Performance Management Analysis: O'Meara Electronics Case Study

This case study examines the performance management system at The O’Meara Electronics Company, which is facing declining profitability and market position, and aiming to expand into Europe. The existing system, heavily influenced by customer demands, is identified as lacking standardization, employee incentives, and clear objectives. The report analyzes pitfalls such as unfair renumeration, lack of clarity in objectives, and inadequate communication channels. It recommends upgrading to a hybrid approach, combining 360-degree feedback with key performance indicators (KPIs) in interim appraisals to address these weaknesses and improve employee motivation. The report suggests various rating scales and a hybrid approach to performance evaluation, which is tailored to various business function units, and the benefits of a hybrid approach in performance evaluation, with the goal of aligning performance management with remuneration strategies to support the company's expansion goals. The conclusion summarizes the analysis, recommendations, and the importance of these changes for the company's future.

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Performance
Management

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Current Scenario at The O’Meara Electronics Company................................................................3
Pitfalls in Existing Performance Management System at O’Meara................................................4
Suggested Upgrading systems.........................................................................................................5
Different Rating Scales................................................................................................................5
360 Degree feedback...................................................................................................................6
Key Performance Indicators of Factors in Self Appraisal...........................................................6
Benefits of a Hybrid Approach in Performance Evaluation............................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................9
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Introduction
Performance management is one of the key managing perspectives for any organization. It is the
measurement and evaluation of performance that the company creates its performance appraisal
and renumeration structure. Performance management is a very difficult mechanism as it
addresses various functional segments of an organization and scales them into measurable units
to create a standard performance template (Saunila, 2016).
The report presented here offers the insights into the performance management system at The
O’Meara Electronics Company that is looking forward to expanding its business periphery into
European countries. The president of the company, David O’Meara, declares the strategic
modifications that are in pipeline and suggests the improvement of Performance Management
and Renumeration strategies. The report presented here identifies the shortcomings in existing
strategies, recommends new and progressive approaches towards better performance
management systems with recommendations for adopting a hybrid strategy.
Current Scenario at The O’Meara Electronics Company
At the O’Meara company, the existing performance management system had not been revised
efficiently to meet the current needs. The existing system was based out on customer demands.
As per the requisites by the customers, the measurement parameters for performance
measurement changed (Smith, 2017). From the responses received form various employees, it
became clear that the existing system was not standardized, and process driven. It also became
clear post discussions with team members that there were no activities that would result in
enhanced performance and team building.
The reviews from existing employees highlighted the shortcomings of the program, expressing
the lack of appraisal systems for supervisors and leader, that helped increase productivity at all
levels. It also came out that there was no incentive plan for motivating to deliver higher results.
Feedback from employees that have worked with other organizations emphasized on the
utilization of processes and achievable targets at the company, rather than keeping a higher
expectation, especially when the foundation is getting rebuilt (Parida, et al., 2015). Realistic
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work objectives, measurable parameters on skill set, behavior, attitude and discipline became
pointers in demand for the new system.
In order to meet the concerns and questions raised by the employees at O’Meara, the human
resourcing department led the creation of various forums for effective process development and
to hear the opinion of its employees honestly (Taticchi, et al., 2015). The intention to hear from
the employees and communicate the right approaches effectively to management, for having a
standardized performance management system, combined with renumeration mechanism was to
be strategized and planned for the expansion to be taken.
Pitfalls in Existing Performance Management System at O’Meara
The existing performance management system at O’Meara was identified to be built on customer
expectations and had a lot of influence due to the external clientele. A performance management
system is ideally a mechanism to have inputs from client perspectives but is mainly intended to
build the constructive performance in a more productive dimension (Gerba, 2016). Therefore, it
became evident that the performance management system at O’Meara is not very effective and
the dissatisfaction amongst the employee for it is quite high. There were many pitfalls that were
identified in the process.
At the meeting, of executive staff members at the forum, the participants started the discussion
with highlighting the majorly observed pitfalls in the existing process (Van Camp, 2016). The
shortcomings started surfacing from different views at different departments inside the company.
- Th production manager, Harry, pointed out the unfair policies of renumeration, by not
considering the roles and responsibilities and first hand accountabilities in the
renumeration process. He highlighted the overburdened staff at one hand and eased out
stress free jobs of supervisor, due to no mechanism in management and monitoring of
performance at that level (Newcomer & Hatry, 2015).
- The research and development department highlighted the lack of clarity in individual
and organizational objectives that would act as directional paths for delivering better
performance and motivational factors in everyday jobs.
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- Apart from the pitfalls, the forum also identified that there were people who had ideas to
enhance the existing process effectiveness, but there was no method of communication to
discuss the idea. As part of overall performance improvement, improvement suggestions
from experienced employees was needed to attain better delivery (Peters, 2008).
With these shortcomings, the new process is desired to be incorporating the basic ideas behind
employee motivation factors that were highlighted in the discussion at the forum.
Suggested Upgrading systems
The upgradation of the performance management system is a key ask in today’s rapidly changing
