Sample BMP4006 People and Performance Assignment

BMP4006 People and Performance Assignment Sample

Assessment Brief:

Using the following case study – write a 2000-word report to answer the questions concerning the case study

Case Study: BUNI Travel

Crystal Travel is a local Travel agent based in London; it has a relatively small workforce which has been working with a traditional Personnel department. The senior management have identified the need to improve organisational performance for the company to expand and have recently discovered the difference Human Resource Management tools and techniques can make. They have employed a new Human Resources Manager and given them the opportunity to re shape the People function of the business concentrating on improving staff performance and motivation.

In your role as the new Human Resources manager; the senior management at Crystal Travel have asked for a report focusing on the following issues including possible external factors that could impact the organisations future progress:

1. What tools and techniques will help improve organisational performance?
2. The role of employee wellbeing in improving motivation and performance
3. Include a PESTLE analysis for the organisation as an appendix for your report

Solution

Introduction

Organizations need to manage their people and workforce effectively for enhancing their performance. In this regard, progressive human resource practices have a significant influence on employee performance, which further improves the overall organizational performance. These practices mainly include job redesign, extensive employee training and development, employee empowerment and participation, performance-based incentive systems, team-based production systems and others (Whittington, et al., 2017). Such HRM practices have been identified to improve the performance of the organizations. This is because these strategies help in enhancing employee skills and motivate them to put in extra effort and work hard in achieving the desired objectives. The purpose of the report for assignment help is to understand how external factors can influence the future progress of Crystal Travel. Crystal Travel is a London-based local travel agent aiming to expand and improve its performance. In this regard, various tools and techniques have been identified for improving the organizational performance. The report has also explored the role of employee wellbeing in enhancing motivation and individual or group performance of the employees, which consequently impacts the organizational performance. For this purpose, PESTEL analysis of Crystal Travel has also been provided in the Appendix section to recognize other external factors affecting its performance.

What tools and techniques will help improve organizational performance?

Crystal Travel can undertake various HRM tools, techniques and practices for improving organizational performance by enhancing individual and group performance of the employees. Human resource (HR) practices are essential for the growth and development of organizations. These practices generally include staff recruitment, selection methods, performance improvement, exchange system, market-oriented training, planned strategic needs and social security appraisals (Sattar, Ahmad and Hassan, 2015). Along with these HR practices, there are other external factors that help in enhancing employee engagement, thereby improving their job satisfaction and performance. This is because such engagement shows workers’ connection and effort towards performing the organizational work. As pointed out by Nor (2018), organizational performance depends largely on the performance of individual employees and teams. This makes it essential for Crystal Travel to understand the factors of human resource management that can help in contributing towards improved performance. In this regard, some of the recognized HRM practices that can be enhanced in the travel agency are recruitment and selection of talented employees, proper career planning and development, training programs, compensation packages, rewards and recognition, performance appraisal, work-life balance and employees’ participation in organizational decision-making (Nor, 2018). Thus, focusing on these HRM practices can be beneficial for the travel company in enhancing its organizational performance with improved workforce.

Furthermore, effective leadership strategies, perceived organizational support and harmonious work environment have positive effects on employee performance (Al Banin, Eliyana and Latifiyah, 2020). Crystal Travel can focus on leadership for achieving organizational goals with the help of proper employee performance. Here, an appropriate and proper work environment is also beneficial for making employees feel comfortable at work. Besides, perceived organizational support displays appreciation of the organization about employee contribution and further shows concern and care for them (Al Banin, Eliyana and Latifiyah, 2020). Thus, these are other effective strategies for ensuring improved organizational performance through enhancing employee performance. Effective HR practices come in various forms, such as, skill-enhancing practices, motivation-enhancing practices and opportunity enhancing practices (Gabriel, et al., 2016). Skill-enhancing practices include recruitment, training and selection for enabling employees in developing knowledge, abilities and skills. Motivation-enhancing practices include compensation, performance management and incentives that help employees to perform better in their job (Gabriel, et al., 2016). Opportunity-enhancing practices include employee involvement and job design that empower employees in achieving high performance in the organization. In this regard, it has been observed that these effective HRM practices provide socio-emotional and economic benefits to the employees, which encourage them to display positive attitudes, behaviours and improved performance in the organization. They also help in improving employee wellbeing, higher trust in management, enhanced organizational commitment, employee engagement, citizenship behaviour and positive work-related outcomes (Lee, et al., 2019). Thus, these positive effects further help in improving overall organizational performance.

