Leadership and Management Commitment

Question: Discuss about the Challenges faced by the Leaders while Implementing Performance Management. Answer: Introduction In the modern times, the organisations are paying high importance to the performance management. The performance management plays a more essential role in the global organisation. The aim of the performance management in the organisation is to promote and improve the effectiveness of the employees. In the opinion of Van Dooren, Bouckaert and Halligan (2015), it is a continuous process where the managers intends to work together with the employees in order to plan, monitor and review the goals, objectives and performance of the employees. In order to understand the performance management and the issues faced by the managers while implementing the performance management program within the organisation, Wal-Mart in United States has been considered. A multinational retail corporation operates a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores and grocery stores (Walmart.com. 2016). Wal-Mart practices performance management within the organisation in order to maintain sustainability in the international market. However, the process of performance management in Wal-Mart involves a number of challenged that the leaders in the organisation face while operating performance management program in the organisation. The impact of the organisational leadership is thus evaluated while discussing the ways in which the leaders are capable of addressing the challenges of performance management. Challenges faced by the leaders while implementing performance management In the opinion of De Waal (2013), the performance management is one of the crucial activity that the managers of the organisation carries out. Wal-Mart being a well-known company needs to manage the performance of the organization in order to sustain in the highly competitive market. Seuring and Gold (2013) argued that the challenges in operating performance management in the organisation have a number of dimensions in the business environment of todays world. Thus, it is not just enough for the managers of Wal-Mart to create focused initiatives to overcome the challenges faced by the organisation. In case of many of the competitors of Wal-Mart, schemes the remuneration has been effective in boosting up the performance of the companies. These schemes further have long-term effect on the behaviour and the culture of the organisation (Miner 2015). The types of challenge that the organisations are likely to face depend upon the types of the activities performed in the organisation, its environment and the market in which it operates. The main challenges that the managers of Wal-Mart have been facing in the workplace while trying to operate the performance management have greatly affected the overall productivity and performance. The challenges are discussed as follows: Lack of alignment: The lack of alignment id one of the toughest challenge faced by the organisation due to the different process that are being considered within the organisation during the isolation, and linking of budgeting, strategies and operational planning. The different individuals in groups carry these planning where they use various types of frameworks. Wang and Sarkis (2013) mentioned that there remains certain lacking in the alignment between the performance of the individual, department, or the organisation as a whole. Thus, the overall system is disturbed within the company. Lack of measurement: This is the challenge that the different levels of department within Wal-Mart experiences. There have been a number of scenarios where the managers had set targets but failed to put relevant measures to achieve those targets (Vaccaro et al. 2012). The managers are thus unable to collect the data to track the performance of the organisation. Leadership and management commitment: The challenges faced by the leaders or the managers of Wal-Mart have a significant impact on the organisation as it integrates and aligns the management system. The leadership and the management commitment therefore provide a comprehensive performance management system to Wal-Mart. In order to achieve the performance success, it is important for the managers and the leaders of the organisation understand the requirement of the management system and work as per the needs of the organisation (Chhokar, Brodbeck and House 2013). Managing the performance management: There is a need of disciplined framework in order to manage the performance of the organisation. As opined by Buckingham and Goodall (2015), a master plan needs to be considered that is further broken down into relevant parts and areas to ensure the maximum involvement of the employees into the organisational activities. The managers at the different level needs to have a clear idea about the various process such as the contracting, development, measurement and appraisal in order to ensure consistent application of the processes within the business. On the other hand, DeNisi and Smith (2014) mentioned that if the managers of the company considers the performance management as not just an event but also an activity that is to be managed at a daily basis, the outcome for the performance management is enhanced. Managing the poor performance: According to Schlfke, Silvi and Mller (2012), the management of poor organisational performance is a reactive action. However, Wal-Mart delays to execute the managing of the poor performance of the organisation, which makes the overall process a challenging one. Moreover, sue to lack of appropriate measurement and the collection of the required data and information, the managers often delay the management of the poor performance of the business. Ignoring Change Management in System Implementation: One of the vital parts of operating the performance management is to consider the change in the strategic management. The careful Management of resistance from the top management level is necessary. In addition to this, the key tool in managing the change is the intervention of communication into the process. The leaders of Wal-Mart needs to follow milestones and schedules and it becomes a challenge for the management. The leaders of the organisation lay a very important role in the creation of the challenges as well as addressing these challenges. Wal-Mart is no exception in this case, the managers therefore as a positive as well as negative affect the performance management of the company and thereby contributes in the organisational performance. One of the crucial roles of the managers of Wal-Mart is to recognise and reinforce the level of strong performance within the employees and thereby identify and encourage the required improvement. Addressing the challenges faced by the leaders In order to have an effective performance management process, it is important for the managers of Wal-Mart to involve all the members of the organisation to support the performance of the employees, development and ensure success. When the managers at the higher level such as the senior executives, are engaged into the organisational activities of the company, there will be higher participation rate of the employees and the lower managers that will further result in enhanced quality performance management. The effectiveness of the leaders is important in minimising the challenges faced by the organisation while operating the performance management program throughout of their operations. The solutions that can be effective used to address the challenges in the performance management system lies in the comprehensive approach that ensures alignment, planning, management of the performance system. Use of performance management system as a valuable