Personality and Customer Service in Retail - Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss about the Personality and Customer Service in Retail. Answer: INTRODUCTION Performance management process is the method by which the permanent and the contractual employees are monitored and their performance is evaluated and assessed (Brunnert et al., 2014). In the process, the overall performance of the organization as a whole and its different departments can be analyzed and assessed as well. In the following essay, a comprehensive performance management plan would be developed and the implementation process discussed for the simulated business Australian hardware. The company in its simulated version has 138 hardware stores across Australia and employs about 10000 staff. The company supplies high quality home furniture, hardware and building materials. DISCUSSION REVIEW OF THE BUSINESS INFORMATION PROVIDED The mission statement states that the company provides best standard hardware, garden articles, home wares and building material in the country, and the company is committed to provide consumers low priced quality goods and expert service. The companys vision is to become the largest hardware retailer in Australia. Therefore, there needs to be a comprehensive and effective human resource process to utilize the full potential of each individual employee. The target market of the company has been divided into home wares, do-it-yourself articles, and trade-persons. To achieve the vision statement the strategies adopted are to increase sales and market share, cost-cutting, maintaining and increasing quality of products and services. The organizational chart of the company is as follows. Figure 1: Organizational Chart of Australian Hardware Source: (Australian hardware, 2018) Market researches done by the company and other sources indicated that there are huge possibilities of growth in the Australian hardware market (Miller, 2016). The objective of the company is not to compete on the price and capture customer base of competitors. This company differentiates itself from the competitors by innovating its products and the products that perfectly fit the consumers demand (Australian hardware, 2018). Based on the present company mission and vision statements, structure, and strategy, some important objectives in performance management can be identified. PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT OBJECTIVES Performance management objectives Developing a more efficient KPI indicator A more dedicated and accurate performance appraisal system Increase efficiency and motivation of the employees Training the employees to be different from employees of the competitors Key Performance indicator (KPI) is a tool through which the performance quality of individual employees can be tracked. There are various models of KPI (Parmenter, 2015). Development of a better and accurate key performance indicator will automatically make the second objective of a better appraisal system easier. The third objective, which is set, is to increase the efficiency of the employees which would cast a positive impact on the overall revenue of the organization. One of the main methods of increasing motivation of the employees is by motivating them in financial and non-financial ways. A motivated employee always works more than a de-motivated or less motivated employee (Lazaroiu, 2015). The second objective, which has been decided, is to train the employees in a way that would set them apart. One of the strategies devised by the company in its business policy is to keep the company differentiated in its market segment. PROCESS DESIGN Key performance indicator is very necessary to assess and evaluate the employees accurately. The first requirement for implementing a KPI is to identifying and defining the areas of business process, which needs to be assessed and improved. There may be separate sections of KPI including financial performance, employee dedication, customer satisfaction, overall growth of business and similar fields. In the case of Australian hardware, the primary objective is to increase revenue through customer satisfaction. Therefore, the process can start with employee motivation, which will make the employees more efficient in their service, this will increase the service quality, and ultimately increase customer satisfaction (Jahanshani, 2014). Hence, the KPI process may ideally start with motivation level of the ground level employees and their efficiency. This may be measured through a digital system, which tracks the daily hours of work of an employee, successful transactions made by the empl oyee and customer review about the employee. This part of the KPI process will cover the base of the organizational structure comprising of sales consultants and sales assistants. The next stage of the organizational chart consists of timber managers, plumbing and electrical managers, hardware and home products manager, garden products managers and general managers of operation for each store. They can be brought under the KPI system through effective monitoring of the tasks allocated to them individually. It is visible how technical works are dedicatedly divided to each person having that particular expertise. Key performance indicator of each of them will monitor and assess how efficiently they can achieve their targets in their specific expertise, which will benefit the company as a whole. The middle managers monitor the lower managers (Bandiera, 2015). The store managers who are above the above-mentioned employees and managers can be assessed by the performance of the store as a whole and how it is growing its revenues with time. This performance management process mentioned above will efficiently track the performance of all the employees at all levels and give a clear indication of the achievements, growth and weaknesses of the company. When the above-mentioned Key Performance Indicator process is put to work the system of accurate employee appraisal will automatically be in place. Clear data about the performance of each employee will make it easy for the HR managers to appraise them. Apart from that the weaknesses and problems among the employees will also be identified which can be solved through training and motivation. CONSULTATION WITH MANAGERS Consultation about the whole process with the Chief Operating Officer or COO is very important because he is responsible for the operations of the whole business, and implementation of the policies on ground level. There was a detailed meeting about the objectives set and processes designed in order to maintain a balance between the human resource processes and the operations. The chief operating officer expressed his concerns that developing the key performance indicator may hamper the daily operations and customer service if the process is too long. The KPI should be blended with the daily operations in a way that it does not pose a hurdle. Increased efficiency and motivation from the employees can be achieved by setting more achievable targets, and a friendly work environment, this was conveyed to the COO so that it is one of the priorities of the operational managers on the ground level is to motivate the employees regularly. In the meeting it was discussed that, to develop a mor e efficient performance appraisal system there must be a close co-ordination between the operations and the human resource department, because the feedback of the work and performance of employees will be given by the operations to the HR. Therefore, the managers under operations department who are supervising the employees need to provide regular