Development for High Performance Revised Edition

Elearn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780080554808
• eBook ISBN: 9781136410468
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Management Extra brings all the best management thinking together in one package. The series fuses key ideas with applied activities to help managers examine and improve how they work in practice. Management Extra is an exciting, new approach to management development. The books provide the basis for self-paced learning at level 4/5. The flexible learning structure allows busy participants to study at their own convenience, minimising time away from the job. The programme allows trainers to quickly plan and deliver high quality, business-led courses. Trainers can select materials to meet the needs of their delegates, clients, and budget. Each book is divided into themes of ideal length for delivering in a training session. Each theme has a range of activities for delegates to complete, putting the training into context and relating it to their own situation and business. The books' lively style will stimulate further interest in the subjects covered. Guides for further reading and valuable web references provide a lead-in to further research. Management Extra is based on the NVQ framework to ease the creation of Diploma, Post Graduate Diploma or NVQ programmes for managers. It is accredited with all leading awarding bodies.

Development and improved
performance

In an effective organisation, there should be an alignment of goals and objectives. Everyone's effort should be aligned so that every part of the organisation is working together and pulling in the same direction.

As a manager you are at the hub of your organisation - with a close understanding of the needs of your team, together with a strategic understanding of the needs of your business. This gives you a central role as a developer in the organisation. This theme asks you to consider the development process and use the development cycle to help you frame development activities for your team.

In this theme you will:

Examine the links between employee development and the organisation's goals

Identify your role as a manager in developing individuals

Explore the steps involved in the individual, team and organisational development process.

Linking development and
organisational performance

A key feature of the role of managers is to safeguard and develop the resources that they have been given. They are often supported in this role by the training and development (T&D) department or the human resources (HR) department. Such departments have a responsibility to help standardise and align training and development practices across the whole organisation.

In a business climate where new products and services, increased customer expectations and competition are the norm, organisations are increasingly dependent on having competent staff. The key resource in organisations is now knowledge and what has become known as intellectual capital. Skill and expertise in applying that knowledge is still the key differentiator between competing organisations. Investment in staff development must therefore be linked clearly to the overall aims, strategies and business plans of the organisation.

People – a key resource

Measuring the contribution of people to the performance of an organisation is not easy; but evidence of the link between organisational performance and people management is mounting. The nice words about people being the organisation's greatest asset may well be true, even if organisations don't always realise it in practice. Here are details of one study that supports the idea that people are very important to organisational performance.

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

Aibert Einstein
(1879-1955)

A study by Linda Bilmes, Peter Strueven and Konrad Wetzker, of the Boston Consulting Group, sought to measure how well companies manage employees. They developed a ‘people scorecard’ – a set of criteria that can be tracked and quantified. The scorecard looked at HR functions such as recruiting, training and performance assessment and also what they call ‘intrapreneurship’ – creating an active entrepreneurial culture in the company. The study analysed more than two hundred companies in the US and Germany. Each company was rated and compared with industry peers.

The researchers found a relationship between successful companies and those companies that had effective HR and intrapreneurial activities. Companies that scored highest had a higher total shareholder return than lower-scoring companies. In the US, top companies had an average annual return of 27 per cent over the period 1989–1998, whereas the bottom ones earned 8 per cent. Companies with middle scores had an average return of 21 per cent, which is close to the 19.2 per cent average annual growth in Standard & Poor's 500 index.

In Germany, companies with the highest score had a shareholder return nearly three times higher than companies with the lowest score and 35 per cent above the median.

Bilmes suggests that companies can begin to create an emphasis on people by following eight basic steps:

Top-level commitment

Workforce development planning – regular assessment of business needs coupled with an assessment of how the workforce must change

Develop versat...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of activities
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Series preface
• Introduction: helping your team become high performers
• 1 Development and improved performance
• 2 Leading and coaching
• 3 Mentoring and delegating
• 4 Change and performance
• 5 Evaluating performance
• References