tool: In order to address the various challenges that the managers of Wal-Mart faces, it is important for the managers to use the performance management system as a valuable tool that helps to support the development and improvement of the employees. As per the words of Cascio (2014), when the managers tend to lack interest, the employees lose interest too. Thus, the overall management of performance is hampered. Hence, the managers need to lay stress on the benefits and encourage the employees to consider the ownership of their individual performance and development. Determining appropriate schedule: the leaders of the organisation needs to conduct short, regular meetings in the organisation with the employees in order to discuss and record the milestones, success, challenges and the opportunity of Wal-Mart while operating in the highly competitive market (Garca-Morales, Jimnez-Barrionuevo and Gutirrez-Gutirrez 2012). This is an effective approach as it allows the organisation to monitor the progress of the goals in an improved manner and thereby provide training or guidance to the employees. Moreover, with the conduction of the short meetings, the leaders are able to reduce the effort that is required during the reviewing of the annual organisational performance. The managers are able to review the achievement, development, setbacks, trainings that have occurred all over the years with the use of the annual performance review meeting (Goetsch and Davis 2014). This information can be further used to set the goals and the development plan for the upcoming year. Deliver regular constructive and positive feedbacks: The managers of Wal-Mart need to provide the employees with regular feedbacks though the one to one meetings. The employees are to be commended in front of their colleagues and peers. One of the other measures that the managers have to consider is noting down the performance of each employees during the conversation, so that there are concrete information to share with each other. Taticchi, Balachandran and Tonelli (2012) stated that the main aim of feedback is to analyse the behaviour and expectation of the employees so that the organisation do not dwell on undesirable behaviours. The regular check of the progress on goals of the employees will help to provide assistance and goals as per the requirement. Communicating and revisiting the performance expectation: An effective leader always communicates the standard of the performance and expectation of the organisation with the employees. The employees will thus be able to understand the difference between the behaviours that are acceptable and those that are not. Thus, the misunderstanding within Wal-Mart can be reduced effectively. The managers to gather the relevant information about the employees can use a multiple sources. The 360 degree feedback or the other survey tool can be used to complete and validate the observation about the employees (Genovese et al. 2014). Provide training: The leaders or the employees in Wal-Mart need to train the employees in such a way that the two communications is improved and strengthened to deliver the desired result and behaviour of the employees. In order to lay specific stress on a certain aspect of the employee performance, it is important to coach the employees. Moreover, the employees are to be advised about the issues of the performance management from before so that they are able to handle the issues in a better way. The leaders of Wal-Mart follow a democratic leadership where the employees are allowed to take part actively in the process of decision-making and the management of organisational performance. The leadership style is effective as it allows equal opportunity to all the employees to participate, exchange ideas freely. The ideas are respected and are often implemented in order to increase the participation rate of the employees and motivate them. However, there have been faults in the management system of Wal-Mart that have degraded the performance level of the organisation. The management style of the company has been considered to be outdated that further resulted in the failing of the customers. The large stores of the company do not seem to fit well in the urban areas although it had good sales in the rural areas (Forbes.com. 2016). The company is highly challenged by the competitors in the field of online retailing. Moreover, the customer service provided by the company to the cust omers was also of poor quality that caused a number of potential customers of Wal-Mart to switch to other brands. The business model of the company was surely to be blamed as the leaders of the company ineffectively designed it without addressing the issues that the organisation has been facing. The source of the issues was the lack of employee training within the company. It was suggested that the company needs to shut down for 24 hours in order to provide training session to the organisation. Nevertheless, it came up, as another challenge as the leaders of the company was unable to connect with the employees and the customers. The major problems regarding the management and the leadership occurred at the middle level of management. These managers try to execute their absolute power and could not consider the importance of simple aspects of the company such as customer service. There have been further arguments made against the organisational leadership of the company. The managers of the company have failed to keep up with the changes in the retail environment that lead to challenges in the operation of performance management (Giacalone and Rosenfeld 2013). On the other hand, the competitors of Wal-Mart such as Amazon kept selling more products in the market at a much lowe r product offered by Wal-Mart. The customers thus found it less necessary to purchase products from the company, as there were a number of online options open to the customers (Kaisler et al. 2013). The leaders were thus incapable to obtaining a proper knowledge about the market and thereby failed to align the organisational activity as per the needs of the market. Conclusion The successful result of the performance management program is greatly dependent on the organisation leadership. The good as well as the poor organisation leadership have a significant impact on the performance management and thereby affect the overall productivity of the business in the home country as well as in the international market. The managers of Wal-Mart face a number of issues while operating the performance management program within the organisation. The issues have a direct impact on the sustainability of the company in the international market. The issues further decrease the comparative advantage of the company that disturbed the position of the company in the market. The main reason that caused the issues in the organisation was the slow reaction of the company to the changes. There was also a rapid change in the business landscape of the company. The change in the organisational pattern, management, and the transformation became a permanent feature n the landscape of the business. The innovative technologies were increasing in the market while the company was unable to meet the changes required. To meet the challenges in the organisation, Wal-Mart needs to carry out the best practices for the organisation in a sophisticate manner in order to enhance the organisational change management. The performance management program in Wal-Mart thus needs to be improved by the leaders of the organisation by adopting new and effective strategies. The consideration as well as adaptation of the effective strategies will help to enhance the effectiveness of the management. 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