Monitoring And Managing Performance At BBQfun Essay.

Read the simulated BBQfun case study information. This task and in the business documentation previously provided form Assessments 1 and 2.

1.Based on the information provided, prepare a plan for monitoring performance from the start of implementation to the end of the financial year.

2.budgetary and financial performance

3.productivity performance

4.employee performance in line with performance management policy

5.milestone achievement and performance against targets

6.dates for monitoring activities in line with scenario

7.resources for monitoring

8.progress reporting at the end of each quarter to the Operations General Manager

9.regular performance management of online staff and lodgement of records with the HR Manager.

2.From the case study, identify areas of employee underperformance and determine possible remedial actions. With reference to your contingency plan developed in Assessment Task 1, outline how you would prepare to performance manage underperforming employees.

3.With reference to your contingency plan and the BBQfunperformance management policy, outline strategies to coach and performance manage an underperforming employee.

4.Analyse the operational performance as described in the case scenario.

a description of budgetary and financial performance

a description of productivity performance

c.an analysis of milestone achievement and performance against targets

d.three recommendations for operational improvement.

e.Outline how you would prepare to present your report and recommendations in your report to the Operations General Manager. Discuss how you would negotiate recommendations – involving, for example, changes to plans, changes to implementation of plans, changes to budget, etc. – and seek approval for the implementation of your recommendations 

Performance Monitoring Plan

The main purpose of this assignment is to develop a plan in order to measure the performance of the BBQ fun in different areas. The company wants to incorporate an e-commerce functionality to the websites which was developed by the business previously (Laudon and Traver 2013). The management of the company wants to measure the performance of the new e-commerce strategy considering its overall impact on different areas.

The management has formulated a plan which will be measuring the performance of the company and how much the company can achieve while using the new e-commerce strategy. The focus of the management will be to measure the performance of the online sales services which the management is providing and in case of any discrepancies appropriate measures are to be taken. The action plan given below covers specific areas of business where the management needs to focus in order to improve the overall efficiency of the company (Goetsch and Davis 2014).

Milestone: Action and/or objective (to achieve strategic aims of physical or human resourcing)	Date	Person responsible	Budget or resources (where applicable)
Approval of E-commerce project	25th January 2018	Project Manager	Various Documents, Charts and plans along with PowerPoint Presentations.
Development of Plan	15th February	Planner	Planning Charts and basic requirement details as were approved.
Incorporation of E-commerce Functionality in the website of the company	25th April	Online sales and operations team planner and technical staff.	Designing Website tools and systems developers kit.
Promotion of E-commerce Facilities available	30th May	Marketing and Sales team	Marketing Manager and use of different kinds of promotional tools.
Launching of Website with E-commerce Facilities	24th August	Technical and Information Technology Team	Websites IP, login ID, General Settings, Configurations.
Project is Completed and Successfully Implemented	1st October	Senior Managers and Top level of Management	Various Documents and Project Reviews.

The Target of the management is to ensure that the new e-commerce facilities is implemented and is running from 1^st October 2014. The management wants to follow the milestone achievement plan in order to successfully implement the new project as soon as possible.

The financial data about the performance of the company is to be obtained from the Chief Financial officer of the company. The management measures the performance of financial aspect as well as Budgetary performance by the % of overruns. The set target for the same is 0. However as per the analysis of the financial performance of the company during the quarter, it is revealed that the number of Budget overruns de (Bussy and Suprawan 2012). The current performance of the business shows that the budget overruns amounts to 10%. The budgeted cost overruns can be attributed to wastage from order mistakes and over stock piling due to misuse of system and there is also the case of duly overly long customer interactions. For the purpose of controlling such a situation the management has to take appropriate steps which are given below:

1. The management should clarify with the customers when they place orders and finalise the transaction in order to avoid order mistakes and ultimately avoid wastages of resources.
2. The management should avoid piling of stocks and adopt strategies which can be appropriate for the earliest sales of the stocks.
3. The management also needs to inquire into other causes for the budget cost overruns and identify the possible reasons for budget cost overruns.

