Dell Inc.'s Performance Management Essay: Learning And Talent Development Strategy.

Organizational background and need of the training program

Question:

Discuss about the Influence of Organic Organizational Cultures Market.

In this era of globalization, human resource management function has emerged as a key function for organizations. Today, the HR managers have to manage various aspects like recruitment, performance management, diversity management, employee exit, etc. At the same time, it is expected that HR managers would also contribute towards business strategy and business development. It is important that organizations and HR managers must continuously keep employees updated. The objective of this paper is to discuss the learning and talent development strategy for Dell Inc. The talent and learning development strategy would be developed in the area of performance management system. A brief organizational background and the need or rational of training program in the field of performance management for Dell Inc. can be discussed as:

Dell is a multinational company with more than 100,000 employees. The company was established in the year 1984 and in the last 33 years it has expanded in different parts of the world. The company has a revenue of more than $54 billion. The company has a large scale of operations in developed and developing nations. It is difficult for Dell Inc. to have a standardized way of operations in place as the HR team have to manage the operations across various cultures and regions (Heide & Kumar, 2014).

Continuous improvement is the challenge facing all organizations in the public or private sectors. Continuous improvement is facilitated in opened communication supported organization environments that guarantee effective feedback and inclusiveness as sense of belong of employees are enhance and its contribution is necessitated (Knies & Boselie, 2015). Pressure on resources, increased expectations from customers and service users, technological advances and the increasing availability of comparative information mean that organizations are required to deliver more and better services to meet customer needs and maintain customer satisfaction. And for organization to continue to maintain its course of strategic aims and objectives in relation to achievement, it must make an effectual plan for continuous improvement which are naturally activated through participation of the employees at all levels. If performance improvement is tackled as a series of initiatives that can be started and stopped, or simply allowed to lapse, it can feel like an additional burden, rather than as central to the success of the organization. But this can be sorted in continuous meeting and review of the performance with employees carrying along the employees at different approaches by the organization to continue to give the employees sense of ownership thereby contributing their best.

Sporadic or intermittent focus on improvement can mean that organizations fail to identify poor performance or opportunities for improvement until it is too late. Continuous improvement maintains momentum and drive for performance improvement. This is enhanced interaction, feedback and effective communication between employee and supervisors that can be initiated through self-assessment. Before making and learning or training development plan, it is critical to understand the current performance management system at Dell. The flowchart of the current performance management system at Dell Inc. can be discussed as:

Challenges faced by organizations for continuity in performance improvement

At Dell Inc. employees are considered as an integral part of performance management system. Before employees created an own goal, the staff member has to receive a work-plan goal from the section /unit they work. Once the work plan has received from the section/unit based on the outcome expectation to achieve, the staff member also allowed creating an individual goal aligned with the section/unit goal, and then the goal will be incorporated in the personal e-pas form to submit to the supervisor to approve the goal. In all the processes, both parties are ensured maintained two ways communication.

Following the approval of the individual goal, a mid-term discussion/dialogue is maintained to evaluate the progress. Following the mid-term discussion, a staff member is to initiate the end of cycle appraisal process before he/she submitted to the supervisor. Therefore, self-assessment is an encouraging part of performance appraisal process. Roberts, (2006) contends that self-appraisals provide with the chance thoroughly to evaluate their performance. Roberts, (2006) indicated that self-appraisal is optimized employee’s planning and readiness for the evaluation process of interview, improves overall satisfaction, increased perceived appraisal fairness, and mitigate defensive behavior for developmental purposes. The current gaps in the performance management system that would be addressed through training and development plan can be discussed as:

• Lack of clear performance goals
• Lack of alignment goals with business objectives
• Infrequent feedback by managers abd leaders
• No accountability for mid-level supervisor
• No adequate training for mid-level supervisors
• Insufficient training and development for employees
• No documentation in place
• No timely reviews

The suggested performance management flow chart for Dell can be highlighted as:

• Step 1: Understanding Prerequisites => Defining Performance planning
• Understanding Performance planning => Defining Performance execution
• Understanding Performance execution => Defining Performance assessment
• Understanding Performance assessment => Defining Performance review
• Understanding Performance review => Defining Performance renewal and re-contracting
• Understanding Performance renewal and re-contracting > Again defining Prerequisites

For a large international company like Dell, the business models could be largely different between its subsidiaries given the geographical and cultural variance. The company might want to leave the flexibility of PMS implementation, especially between step 2 performance planning and step 5 performance review/renewal & re-contracting, with the local business and only focus on the big picture of strategic objectives alignment for step 1 laying the foundations (Wei & Samiee, 2014).

