Essay: Revitalizing Performance Management at Vitality Health Care

QU Catalog Description

QU Catalog Description

This course focuses on the theoretical and practical application of performance management systems. The importance of an effective performance management system is examined. An effective performance management system includes a continuous process of identifying factors and integrated approaches that align individual and team competencies with organizational goals. Students gain a conceptual understanding of key factors involved in assessing performance management systems in small and large organizations.

Required Reading Materials

1. Aguinis, H. (2019). Performance Management (4th Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. ISBN: 978-0-9988140-8-7

2. Harvard Business School Publishing coursepack: https://hbsp.harvard.edu/import/692808

*** Please note unless you have done so for a previous course, you will need to create an account on the HBSP website prior to access/purchase of the materials on this site.

School of Business Mission

The School of Business provides the foundation for lifelong learning to meet the business and leadership challenges of today and tomorrow.

Support of the Mission

This class supports the Mission Statement by developing analytical and problem-solving skills (within the context of performance management) for use this semester, throughout the program, and in one’s professional life throughout his/her career.

Learning Objectives and Outcomes

By the completion of the course, students will have the opportunity to develop or improve in the following areas:

• Application of management fundamentals for performance management and leadership

• Conceptualization and analysis of performance management issues through direct and indirect application of skills

• Interpersonal skills for self-and team-directed motivation

Task

Focus on the situation at Vitality Health Care, a fast growing, medium sized, personal care products company.  Decisions have been made to revise the company’s struggling performance management system.  The case will ask you to evaluate the old system and determine if the revised rewards system addresses these problems and should be positioned as a system upgrade.  

Your deliverable will be a detailed case analysis, in which you will collectively focus on answering the following questions:

 • In relationship with the topics of this course (and this module), what were the key performance management issues facing the organization under the old compensation/performance management system? (Must identify at least 3.)

• Does the new performance management system/compensation plan address these issues? (offer an opinion on each issue you have identified).  Defend your answer.

• Acting as part of the decision team, what do you recommend?  How would you have restructured the Compensation/Performance Management System to address these issues? Defend your answer. 

Focus on Athena Bancorp, a relatively new Bank with aggressive growth plans whose culture + growth has caused burnout within the employee group.  At the branch level, HR managers are finding it difficult to retain employees and to hire qualified replacements who might fit the culture. In this high performance, high commitment culture, your job is to analyze the team’s performance management and make recommendations to the CEO.

Your deliverable will be a detailed case analysis, in which you will collectively focus on answering the following questions:

1.In relationship with the topics of this course (and this module), what short-term challenges Athena must address? (Must identify at least 3)

2.Discuss which of Athena’s success strategies have are causing these challenges. 

3.Making use of a Balanced Scorecard format, prepare an action plan for Athena –– to address each challenge, offering a goal, an activity for meeting that goal, and how you will measure the success of that activity.  

4.Defend each. Specifically, defend how each goal and action complements Athena’s core strategies, and may elevate team motivation.