The productivity performance of the company is measured by the overall performance of the staff and employee working in the organization (Mallick and Yang 2013). The management of BBQ Fun needs to ensure that the overall productivity of the business is maintained and for this purpose the management needs to take certain steps which are given below:

1. The management of BBQ Fun should supervise the different areas of business in order to ensure that the productivity of the areas is not hampered in any way. This can be done by analysing the performance charts of the areas, setting different targets based on the previous performance of the areas.
2. The management of the company needs to ensure that all the requirements are there which can enhance the productivity of an employee such as working conditions, incentive scheme.

Identifying Areas of Employee Underperformance

The employees are the lifeforce of any organization and therefore for any organization to perform well the skilled employees of the organization are to be retained and new skilled workers are to be recruited. In the case of BBQ Fun, the business is introducing new E-commerce facilities which require employees who have proper training to handle the website and technical issues involved with the same. The management of the company measures the quality of services provided by the online sales employee on the basis of % of mistakes made by the person. The target as set by the management is 1%, however currently the rate of mistakes is around 10%. In order to combat the situation, the management needs to investigate into the cause for occurrence of mistakes. The management needs proper supervision over the activities of the employee to ensure that mistakes are not repeated. In addition to this, the average time required to resolve a customer enquiry as set by the company is less than 10 minutes. As per current operations, the average which the sales team takes is around 20 minutes. The management needs to ensure that the employee which are engaged in online sales activities must be properly trained and if need arises such employees can be retrained but mistakes are to be avoided at any cost. Moreover, the management needs to recruit such employees who are skilled and have problem solving ability which will the improve the average time taken to solve a client’s problem and get the average online enquiry time below the standard set by the company.

As per the plans of the management, the company will a be following a schedule which will be ensuring that the objective of the business to incorporate the new e-commerce facility. The planned schedule which the management will be following is provided in the milestone achievement plan as given above. As per that, the management has decided to implement the new e-commerce strategy to increase the overall sales of the company is by 1^st October 2014. 

The management has appointed supervisors for each department and the progress of the week is to be reported to the management so that the management can control the performances of individual employees and the departments as a whole. Moreover, as the plan of the management, the employees will be provided with all facilities which can motivate them such as incentives scheme, insurance coverage, medical claims and other facilities as well so that the employees are motivated to give their best in the performance. This will increase the performance of the company as a whole. In addition to this, the management can use surveillance cameras, Biometric entry system to have a record of attendance, production report as resources to measure the performance of individuals.

Coaching and Performance Management Strategy

The departmental head of various department like Finance, Cost, Marketing, Sales and Customer Services Departments need to submit a progress report which states the performance and target achieved by the departments during the week or month. The reports will be both qualitative and quantitative in nature which means it will be containing charts, analysis, standards set and the actual results which were achieved by the company. The monthly or weekly progress report is an important technique which is used by many companies to measure the overall performance of the company as a whole.

As per the operational plan of the company, the management did not want to recruit members for the online sales team but instead wanted to train the present employees so that they can operate and handle the online operations of the company. The online sales team will be reporting to the sales manager and the human resource manager. The employees are to submit the online sales report to the human resource manager who will be supervising the online sales team of the company. 

The employees of an organization play a vital role in the overall development of the business. Every organization requires skill workers in order to get the best performance and results. In the case of BBQ Fun, the company is in need of skill workers who can handle the new e-commerce facility which the company will incorporate by 1^st October 2014. The current employees of the management will be trained by the company so that the new e-commerce facility can be operated by them as well. However, in certain areas the employees have not been able to deliver the best possible results as per the management targets which the management plans to identify and take remedial actions (Kotola 2016). Firstly, some employees of the sales team are still facing problems in operating the systems and also the websites which is a major cause of underperformance by such employees. Secondly, certain employees lack the skills which are necessary to tackle a situation or solve customer’s grievances and therefore such leads to underperformance which can be improved. Lastly there are certain general problems which can be identified such as increased % of mistakes which is in excess of the target which is kept by the management, poor communication skills, improper customer services and other types of general problems.