Crystal Travel can undertake performance management as a HR device for maintaining harmony and instilling organizational progress. This practice focuses on better managing of employee performance, which consequently improves overall organizational performance and effectiveness (Nazir and Islam, 2017). Here, employee engagement is also enhanced, where employees display productive behaviours. These positive behaviours further increase synergistic team efforts that help in achieving the organizational goals. They also result in better employee performance (Nazir and Islam, 2017). Thus, highly engaged employees become emotionally and cognitively connected with their efforts alongside pursuing role-related objectives. Training and development programs are effective HRM practices that help in enhancing on-job employee performance, thereby improving organizational performance (Misra and Mohanty, 2021). These programs help in enhancing capability, skills and core competencies of the workers, which further enable them to fulfil corporate goals. Training and development also help in covering various performance issues of the employees by reducing performance gap. This gap between organizational standard and actual performance minimizes with effective training intervention, thus, improving the employee performance (Misra and Mohanty, 2021). Thus, Crystal Travel can conduct effective training programs that will enable employees in efficiently achieving organizational objectives, thereby leading to improved organizational performance.

The travel company can also undertake various performance-enhancing compensation practices for increasing employee performance. These mainly include individual pay-for-performance plans, effective performance appraisals and employee monitoring (Samnani and Singh, 2014). Performance-enhancing compensation practices are implemented for generating higher performance levels of the employees by enhancing expectations about their performance. These practices are also beneficial for increasing employee accountability and motivation in their performance (Samnani and Singh, 2014). With this, employee productivity increases, which consequently enhances organizational performance. Besides, incentives are also considered as important tools for encouraging workers in putting extra efforts and working efficiently for achieving organizational goals (Alfandi and Alkahsawneh, 2014). This is because a proper reward system and incentives enhance workers capabilities, thereby enabling them to work effectively. It is essential for travel and tourism companies like Crystal Travel in providing incentives for motivating the employees. These incentives are expected to become a significant factor in encouraging employees, enhancing their enthusiasm and generate improved performance of the employees through their increased productivity (Alfandi and Alkahsawneh, 2014). They can also help in enhancing employee job satisfaction, thereby motivating them to achieve organizational goals. Here, rewards help in enhancing extrinsic motivation of the employees in performing the work activities (Malik, Butt and Choi, 2015). These include both financial and non-financial incentives being provided to the employees. Financial incentives are bonuses and pay while non-financial incentives include recognition, better career prospects, appreciation and future promotion opportunities (Malik, Butt and Choi, 2015). These extrinsic rewards are helpful for enhancing creativity and employee performance through self-efficacy of the employees. Thus, Crystal Travel can use this tool for enhancing organizational performance through improved employee performance. Moreover, Crystal Travel can use advanced technologies in HRM for checking and evaluating employees’ outputs or performance. Leveraging of emerging technologies can enable the HRM department in driving both productivity and management of workforce. This technology needs to be combined with various other resources for achieving organizational objectives through increased productivity or improved performance of the employees. Thus, use of technology in human resource is another technique that the travel company can consider for enhancing its performance.

