Career Development Plan free essay sample

Introduction This HR Management assignment is on career development of a particular team in a company. We are considering here the company Kudler Fine Foods, Inc. which provides its clients a range of meat and seafood products. This assignment is a written proposal to be delivered to upper management concerning the restructuring design and implementation. The assignment will be based on the Supply Chain Department which provides the organization with procurement support and handling of supply chain activities. Job Descriptions and Qualifications There are five new positions in the department as a result of the restructuring of the department similar to the international level. The descriptions of the new positions and qualifications for jobs for these positions are as follows:-Crew Leader: Responsible for the daily management of the team members and workers providing consultancy and procurement support. The crew leader will supervise the performance and the work of the workers under him and will be responsible for motivating and interacting with the employees when any issue arises. The qualifications should include at least Masters of Business Administration degree and MIS/IT background will be preferred. The applicant should have a work experience of minimum 4 years in a similar, well reputed organization. -Senior Officer: Responsible for providing consultancy and solutions for the high level issues or problems that are faced by the management and the teams which are not able to solve them. The senior Officer will also be responsible to provide any help or training that the juniors require. Minimum of 12 years of experience in the SCM consultancy industry is required and minimum degree should be MS and PhD will be preferred. Executive Director: Responsible for executing the direct instructions of the director of the department and for planning out the strategic direction set by the director. Currently, other employees execute the orders of the director. Executive director will be the acting director whenever the director is out of town. Masters degree in a relevant field will be preferred and minimum of 2 years of experience of working directly under a director. -SAP SCM Junior Consultant: Responsible for providing consultancy on SAP specific applications to the users of SAP in the organization. Minimum of bachelors level degree in MIS and a certification from SAP for the SCM applications. No prior work experience required. -Networking Personnel: Responsible for the handling of IT related problems and issues at all the SCM department sites. Minimum of bachelors level degree in Computer Science and should be knowledgeable in the subject of networking. No prior work experience required. Training Program After a training program, the employee should be employee development which includes acquisition of new skills and abilities in the area of expertise (Yellin, 1992). The second advantage of training to the employee is the opening of new career opportunities (Yellin, 1992). It is recommended that the training program for the consultants should be outsourced to SkillSoft PLC which is a leading SaaS provider (SkillSoft, 2009) of e-Learning solutions for global enterprises. The company offers a variety of online courses which can be completed by the employees by their convenience. Supply Chain Online, LLC is another company which we need to partner with for online courses of supply chain management training, education and a personalized certificate of completion which is provided to both the individuals and corporations. The course that every consultant needs to do is the Fundamentals of Supply Chain Management, provided that he has not taken the course previously. The main contents of the course are Efficiency and Cost Savings, Responsiveness, Internet Technologies, Performance Measures and Product and Process Design for Supply Chain Management. Methods of Evaluating Employee and Team Performance There are many methods of evaluating the performance of an employee or team and these methods are used for the development of employees and for performance based pays.-Manager’s Evaluation: This is the traditional performance evaluation (Guido, 2004) conducted by the employee’s immediate manager. In this performance appraisal method, the manager rates an employee or team on a variety of attributes. This is the most easy appraisal system as any employee can be rated on the same scale and the same form (Guido, 2004).-360-Degree Feedback: In this system of employee or team evaluation, managers, subordinates and coworkers rate the employee or team on an extensive list of attributes. This is a better method of employee appraisal as the feedback is coming from many sides and not only the manager.-Progressive Discipline Process: The purpose of this system is to help the employees the performance problem or the opportunity of improvement that exists in him. The employee can be evaluated by daily supervision and orientations to see if the employee is improving or not. The employee should be counseled about performance and discover the employee’s understandings.