MANAGING EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE

Managing Employee Performance

Managing Employee Performance

Introduction

Tesco need to manage the performance of its employees effectively, if it is to remain as the UK's leading retailer and maintain a competitive edge.  This means that there must be an effective management control exercised at both individual and organisational level.  A range of processes and techniques are placed within all Tesco stores and in the Tesco offices, which allow individual employees to know how well they are doing, and for managers to be able to monitor how well their subordinates are performing.   Performance monitoring provides information, which is of value for identifying future training or promotion opportunities, and areas where insufficient skills or knowledge could be deemed a threat to an employee's efficiency. Tesco's managers exercise control at an individual and organisational level through: 

Planning by setting objectives and targets.

Establishing performance standards.

Rectifying mistakes and taking action.

Monitoring actual performance.

Comparing performance against targets. Management by objectives

The process described above contributes to management by objectives, in which the performance of the individual and Tesco's is consistently being measured against objectives and targets, which have been agreed jointly by managers and employees. An objective relates to something, which is to be achieved by a team or an individual. Objectives should be determined through discussions between Tesco's managers and Tesco's employees.  This involves both a top-down and a bottom-up approach.  Thus meaning that managers must make the effort to consult all employees regardless of their statue within Tesco, and employees should consult managers if they feel that they would like to make any further input.  The manager presents corporate, individual objectives and team members before stating what they feel can be achieved. 

This process is more likely to be successful if the objectives meet the SMART criteria. They should be:

S - Smart

M - Measurable

A - Agreed

R - Reliable

T - Time-related

Monitoring Performance

 The monitoring process requires the measurement of performance and then linking these performance measurements against the achievement of objectives (and targets). Measurements may be made as indicators such as output, sales and profits over a specified period.  When comparing performance with targets, an account has to be taken of the general context in which a particular operation is taking place.  A Tesco's director who just falls short of his or her target profit figure may in reality have performed very well because, because Tesco may have been operating in the face of a major economic downturn.  The monitoring of quality standards is very often performed against set criteria defining different levels of quality standards.  These criteria are used to form the basis of a customer opinion survey, which could be undertaken by sending a questionnaire to a cross section of Tesco customers or through a telephone survey.

Tesco may also find it helpful to make behavioural assessments, which measure an employee's approach and attitude towards his or her job. Essentially, this focuses on the process of the job, on what an individual actually does.

Employee motivation

Motivation describes the extent to which an individual makes an effort to do something. Tesco's are likely to improve performance in terms of customer care, attendance rates, cooperation ...