The role of employee wellbeing in improving motivation and performance

Employee performance is considered as a significant factor for any organization. This employee efficiency and performance have become a major concern for managers and employers in the recent years. This is because excellent employee performance helps in contributing positively towards overall organizational performance with respect to growth and productivity (Yan, et al., 2020). Here, organizational success is based on the job performance level of the employees. This makes it essential for Crystal Travel to ensure employee wellbeing and motivation in the organization to ensure improved performance. Employee wellbeing consists of individual valued experience of the employees where they become more efficacious in their organizational work and activities (Huang, et al., 2016). It has now been closely associated with positive emotion, job satisfaction, quality of work-life and life satisfaction. It also indicates the overall quality of employees’ experiences and functioning in the organization including both life satisfaction and positive effects influencing their individual performance (Huang, et al., 2016). Crystal Travel needs to focus on enhancing employee wellbeing as it has been observed that happier and healthier employees are more efficient in performing their jobs and increasing their efforts, productivity and contributions in the organization.

Furthermore, Crystal Travel should focus on employee wellbeing for improving the overall quality of both employee experience and functioning at work that helps in achieving organizational objectives. This effective functioning can take place when employees experience satisfaction and positive situation in the workplace (Johari, et al., 2018). This will help in boosting their level of wellbeing, thereby resulting in excellent job performance. Crystal Travel can enhance employee wellbeing through external and internal attributes (Johari, et al., 2018). The external attributes involve physical security, money and valued social position and the internal attributes include contact with others, personal control and opportunities of using skill. In this regard, there are other workplace resources that the travel company can offer to its employees for resulting in their higher wellbeing (Nielsen, et al., 2017). Resources through intrinsic motivation fulfil basic needs of the employees including autonomy, relatedness and competence. On the other hand, extrinsic motivation is provided through resources help in achieving work goals and displaying better performance. These include instrumental support from leaders and colleagues enhancing employees’ individual capacity and resulting in their greater job satisfaction and performance (Nielsen, et al., 2017). Thus, Crystal Travel can provide these workplace resources for motivating employees and ensuring their wellbeing, thereby improving performance.

Besides, Crystal Travel can undertake employee engagement policies in the organization. These are helpful in making employees understand that the company cares for their issues and concerns related to personal welfare and congenial workplace environment (Saxena and Srivastava, 2015). This further enhances mental and physical wellbeing of the employees, thereby making them more loyal and committed to the organization. It is an emotional relationship between the organization and employees that improves retention and enhances overall organizational performance through increased profitability and productivity (Saxena and Srivastava, 2015). This shows that improved employee engagement helps in inducing loyalty amongst the employees, thereby enhancing their performance in the organization. Moreover, Crystal Travel can focus on using organizational justice as a means of enhancing employee wellbeing in the organization (Huong, Zheng and Fujimoto, 2016). Organizational justice ensures fairness in treatment of all employees in the workplace that consequently plays a significant role in employee health and mental wellbeing. This is because employees then perceive fairness and justice existing in the workplace environment, organizational processes, decision-making and other operational procedures (Huong, Zheng and Fujimoto, 2016). Organizational justice leads to positive job outcomes, increased job satisfaction and job autonomy of the employees. Thus, this helps in enhancing their performance, thereby improving organizational productivity.

Conclusion

The purpose of the report was to understand how various external factors can influence the future progress of Crystal Travel. In this regard, the main aim of the organization is to expand its operations and improve its performance by focusing on improving the human resources. Here, the report pointed out the importance of managing human resources with effective strategies and practices to ensure improved individual and team performance as they result in better organizational performance. Various tools and techniques related to HRM were pointed out in the report that can help in improving organizational performance with the help of enhancing employee performance. These include training and development, rewards and incentives, technology use, leadership and organizational support, skill-enhancing, motivation-enhancing and opportunity-enhancing practices, performance management, performance-enhancing compensation practices and financial and non-financial incentives. These are various HRM practices that help in enhancing employee performance by providing them with different opportunities and developing required skills and knowledge. Furthermore, the report also pointed out how Crystal Travel can use employee wellbeing as a means for improving motivation and employee performance. Here, external and internal attributes, workplace resources, employee engagement policies and organizational justice were recognized as important tools or techniques for enhancing motivation and performance.
 

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