The case study of Dell Inc. shows that the above process is not followed religiously and there is a scope of improvement. It is recommended that Dell Inc. must stick to the suggested performance measurement plan. It can be achieved only when Dell Inc. includes both internal and external stakeholders together. A lot will also depend on the involvement of leaders in the training programs. In fact, the leaders and managers should make efforts to understand the learning and development needs of employees.

It is suggested that the leaders of Dell Inc. should come up with a need assessment. The employees of Dell at different levels should use this need assessment as a one-stop solution. A longitudinal study conducted by M. London & J., W. Smither (2002), proves that the need assessment survey enables the senior management of the firm to develop the specific and customized learning and development programs. The learning and development pyramid that Dell Inc. should use can be highlighted as:

What Dell should have within the company is that when it fell into the performance program the employees should receive training over the period of 6 months. Part of the training is that employee understand the concept of internal customer services; employees’ impact upon the business is not just restricted to their own couple KPI’s. Employees’ work and KPI’s have a knock-on effect for other people to be able to achieve their required KPI’s. Downstream one is also again dependent upon other colleagues to deliver their KPI’s to assist employees in getting the results. This is a process as described by Zakaria (2015) in which the KPI becomes a culturally imbedded process of performance management system. Every month employees would have review meetings to understand the results of their KPI’s; these meetings should be discussed to know how and why employees are either achieving or missing our KPI’s. During these meetings, employees would then be held responsible to our internal customers and listen to their feedback and when required have an action plan to improve the way in which employees were working with each other.

Current performance management system at Dell Inc.

Training is a must in an organization to keep the performance management process going, however it should be part of a cycle to be able to implement outcomes. Employees should be able to use their trainings to be able to carry out what the job requires. According to Burke and Baldwin (1999), this is like finding a job related to your degree. Training is an important factor from the process, however the cycle factors are as a result of cause and effect, if one isn’t applied properly then the outcome will result different to expected. However, many companies need to accept that training is an expensive factor, that may require tools for the particular business industry. The training and development plan for Dell Inc. can be discussed as:

According to Aguinis, (2013) the ultimate purpose of performance management system is to optimize employees’ contribution towards the objective and targets of organizations. Aguinis emphasizes that if there is no clarity on organizations objective regarding where to go, or if there is misalignment between organization’s mission and strategies and department’s mission and strategies is not clear, there will be surely a confusion regarding what employee’s contribution will be to help the organization achieve its goal (Aguinis, 2013). In another study by Huber, (2015) revealed that performance management system significantly influences the effectiveness of organization’s detection of threats and correctness of organization’s responses to threats, as such, PMS is involved to the organization’s strength and sustainability.

According to Chang & Chen (2013), training and development programs can have positive impact on organizational goals of cost, productivity. The focus on training and development programs would also help the organizations to improve their revenue and profitability. For a positive performance results from training organization cannot only fulfil the training function alone but it should also focus on the evaluation of employees. It is suggested that the Dell Inc. should have the provision of periodic assessments for its employees.

For the case of Dell, for instance, the management should have to assess correctly the current environment and identify key issues not only related to the sales and revenue but also include other motivational aspects linked to the sales representatives. Here it is important to include the views of all stakeholders (employees, line managers/supervisors, costumers, senior managers) in the planning and review process in order to proposed an effective training package able to not only train the attendees but also able to revert any harmful organizational working environment.