The management can improve the situation which is identified by implementing appropriate remedial plans for improving the efficiency of the employees:

1. The management needs to ensure that all the employees who are engaged in the sales and website handling department must know how to operate a system and should also have knowledge about how a website can be handled. The management has also incorporated a training schedule where employees who do not know how to operate a system can be retrained so that general level of efficiency is present.
2. The management needs to recruit new employees who have the necessary skills and problem-solving ability as required by the work requirement. The management must also place employees to respective designation as per the strengths of the individual so that right person is present on the right job. This way the company will be able to extract the best out of the employees and the overall performance standard will rise.
3. The general problems which are related to lapse of communication and improper after sale services can be improved by providing the right amount of motivation to the employees and develop a network will be focusing on after sale services and customer redressal as per the plans of management.

Operational Performance Analysis

The management also needs to measure the performance of each individuals to ensures that the productivity of employees can be achieved. Individual performance table is given below which:

Name/position: Sales Department		Manager:		Review period:
Reference from operational plan	Key result area		Indicator of success/ performance	By when	Status report
Online Sales employee	Quality of online sales services		Achieving 1% or lesser amount of mistakes which the employee can make.	25th April	Work in Progress
System and Website developer	Customer servicing, operating websites		Better handling of websites reducing the mistakes and losses	15 August	Work in Progress
Manager’s comments:			Signature: Date:
Staff member’s comments:			Signature: Date:

Figure 2: (Table showing individual performance standard)

Source: (Created by Author)

A per the plan of the management, the company will be requiring skilled employees and also correct certain employees who are underperforming. For the purpose of coaching an underperforming employee the management will be following GROW model (Grant 2012). The GROW Model stands for Goal, Reality, Options and Will which are discussed below:

1. Goal: The management need to ensure that the employee is aware of the goals and vision of the company. In addition to this the employee must understand the performance standard of the business and then the management should ensure that all the motivational factors which affect an employee’s performance in a workplace are present such as proper working conditions, incentive scheme and other facilities as well (Fletcher 2012).
2. Reality: The management will then provide the actual performance results from the quarter to the employee so that the performance gap between the actual performance and the standard set can be established (Yamoah and Maiyo 2013).
3. Options: As soon as the employee recognizes the performance gap between the standard set and the actual performance which is achieved by the employee, then the management can move to the option phase. In this phase the management will be providing different ways in which the situation in hand can be overcome. In this phase the management will be communicating with the employees and clearing any problems which the employee might be facing.
4. Will: The last phase deals with the motivational factors which drives the employees to achieve better performance. The management will be encouraging the employee to drive towards better performance and thereby improve the overall performance of the company. If the employees are motivated from within then achieving the performance standard will not be an issue for the employees. 

The coaching plan as developed for underperforming employees of BBQ Fun company is given below:

Employee: Online Sales Expert
Coach/Manager: Sales Manager
Date of session: 24th April
	Questions
Goal	What are the goals of the Organization?  What are the problems which the employee is facing? Is there a remedy available for the problem which is faced by the employee?
Reality	What is the set standard which measures the overall performance of the employees? What is the actual performance which is achieved by the employee? How much is the performance gap?
Options	How can the employee overcome the performance gap? What are options which are available to the employee to improve his/her performance?
Will	What are the motivational factors that influences the employees? How well can an employee who is motivated, perform in the business?

BBQfun operation plan status report		Date:
Plan goal	Implement e-commerce strategy	Department	Operations
Plan objective/s	redevelop website and acquire physical resources recruit and train staff achieve profit targets adhere to budget adhere to timelines.	Person responsible	Project Officer

