Selecting an Organization
The organization that you select can be a large, medium or small sized public, private or non-profit organization. It can be global, or domestic, providing products or services, be manufacturing or R&D or sales based. You can select a division or smaller unit within a larger company or organization if you want to sharpen or narrow your focus.
Make sure that the organization your group selects is one that one or more of you already have access to regarding performance management information. The information that you will need includes both organizational and individual employee performance management information. This information, data and metrics should include how the organization’s performance is managed (e.g., sales, profit, margins, growth), how unit performance is managed (e.g., divisional performance, if applicable) and how team and individual employee performance is managed. You may want to choose an organization in which one of your team members has worked/is working or where one of you have a strong connection.
The information that you will assess and evaluate includes the entire performance management approach (information about goal setting, feedback, performance reviews, reward programs, bonus structure, development planning, use of technology, etc.).
What to Include
Provide a brief background summary of the organization (its structure, people, products or services, history, competitive landscape, etc.).
Describe the mission, vision, and key values of the company
Describe the current performance management system of the organization or sub-unit. Be sure to hit on key aspects including setting and defining performance objectives, measuring performance, and improving performance.
Describe and highlight the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of the organizations current performance management system. In assessing the current performance management approach/system include the degree of alignment to strategy, culture, and leadership behavior. Also include the degree that performance management is aligned, connected and being leveraged to other business and HR systems and processes.
Taking on the mindset of senior internal consultants, identify and propose a series of key recommendations in response to the weaknesses and opportunities that you have identified in
the organization’s performance management approach/system. Be extremely specific in your recommendations. Describe not only the changes you would recommend but how the organization must go about implementing the changes that you propose (e.g., leadership role/responsibility, communication, change management, training needed to support a new initiative if the current employees do not have the skill set to implement the system, etc.).
You should SPECIFICALLY address the various HR functional areas that might be impacted by your performance management recommendations/redesign initiative (e.g., recruitment, hiring, compensation, training, leadership development, etc.). Again, give specific examples to support your points.
For both your assessment and set of recommendations, you should provide specific examples, quotes, or statements from the organization that supports the points you are making. Do not talk in or refer to generalities.
The references must be from quality publications. You should integrate into your paper multiple references from respected sources (e.g., peer-reviewed journal articles, business publications such as the Harvard Business Review, etc.). Although you may use sources such as the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), Wall Street Journal, etc., you are also expected to go beyond such sources of non-peer reviewed, “newsy” information and white papers.