Auginis, (2013) performance management system is about a continuous process and alignment of strategic goals with organization’s mission and required job analysis. Jennings and Bandfield, 1993, p-3, cited in, Westhead and Storey,(1996) describe “ training as a powerful agent of change, that facilitating and enabling a company to grow, expand and develop its capabilities thus enhance profitability.” It would be correct to say that training can play a significant role in employee’s developmental plan as part of the performance management system, an effectively designed training can also enhance employees and organization’s capacity, employee’s motivation, rewards; as such employee’s confidence can improve to deliver the maximum efficiency towards achieving organizations goal.

Gaps in the current performance management system

The final stage or the desired process of performance management system at Dell Inc. can be highlighted as:

According to Owens, (2006, p.163), also cite in Aguinis, (2013) research revealed that, the impact of training on organizational performance is multi-level, for example at

• Organizational level: better customer services can be achieved,
• Departmental level: strategic goals and targets can be achieved, 
• Individual level: improved performance and higher organizational loyalty exhibited.

However, McCourt, and Sola, (1999, p.63) also cited in Sahinidis, and Bouris, (2008) supplemented on the latter’s views and outlined the following important key notes to the significance of the impact of training on organizational performance as follows:

• Trainings introduce employees to innovative problem solving skills.
• Trainings enhance the implementation of new financial management and control techniques resulted in more efficiency.
• Enhanced employees’ satisfaction levels.
• It is observed that is improvement in customer satisfaction with adequate training programs.
• The training program of leaders enables them to lead the organization in an effective manner.
• With adequate training programs employees usually take less time to perform their job and it results in improved organizational productivity.
  • Fewer errors and mistakes.

As per Delaney, (1996), organizational performance is one of the key indicators of the success of the organization. By definition, it refers to the way in which the people comprise an organization work together (Delaney, 1996). Also, it is the analysis of the performance of the company when compared to its aims and objectives (Delaney, 1996). In order to maximize the organizational performance, training is considered a strategic tool (Delaney, 1996). However, many business owners consider it as a vehicle to drive the sales of the company (Delaney, 1996). It is critical for an organization to evaluate how it uses training strategy and ways that can enable the training produce effective results (Fiedler, 1996). In order to ensure that employees are equipped with appropriate skills and competencies, training and development plays a critical role Bartlett, (2001). For this, it is critical to adopt right kind of training strategies suiting the requirements of the organization Bartlett, (2001). Every company has its own vision, mission and values and hence, training strategy varies accordingly Bartlett, (2001). As per Bartlett, (2001), choosing the right kind of training ensures that the workers possess right kind of skills to run the business. There are different training and development approaches that can be adopted by an organization (Bartlett, 2001). These approaches are Reactive, Proactive and Active Learning (Waldman, 1991). The reactive training approach is a traditional approach wherein the training is provided in classes (Waldman, 1991). The proactive training approach is a modern approach wherein the learning activities are integrated with business objectives (Waldman, 1991). The active learning approach is the one where the trainees ask questions from the trainers and learn from it. In modern organizations like Dell Inc., active learning approach should be adopted since it helps the employees hone their skills and knowledge (Waldman, 1991).

As far as the case of Dell Inc. is concerned, the management should have taken active learning approach in order to enhance the skills and knowledge of its employees (Waldman, 1991). Also, they should have examined the current environment and determine the issues which are not related to sales but motivates the employees (Waldman, 1991). It is also critical to include the opinions of the stakeholders such as employees, managers and customers in the planning process (Waldman, 1991). Their role will be to propose an effective training package which can train the employees and prepare them to cope up with the uncertain situations (Waldman, 1991). Overall, it can be concluded that training is an important factor to increase the organizational performance (Waldman, 1991). The Gant chart of the implementation plan can be shown as:

Suggested performance management flow chart for Dell

The implementation would need the support of various resources. The resource allocation table can be shown as:

Employee training and development activities are intended to improve performance. Unfortunately, most training and development activities fail in this respect because they are thrown at problems that are ill-defined are improperly identified. It is important that management if Dell should have RACI matrix in place. The RACI matrix for above implementation plan can be discussed as:

Conclusion

The above paper discusses the performance management system at Dell Inc. and the need of improvement. The paper also discusses the training and development plan in the performance management area. To support the company further, managers need to take over from the feedback issue and communicate more as performance management process will constantly be a developing process for members of organizations.

References

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