-Team Level Performance Appraisal: This system indicates whether or not the team runs effective meetings, works well as a group and comes to consensus on a judgment (Management, 1998). The cycle time for the group’s work process and the customer’s satisfaction rate associated with the product of the team (Management, 1998) are the measures that are used as the key performance indicators. Challenges of Team Performance Evaluation The 360-degree feedback system is used by 25% to 65% of the organization (William Mercer Survey) and includes subordinates, peers, superiors and the person himself. The manager evaluation is performed only by the manager and is inherently subjective. In the 360-degree method, the information is coming from multiple sources and hence reduces the business in response (Aamodt, 2003) and if the multiple sources have the same coherent information, it means that it is reliable (Aamodt, 2003).The evaluation done solely by the manager has a high probability of business factor involved and is less reliable. Internal group processes can be used   to appraise the team and the performance measure indicates the performance of the whole team and not the individuals. The difficulties faced in evaluating team performance are that the individual performances of the team members cannot be judged explicitly. It is not always very easy to decide which result of the team should be measured to evaluate the team. The measurement task is doubled as only the team performance is not enough to judge the performance, therefore, the performance of the team members should also be measured so that there are no conflicts in the team.A unique need of a team appraisal is the appraisal of interpersonal relationships since these are the fundamental part of the work team. Through the evaluation of team performance, the management can find out if an individual is capable of working in a team environment. Another unique need of the team appraisal is the appraisal of the consensus among the team members. A superior team leader is a catalyst for motivation of the team members, but motivation cannot be sustained indefinitely. Therefore the tenure for the team work should not be so much that the even a captivating leadership is also not able to keep the team members high. The individuals in the team expect themselves and the team to grow, moving forward and performing a much productive task.Having no stake in the result of the team’s efforts or having no sense of ownership for a piece of work in the team can be a downturn for motivation of individuals. Disliking for someone in the team, or inheriting a huge challenge to be accomplished by the team or a very easy task can also add up to the demotivation of the team members. Individual equity has an enormous impact on the team performance; fair treatment of the individuals causes them to be motivated and to maintain equality in their relationships with their   team mates.If the outcomes that an employee receives are equitable to the inputs that he put into the work, then his future performance in the team will improve. One strategy to avoid social loafing is to confront the relaxing team member immediately, punishing him or giving a warning. Once the team members know their roles and their ass igned tasks properly, then also social loafing will be reduced as a result of individual reporting. Performance based wages might also help in curbing the factor of social loafing in the teams. Incentive and Benefit Packages A combination of incentives and benefits can be a great motivating factor for an employee to improve his performance. The department should give a car to each senior officers who manage the workers and teams. The department should cover the health insurance of the entire staff other than clerks and juniors. These motivating benefits can add multiply the performance of the employees and in turn increase the company’s ROI and customer’s satisfaction.Career DevelopmentThe employees should be managed at a regular basis whenever there is a proof of superior performance from the employee. Promotion of outstanding employees will make the others feel motivated and other will also try to come to the level of the promoted employee; this will enhance the aggregate performance of the department. Workers are company’s assets and their knowledge about the suppliers is of the major use in the satisfaction of customers. The knowledge and the educational level of the workers should keep rising for the betterment of the organization and the department. Therefore the company should finance the education of the employees who are willing to engage in educational opportunities while working, for example evening MBA course.Compensation PlanThe compensation plan should be fair to all, the employees doing overtime should be paid increased overtime rates and the employees having outstanding performance throughout the month should be paid bonuses. The basic salary should be performance based; the employees who have not consumed their allowed number of absences should also be paid bonuses. All these are incentives for the employees to perform better and when the performance of the individual employees increases, the performance of the organization on an aggregate level gets boosted. Bibliography Aamodt, M. (2003). Applied Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Portland: Thompson/Wadsworth Publishers.Anonymous. (2009, May 13). SkillSoft Announces Perspectives 2009 Award Winners. Business Wire . Cascio, W. (2005). Managing Human Resources: Productivity, Quality of Work Life, Profits. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.J., G. M. (2004). Evaluating Employee Performance (Part 1). Gallup Management Journal .Management, U. S. (1998). Performance Appraisal for Teams: An Overview. Perforamnce Management Practitioner Series . United States.Yellin, A. (1992, Spring). Training and Development: Employee Responsibilities, Expectations, and Benefits. Public Manager , pp. 52-54.