business scenarios. There have been many modifications in performance management principles
and theories and for an organization, a sustainable performance measurement plan can be very
effective in overall attainment of the objectives.
For O’Meara, the expansion strategy being in pipeline, the focus at upscaling the performance
management plana nd renumeration mechanism is the first step to scale-up the company to meet
the expansion load and motivate employees for better and more productive output (Franco-
Santos & Lucianetti, 2012). The upgraded performance management plans these days, come up
with closely associated renumeration methods that are economically viable, helps in building
staff confidence over processes, and generates the healthy environment of fairness and
transparency for enhanced work delivery (Han & Kang, 2009).
For the existing system at O’Meara, keeping in mind the expansion plans and other required
modifications, the below are the suggested system promotion recommendations.
Different Rating Scales
The different rating scale is a technique of managing the performance at the functional units, by
considering the parameters that drive the workforce on ground rules. For example, the
productivity outcomes at the assembly line cannot be ranked and graded along with the executive
of accounts department (Gaiardelli & Saccani, 2007). Therefore, various rating scales, relative to
jobs and functional units, considering all organizational parameters can be designed and
collaborated for enhancing the process. This mechanism not only helps clarify the organizational
and individual objective set, but also brings clarity in actions (Hult, et al., 2008).
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360 Degree feedback
The mechanism of 360-degree feedback is a very effective performance evaluation technique.
The performance evaluation in this is performed at an overall level, including opinion and
comments from peers, subordinates, colleagues, supervisors, managers and clients as well. These
all side views enable the measurement of effective performance of an employee from all the
angles, thereby making the process fair and just (Jamil, 2011). This process also prompts the
employees to keep up on all performance objectives thereby making the transparency and
credibility of individual responses.
Key Performance Indicators of Factors in Self Appraisal
Many organizations follow an interim appraisal mechanism to keep a check on individual
process and to measure the effectiveness in employee performance at annual levels. This
mechanism is measured and evaluated under certain factor’s that indicate performance and are
called as key performance indicators (Kim, 2009). These parameters not only measure the
overall employee performance from productivity, attitude, behavioral and emotional quotient
perspectives. The performance measurement techniques can also be easily blended in by
renumeration mechanism.
Benefits of a Hybrid Approach in Performance Evaluation
The shortcoming of the existing performance measurement system was highlighted with the
input from various different staff feedbacks (Ferreira, 2009). The major highlighted observations
from the forum discussion brought forward the following pointers –
- Unequal and unjust policies towards performance measurement and renumeration
- Excessive load to selective employees and stress-free jobs only for supervisors or ranking
officers (Barlish, 2012)
- Ambiguity in performance measurement and objectives of individual performance and
organizational performance.
- Lack of communication platforms for raising concerns and highlighting modified or new
approaches in making the process effective (Franco-Santos & Lucianetti, 2012)
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In order to cope up with the identified weaknesses, and to meet the organizational expansion
goals, the suggested recommendation is to use any of the two mentioned appraisal and
performance management techniques in a hybrid combination (Widener, 2007). The mixture of
one or more mechanism would not only prevent the employees to find loop holes in those and
would impose internal restrictions as transparency would be attained by these processes.
For covering the major issues identified the recommendation for a 360-degree feedback and the
process of interim appraisal with key performance indicators, measuring the different objectives
that are customized according to various business function units can be used. As the existing
system is more focused and emphasizes on customer requirements, therefore it would be
advisable to continue the practice but in a limited manner and by also considering the necessities
of other factors too during performance management (Bititci, et al., 2015). For the other factors
of forums for complains and discussion with load balancing at employees, the recommendation
of using the performance indicator mechanism to manage the interim appraisal cycles can be
used to monitor the factors that play crucial role in employee productivity.
Having a hybrid mechanism in performance measurement and to plan the performance
management system closely with the renumeration mechanism is the vital element of upscaling
the processes. The implementation of 360-degree feedback can be done once a year, and the
interim cycle of performance measurement and evaluation can be twice a year to manage the
employee performance and to direct employees for better productivity.
Conclusion
With the requirement of binding enhanced processes for performance evaluation and to
reconduct a renumeration cycle according to the new requirements was aside by the company
president in one of the meetings. The directional goal of company’s forward movement is
expansion into European nations. The company policies had not been revised since very long and
the employees under outdated processes were not sure about the objectives as well (Hwang, et
al., 2017). Therefore, the human resourcing department takes the steps of creating forums for
staff and executive staff in order to listen to employees and to communicate the requirement of
change.
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The report presented above analyzes the existing performance measurement system and
highlights the shortcomings in the existing process from executive employees uncovering the
opinions. Most of the suggestions that were given were agreed upon all the employees in unison
and there was a necessity of new changes in the overall process. Once the outfalls were
identified, various performance measurement systems were analyzed to cover the requirements
and to manage the necessitated change requests raised in forums. With analysis from the
perspective of a human resourcing consultant, the directions of management by objectives was
shared with staff and appraisal and performance management mechanisms related to the
objectives were identified. Out of the many, differential rating scale and 360-degree feedback
mechanism was identified to be the fest fit. But later viewing at the requirements, the hybrid
mechanism of 360 degree and performance evaluation on key performance indicator became to
ebb a more sustainable approach that would cover the requirements of modification of
renumeration system as well. The report presented above is a summary of recommendations,
highlighted core factors and the necessitated changes suggested for upscaling the overall process.
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