Key performance indicators	Current status (Red, Green, Amber)	Comments
All members of the Online sales team have completed training and have skills required for websites operations	Green	All members are trained to handle online sales and e-commerce activity, two or three batch still will be undergoing training. Therefore, this will be improve the overall productivity of the business (Berman 2015).
All new employees need to be proper skills and qualification required for the post.	Amber	Some members of the sales team do not have the skills which includes old employees who have been transferred to the online sales team.
Meeting standards as per Budget and financial plan of the business.	Amber	The management has started to implement the budget and ensure that everything is as per the schedule, however it is expected that every part of the budget may not be followed in time (Mezhov, Rastova and Shmatko 2014). The management as per the performance is trying to achieve the financial target of the company which is $ 30000, however the company is currently earning around $ 20000. The management expects that with the introduction of the new e-commerce facilities the company will be able to increase the overall sales of the company.
Achieving Profit Targets	Red	The management is not expecting to meet the profit targets as certain initial unproductive costs and cost overruns have already been incurred by the company.
Milestone Achievement	Green	The management as per the plan schedule of the company, is achieving the targets of as previously set by the management.

Key action	Accomplishments	Comments
Initiate a training program which educates and trains the employees to handle situations in new e-commerce facility	All the members of the online sales team will be attending the training program.	The batches which have undergone training program have all given positive feedbacks which shows that the program is useful
Develop a proper sales strategy which looks out on all areas.	The sales strategies also cover all areas of consideration the customer redressal programs and feedback policy which will facilitate the sales effectively.	The management is of the opinion that the new sales strategy will be aiding to the e-commerce facility which is to be introduced in the business.

Risk	Contingency	Comments
Order Mistakes which are committed by the team	In case of order mistakes the management plans to incorporate a back plan so that there is no instances of wastage.	The management expects the back plan to hold up in case of such order mistakes, however the management does not want such mistakes to occur in the first place.
Employee turnover	If the online sales wants to function appropriately the management needs to ensure that the employee turnover ratio is kept at minimum. For such purposes the management has introduced motivation facilities and also have resources to incorporate new employees if some of the current employees leave.	The management expects that the plan will be helpful to manages the employees force of the company.

The plan of the management is progress as per requirement with certain discrepancies present. The timeline for implementing the project may extend a bit.

The recommendations which are suggested to the company in order to improve the operational plan of the business are given below:

The management needs to incorporate a backup plan for combating the mistakes which leads to wastage of resources. If the management can control the wastages of resources then it will be increase the overall revenue of the company.

The management needs to retrain the employees which are not performing up to the mark so that underperformance of the employees can be reduced and overall performance of the organisation will be increased. 

The company needs to expand the online sales time and recruit new drivers and delivery serviceman to ensure fast services to the customers and also incorporate feedback policy to improve the services further.

The external consultant will be conducting a meeting with the operational manager of BBQ Fun and communicate with him the overall changes and incorporation which are required in the operational policy of the company. As per the recommendations the management needs to incorporate sales strategies which has a backup plan which can reduce the wastage which arises due to invalid order. The management needs to appoint supervisors in order to control the overall performance of every department. The management needs to incorporate a strategy which obligates every departmental heads to submit weekly progress reports to the organization in order to monitor performance. This can be communicated to the operational manager by means of a proposal documents or a presentation as provided by the external consultant. 

References

Berman, E., 2015. Performance and productivity in public and nonprofit organizations. Routledge.

de Bussy, N.M. and Suprawan, L., 2012. Most valuable stakeholders: The impact of employee orientation on corporate financial performance. Public Relations Review, 38(2), pp.280-287.

Fletcher, S.J., 2012. Coaching: an overview. The SAGE handbook of mentoring and coaching in education, pp.24-40.

Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.

Grant, A.M., 2012. An integrated model of goal-focused coaching: An evidence-based framework for teaching and practice. International Coaching Psychology Review, 7(2), pp.146-165.

Kotola, H.M., 2016. Managing Underperformance.

Laudon, K.C. and Traver, C.G., 2013. E-commerce. Pearson.

Mallick, S. and Yang, Y., 2013. Productivity performance of export market entry and exit: Evidence from Indian firms. Review of International Economics, 21(4), pp.809-824.

Mezhov, S.I., Rastova, Y.I. and Shmatko, A.D., 2014. Theoretical and methodological bases of forming the operational and innovation program of the company. Advances in Natural and Applied Sciences, 8(5), pp.451-458.

Yamoah, E.E. and Maiyo, P., 2013. Capacity building and employee performance. Canadian Social Science, 9(3), p.42