Another limitation can be identified in the project management strategy. There are 45 employees with high professional capacities. Through their effective services, more than 500 projects have already completed successfully. Even as per the employee availability, the management of this organisation can able to undertake the contract of projects worth around $45 million per year. As per the capacity of the internal employees, the projects are also delivered by given time. Year Net profit (A$ 000,000) 2007 12 2008 18 2009 17 2010 29 2011 37 2012 59 2013 78 2014 114 Table 1: Annual report of CERA, 2015 (Source: Melnyk et al. 2014) It is quite clear from the above table that since 2007 till 2014, there is a massive change in the amount of the net profit earned by the management of CERA. Since 2009, it has been going through increase that has become the highest between 2013 and 2014. The amount of A$12,000,000 has reached to A$114,000,000 in 2014 in which A$36,000,000 has taken place between 2013 and 2014 (Melnyk et al. 2014). From the earning of additional revenue and prestige from some specific areas, it is quite clear that people within the organisation served their best effort for the organisational benefit. Even, this is one of the best ways to measure their performance level. The minimisation of work pressure in the workplaces has encouraged them to provide their efficiency and skills as per the organisational objectives (Bourne et al. 2013). In fact, the reword and recognition strategy applied for the staffs by the CERA management has been serving as one of the major factors behind the performance measurement and quality improvement. Recommendation of two alternative measurement approaches and indicative methods within each approach that could work in CERA with addressing the limitations: The main problem of CERA regarding their performance management system is that they do not give proper appraisal to the hard working and highly qualified professionals. Though they employ highly qualified professionals, their remuneration system does not provide the employees with the actual money that they should get for their performance. CERA can introduce two approaches described below to address the problems they face regarding their performance management system. Behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS) It is a combination of graphic rating scale and critical incident method. It sets the effective performance behaviors required to handle a critical issue. At first, the supervisors find out the critical issues that require effective performances from its subordinates. Supervisors then categorize these issues according to the level of performance required to solve these. Supervisors then give the subordinates these issues to work upon (Wang Wang, 2012). Then their performance is measured on a scale of 7-9 depending on their performance behavior to solve these critical situations. The works that the employees perform are the behavior anchors for measuring performance. In CERA, there is no effective process of evaluating employees performance and thus providing them appraisals accordingly. The process of performance evaluation is such that, high performing employees of certain departments receive fewer bonuses while high performers of other departments receive good appraisals. The main objective was to evaluate performance on generating revenue by keeping under budget (Li, Nan Mo, 2010). Hence, management left out the extraordinary performers of departments like drafting, legal and administration. Implementing the BARS approach can reduce this difference is appraisal system by evaluating each employee through certain performance anchors that is required to handle issues. This will provide appraisals to all the deserved employees and will motivate them to work harder. The 360-degree appraisal The main motto of this appraisal system is to make it more participative and transparent. It is a 360-degree appraisal system, which depends on self, superiors, colleagues and the customers. It is called a 360-degree approach because it involves all people surrounding the employee, from lower level to upper level including people from the same level (Zhao, Seibert Lumpkin, 2010). The main components of 360-degree appraisal are Self-Appraisal- It gives the employee a chance to evaluate its own strengths and weaknesses and the development areas. They can share their self-appraisal views to their supervisors and can jointly chalk out a plan for improving the performance. The employee can also share the career plans to his superior. This plays favorable for the organization as they can plan accordingly (Moynihan Pandey, 2010). Superior-Appraisal- The appraisal by the superiors provides feedback about the performance of the employee and its development areas. The feedback should be constructive to improve the employee performance. Superiors set the goals and processes to fulfill them. They can put the career aspirations of employees in the right track (Rich, Lepine Crawford, 2010). Subordinate-Appraisal- This is the most unique feature of this 360-degree process. The employees get chance to evaluate the superiors on their capabilities of handling crises, motivating employees, setting goals for them, building team and properly communicating the requirements (Walker, Damanpour Devece, 2010). Peer-Appraisal- The people who are of the same level in the department in which the employee belongs provides this type of appraisal. Here the peers give their feedback on the co-operation and the collaboration abilities of an employee. They also evaluate an employee on its capability of handling a team (Brewster Mayrhofer, 2012). Potential-Appraisal- It evaluates the potential of the employees, which the organizations did not expose. The factors that affect this appraisal is the present performance, the past performance, the age, the personality and the qualification of an employee. It helps the employee in defining career goals and setting objectives for the organization to fulfill these goals. It focuses on the training importance of employees to enhance their skills and contribute more toward the productivity of the organization (Cocca Alberti, 2010). The 360-degree process can be very helpful for CERA as well as its employees. The organizations can consider all employees whom they left out for appraisal process. The employees complained about favoritism in appraisal in CERA. This system fully addresses this issue since the appraisal does not depend only on the superiors. The self-appraisal process will help employees to evaluate themselves and counter any inappropriate negative feedback given by the superiors for wrong reasons (Gruman Saks, 2011). The case study states one of the major problems faced by CERA. As there is, no effective evaluation process for evaluating the potential of lower level staff members, the organization never gave importance to the career objectives of inexperienced people. As a result, the organization cannot retain the potential high performing employees. This process can help CERA on employee retention by bringing forward the potential capabilities of relatively low and inexperienced employees. The organization should always follow some basic rules for the success of any of the appraisal process they consider. Firstly, it is very important to jot down the points that need he or she will cover for the review meeting before handedly. The superiors need to leave favoritism and fairly does the appraisal process (Ng Feldman, 2010). The mindset should be positive and the superiors should provide constructive feedback to encourage employees. Superiors should prioritize review meetings above all work because this is the only process to encourage employees for better performance. The superiors should do this review process on a regular basis. Conclusion: The above analysis has made it clear that within an organisational context, management of employees is an essential factor to get organisational success. If employees are satisfied regarding the working environment, pay and reward given, they tend to stay, increase productivity and give their 100% in work. As far as CERA is concerned, it is identified that the employee management system, especially the performance management of employees is worse in the company. The higher management has not only ignored the contribution of few departments in the financial improvement of the company, but also scaled the performance wrongly. In this context, using methods like BARS and 360-degree appraisal seems to be fruitful where every employee is judged based on their performance. The methods also likely to help the high performing employees. They can be encouraged to work effectively while other employees can also be encouraged to get the reward for good performance. References: Bourne, M., Pavlov, A., Franco-Santos, M., Lucianetti, L., Mura, M. (2013). Generating organisational performance: The contributing effects of performance measurement and human resource management practices.International journal of operations production management,33(11/12), 1599-1622 Brewster, C., Mayrhofer, W. (Eds.). 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