Managers within an organisation achieve results through other people. Recognition of the needs and wants of staff and the nature of their grievances is a positive step to motivate them to perform effectively. These can be achieved through good Human Resource Management (HRM) practices. The term (HRM) refers to the “design and application of formal systems in an organisation to ensure the effective and efficient use of human talent to accomplish organisational goals.
This includes activities undertaken to attract, develop, and maintain an effective workforce. ” (Source: “Management” by Richard L. Daft, 6th Edition). Employees are arguably the most important resource of an organisation since they possess capabilities that make the organisation achieve its objectives. Thus employees drive organisational performance, and the way they are managed has significant bearing on the achievement of organisational goals and objectives. “Our strength is the quality of our people; our people are most important resource”.
These are often repeated statements by executives of the bank, emphasising the importance of human resource to them even though they show up as liability on a company’s profit and loss statement by way of compensation. (Source: “Management” by Richard L. Daft, 6th Edition). Attracting an Effective Workforce C;A Merchant Bank’s HRM strategy has been designed to attract and retain highly qualified people, satisfy their needs, and enhance the utilisation of their knowledge and skills in fulfilment of its mission. This can be archived through proper recruitment and selection
Recruitment and Selection The Bank’s policy on recruitment and selection is to attract and select personnel with the requisite competence to meet the high standards set by the Bank’s corporate objectives and the needs of individual jobs. The bank’s open system of recruitment includes posting of notices internally, advertising, using staffing sources, and unsolicited applications. One of the problems identified with the selection process is that the Bank relies mostly on the interviewing process. Research has however shown that interview’s have a validity coefficient of less than 0.
2, and only rises to 0. 35 in cases where it is structured. There have been instances where people placed on the job have failed their probation, or could not perform, and have had their appointments terminated. Developing an Effective Workforce This is to develop employees into an effective workforce; this includes training and performance appraisal. Training and development “Training and development represent a planned effort by an organisation to facilitate employees’ learning of job-related behaviour” (Source: “Management” by Richard L. Daft, 6th Edition).
Training methods which are mostly used are on-job-training (OJT), orientation training and self-directed learning. The bank encourages all members of staff to continually develop and upgrade their knowledge, skills and competences to meet the required standards of job performance. In-house or external training, seminars, conferences, workshops and attachments to other organisations are types of training the bank uses to increase expertise and develop its staff. The problem with training is that selection of staff for courses is sometimes not based on identified training needs from the performance appraisal process.
At times, training budgetary allocation is diverted for other uses whenever funds become critical. On critical evaluation of this approach, management of the bank could be said to be treating training as a cost rather than as an investment. Performance in C&A Bank Performance is defined as “level of the individuals work achievement that comes only after effort has been exerted. “(Slocum, J. W. Jnr. and Hellriegal, 7th Edition). It is the ratio of input to output. The key resources of labour, materials, machines, time and capital are inputs that are put together to produce, in the case of C&A bank, its services.
It depends on not only on amount of effort exerted, but also on the individuals’ ability and role perceptions. To perform well and individual must not only do the job, but must also know what should be done and be able to do it. Performance measurement in C&A bank is usually through the application of Performance Management System (PMS). This is a technique that is concerned with the general management of the workforce; planning, communication, motivation and controlling, and also has the perspective of reward management, appraisal, and training and development. According to Richard L.
Daft PMS is the process of “observing and evaluating employee’s performance, recording the assessment, and providing feedback to the employee”. This incorporates McGregor’s Management By Objectives (MBO). MBO is defined as a “method whereby managers and employees define goal for every dept, project and person and use them to monitor subsequence performance. ” The process is made up of the following features:Using McGregor’s approach, management at C&A bank sets objectives at beginning of each year for each department, which are then assigned to individuals with deadlines.
Once these objectives have been set for all levels of management they become standards or norms against which future performance is measured. Management has created the climate that performing for the organisation will bring in rewards. Employees have therefore become convinced that there is a connection between results/reward and effort. (as in Vroom’s Expectancy model). The Bank’s compensation policy is intended to provide fair and consistent methods of rewarding people for good performance.
It is made up of a combination of factors including base pay, bonus pay, performance and competency related pay, incentive pay and non-cash benefit such as health insurance and staff savings scheme. Most employees have misconceptions about the levels of reward and its relation with performance. They also do not perceive that there is internal equity in reward administration. This has generated mistrust in the Bank’s reward system, thus reducing employee motivation and performance, and in some instances leading to exit of key/core personnel.
In our dynamic business today, for C;A Merchant Bank to survive and remain competitive and increase staff performance, it needs to adjust to new situations for the bank to respond quickly to economic, social and external environmental changes. Hence the Tayloristic system has been criticised, in that it lacks flexibility innovation and that the bureaucratic organisational structure approach can no longer be sustained. It is in this milieu that, a flattened decentralised structure, which will be characterised by overall wide span of control (i. e.
increase the number of employees who will report to a supervisor by providing the appropriate training for these supervisors to enable them cope with the large number of employees) and a few management levels should be used by C;A Merchant Bank. The bank can clearly do away with the two DMD so that the directors report to the MD. This will improve morale among employees, as they are allowed to participate in decision-making process; help improve communication within the bank, there will be greater awareness of problems by top management and responsibilities of to managers will be reduced
