Performance and Reward Management

SECTION 1

This section contains 5 essay style questions. You are required to answer any THREE questions.

1. Smart Solutions are a rising star in the on?line gaming industry. The company started in the spare room of Sally and Georges‘ house and has grown rapidly. Smart solutions currently employ about 100 people. Sally and George took the view that they would pay whatever it took to get the right people for the organisation. They prohibit employees from talking about their pay with colleagues. Lately however, there have been some complaints about the pay at Smart Solutions. A common theme in these complaints is that the pay is not fair. George thinks there is nothing to worry about – employees always complain about their pay. Sally is worried that they could lose good employees if the reward system is not fair. Outline the steps you would take to determine is Sally’s concerns about losing good employees are justified.
2. You have just been promoted to manager at The Girden Company. As a manager, you have responsibility for appraising the performance of your subordinates. However, this is the first time that you have had to set up performance goals for subordinates, so you decide to talk with someone from the HR department. The head of HR encourages you to use the job descriptions to establish performance goals for each of your subordinates. Your colleague tells you to come up with one list of performance goals and give them to all your subordinates. “Goal setting it pointless” says your colleague. “At the end of the performance cycle when you need to rate performance you know who good performers are and who are not. The goals are irrelevant”. What do you decide to do?
3. Your employer, Dynamic Beauty, operate a chain of health spas. Currently the employees get base pay plus merit pay. The CEO has noticed that employees are not co? operating in the salons. She overhead one employee refusing to help another employee in a spa: “if I help you all that is going to happen is that you will get a pay rise! I need to get my own work done.” The CEO believes that this problem can be solved by introducing an employee share plan. She believes that by combining an employee share plan with merit pay, employees will work well together, and the performance of the organisation will improve. You have been asked to evaluate the merit pay plus employee share plan proposal. You talk to a few employees about having company shares but most are not sure what a share is. Do you support the CEO’s proposal? Why or why not?
4. Fraser Manning is the manager of client services at the Walton Hotel. He manages a team of 25 employees. He has held this position for 6 years and has been with the Walton Hotel for 10 years. Frasier’s client services team provide support to the guests of the Hotel, including front desk, information technology, the WIFI and room service. Each year Walton Hotel provides an opportunity for staff to provide feedback on the performance of their manager. As you review the scores and comments on the survey, it becomes clear that there are a lot of complaints about Fraser and the way he manages his staff. You meet with Fraser and provide him with a summary of the feedback. Fraser dismisses the feedback: “not worth the paper its written on. There are a few people on my team who just like to complain. I am going to keep managing as I always have”. How will you manage Frasers’ underperformance?
5. You are the Principal of Lufton Hall, a private school for boys and girls 5 to 12 years of age. You are worried about the declining levels of morale among teachers. At a local professional association meeting, you meet a HR consultant who said that “management needs to show employees that their accomplishments are appreciated. Recognition can be a powerful tool when used strategically.” A recognition system appeals to you as it seems like the costs are low, but the potential benefits are high. You talk with a few of the junior teachers about introducing a recognition system. The most common response is that “we need money, not tickets to movies”. Will you go ahead with the introduction of a recognition system? Why or why not?

SECTION 2

This section contains 6 essay style questions. You are required to answer 4 questions. All questions carry the same points.

1. Amy McAlister left her job as a divisional manager of a large PR and Marketing Agency to start her own boutique PR company. Part of her rationale for leaving was that she was fed up with the way the company managed performance and rewarded its staff. She felt that rewards were distributed unfairly and that the performance management process favoured certain types of employees over others. In her experience, the employees who received the highest ratings were not necessarily the best performers. Amy has sought your advice on how she can make performance and reward management fair and equitable in her new company. What advice do you have for Amy?
2. You sit at your desk and wonder how to respond to the latest idea from the CEO – scrap the mentoring program. The CEO thinks it is just an excuse for people to stop working and have coffee! She said that leaders in the company are spending too much time mentoring and not enough time doing their job. If employees need help or career advice, can’t they just talk to their supervisor? The CEO has asked you, as the Head of Human Resources, to reflect on this and come back to her with a proposal to a) keep the mentoring program or b) scrap it to focus on other development initiatives that could have more impact on performance. Please write a response to the CEO covering these two options.
3. Daniel Fraser started at Peaceful Valley aged?care facility 2 years ago as part of the resident medical team. Daniel’s role is to ensure all residents get the medical support they need by allocating medical practitioners to residents based on the urgency of their medical needs. Every 3 months Daniel’s colleagues, residents and family members have an opportunity to provide feedback on the staff to the management of Peaceful Valley. As you go through the current results you notice that there are a large number of complaints about Daniel. Some of the complainants even suggest that Daniel should be fired. You need to investigate the issue further before making any decisions. Explain the steps you will take and the information you will collect before making a decision about Daniel’s employment with Peaceful Valley.
4. Florence Summers is in your office complaining about the company recognition system. Under the recognition system each employee is able to nominate a colleague as a good performer. She says that it is not her job to identify and reward her colleagues – that is the job of her supervisor…which is you! Florence is also angry about the value of the recognition awards – movie tickets. She saysthat it is insulting given the long hours people have to work to get their jobs done. Do you think the organisation should scrap its recognition system in light of the comments made by Florence? Why or why not?
5. You have been approached by the head of the reward management unit at the Axis Bank for some advice. Axis bank was one of the first to establish individual performance pay for employees back in the 1980s. However, recently there has been an increase in customer complaints about bank staff selling financial products without taking into account the personal circumstances of the customer. The head of reward management is contemplating adding in a team?based performance pay system to rectify the undue focus on individual performance targets. Under the proposal, 50% of an employee’s performance pay would be based on their individual performance and the other 50% would be based on the individual's contribution to building a positive team culture and the overall performance of the team. Provide some advice to the Head of the reward management unit about the likely consequences of the proposal
6. ABM is a small firm that provides IT consulting advice to clients in Melbourne. One of your employees is claiming they he is underpaid and threatening to leave if he does not get a pay rise. He bases his assessment of his pay on a comparison with a friend who worksin Sydney for a large multinational organisation. In fact, ABM regularly uses data from the labour market to ensure that it pays the same as its labour market competitors. It does not want to lead or lag the market – merely pay the same as it competitors. Explain to this disgruntled employee what it means to do a market survey and why the company thinks that matching the labour market is appropriate for ABM.