feedback. The next meeting was held with the Chief Financial Manager, or CFO, who is responsible for the releasing of fund for new processes and mechanism. The KIP needs new software development and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning); it needs to be done by a professional web consultant and programmer. In the meeting held with the CFO it was discussed what amount of fund is needed to be allocated for the ERP design. Apart from that, the new appraisal system includes rewards and recognitions to employees who are successful in achieving targets. The rewards include monetary incentives. The amount of incentives has to be as per the performance quality of the employee. It was decided that the better customer satisfaction an employee could achieve, the more incentives would that employee earn. Customer satisfaction is more important than number of sales achieved by an employee, because satisfied customers are returning customers. The last objective of training the employees needs a better training system and new executives in the human resource department who would conduct the trainings. The financial department granted all these expenses and the meeting turned to be very useful. IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS The process design of developing performance management has been discussed above. Now the implementation of the discussed objectives and processes has to be defined. The following chart will elaborate the implementation of the required processes. Action Resources Strategy/tactics Timelines Developing a better KPI system Digitised monitoring of employee performance through biometric records, electronic surveillance through CCTV, and recorded daily performance/achievement through ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) Through the biometric records the timeliness of the employees and whether they are working at their respective places or not can be understood. Electronic surveillance system like cctv or webcams will detect the behaviour of the employees towards the customers can be comprehended. The daily achievements of the employees in a recorded profile can give the managers a clear view of the total performance of the employee throughout a selected timeframe. Biometrics and CCTV cameras are already in place. Better surveillance through CCTV will be started in next 1 month. The ERP has to be programmed and will be ready in 6 months. Accurate performance appraisal system Softwares and tools for analysing the recorded data from the KPI. A separate tab for employee appraisal in the ERP would be programmed to perform the function. The recorded data of employee performance in the KPI has to be analysed scientifically and categorically which will be used systematically by the managers to appraise the employees. 6 months. When the ERP is completed. Increased motivation of the employees Monitory incentives. Emotional back up. Rewards and recognitions. The employees performing well will be monetarily incentivised. Achieving a sell above the target will bring in additional incentives to the employees. Employees getting higher customer reviews will get rewards and benefits. 1 month time frame for implementation. REFLECTION As the HR manager of a large company like Australian Hardware I had to be careful that no one among the 10000 employees are left out from the performance management system. This organization depends on customer service, which increases customer satisfaction (Hurley, 2015), hence the process developed by me that includes recording of efficiency of the employees and their behavior towards the customer, is important for the growth of the employee. The application possibilities of the planning is realistic and programming a elaborate ERP and having a efficacious surveillance system would suffice. All the employees would be given equal and fair chance to grow and grievance cell would be in place to take care of any act of discrimination. The complaints will be duly considered and solved in time. I have learnt considerably in the process of formulating the performance management process that has cleared my vision about HR functions. OUTLINES OF THE MAIN FEATURES OF THE PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT PROCESS Regular monitoring of performance- The store managers would be closely monitoring the performance of the employees under him. The process adds the responsibility of monitoring in the job role of the store managers. Identification of performance gaps- The store managers in their monitoring would identify performance gaps with the help of smart monitoring and software tools. Daily sales and customer satisfaction would be entered in the software under the employee names and would be evaluated. Providing feedback- The software would integrate system, which will enable the managers to provide instant feedback to the HR department that would keep the proper appraisal system in place. Managing talent- Talent management and retention is one of the main objectives of the appraisal system. Therefore recognizing the talented employees and keeping them satisfied and motivated is included in the new system of performance management. FOCUSING ON ONE OF THE FOUR ABOVE ASPECTS Regular Monitoring of Performance- Examples of regular monitoring of employee performance includes the store manager keeping a close eye on the performance of the employees posted at the store and making sure that the customers are dealt with in a careful and attentive manner. Tools of the performance monitoring include software that keep a record on the daily sales achieved by an employee, number of customers who gave great feedback to that employee, and number of satisfied customers returning fully satisfied after dealing with a employee. The storage of the track records of the employees performance will be done completely virtually on the central database of the company located in the main server placed in the head office of the organization. The company storage policy states that there will be complete security and privacy of the employee database and the feedback per employee will be categorized in the same way. Only the HR managers and the authority who are responsible for evaluating the performance appraisal system would be getting access to the data. The new job role provided to the store managers will include the responsibility of monitoring and feedback. The time needed for this will be provided by freeing them of some clerical responsibilities like keeping attendance and managing facilities. Conclusion Australian Hardware as described in the business simulation is one of the most successful home ware and hardware furniture company in Australia. It is very necessary for such a large-scale company to have a proper KPI system in place and a well-defined HR process. The above discussed performance management system will help the company to perform better. References: Australian hardware. (2018). About Us. Retrieved 4 January 2018, from https://australianhardware.simulations.learn.com.au/about-us.html Bandiera, O., Guiso, L., Prat, A., Sadun, R. (2015). Matching firms, managers, and incentives.Journal of Labor Economics,33(3), 623-681. Brunnert, A., Vgele, C., Danciu, A., Pfaff, M., Mayer, M., Krcmar, H. (2014). Performance management work.Business Information Systems Engineering,6(3), 177-179. Hurley, R. F. (2015). Personality and Customer Service in Retail. InProceedings of the 1996 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference(pp. 58-63). Springer, Cham. Jahanshani, A. A., Hajizadeh, G. M. A., Mirdhamadi, S. A., Nawaser, K., Khaksar, S. M. S. (2014). 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