People Management Assignment: Reflective Portfolio on People Culture & Contemporary Leadership

Question

Task: Context: Change has been a constant theme over the past 3 years, and next year will be no different. From dealing with the biggest remote working experiment in history, to tackling new and nuanced issues such as furlough, redundancies and employee engagement amid a global pandemic… The skills and behaviors required by the managers of today have been put to the test. Their support system too has been challenged. People Management Assignment Task Requirements: You are tasked with writing a ‘Reflective Portfolio’ of 2,000 word (+/- 10%) which will contain several parts compiled in the form of a written report. Using appropriate theory and relevant models, you are to reflect on key topics covered throughout this module and create a portfolio which demonstrates your reflection on:
1. Current issues facing line managers relating to people management
2. The knowledge, skills and behaviors to be an effective people manager
3. HR processes which underpin the performance management

Answer

Introduction
According to Hunt, Prince, Dixon-Fyle and Yee, (2018), the demand for the diversity of the products and services from an increased population is growing dramatically.

Therefore, managerial and production-based activities of any company or business organization are widening with passing time. As stated by Mironovaetal., (2017), though over the past three years, change through technology and strategical upgradation remains a constant trend for this competitive market.Three major strategic areas such as talent management, leadership and management and training and development are focused and evaluated in this report. Roles and responsibilities of people management and contemporary leadership are discussed through this report. The report has also enlightened the HR process which underpin the performance management. The report reflects on the required and effective knowledge, skills and behaviors to be an efficacious people manager.Due to this pandemic, managers have to adopt all the new systems for remote work culture (Hitt, Arregle and Holmes Jr, 2020). Internal and external influences on these issues are discussed in the report.

Reflection on Current Issues Facing Line Managers Relating to People Management
Issues of Uncertainty- According to Sharmaetal., (2020), as Covid-19 has generated uncertainty in every sector, neither the virologists can say when this pandemic will end, nor the economists can predict the outcomes of this pandemic. Though in this case organizations are unable to provide enough information about their managerial implementation or strategic planning, yet in my opinion the Warwick Model can help the managers to identify and to understand the challenge completely as it was constructed to focus on the issues relating employee relations, reward system, work procedure, company objectives, general strategy and competitive factors. Collapsed Physical and Mental Condition- As stated by Dimitriuetal., (2020), this pandemic crisis drastically affects the physical and mental condition of the employees and the employers, not only because the infectious virus but also for the work from home culture that makes the employees feel isolated.According to my opinion, the Ulrich Model provides a clear understanding of this problem as this model focuses on people of the organizations rather than focusing on functions and process of the organizations.

Arranging Essential Tools to Perform Jobs-In order to work with a remote team, people managers should ensure that employees have required tools to perform their jobs from home. I realized the ASTD Competency model can help the managers relating to people management to get a better understanding of this particular issue as according to Washington, (2020), this model was developed to revolve around the challenges regarding improving employee performance, professional specialists, personal and interpersonal factors.

Economic Crisis- As stated by Danylyshyn, (2020), the entire world is suffering from economic crisis caused by the Covid pandemic. I realize that even all the organizations are going through this serious challenge. In this situation, the Harvard Model proves to be potential as it helps to recognize the challenges related to commitment, competitive gain and cost effectiveness. Human Capital Issue- Efficient human capital has become the biggest issue, that the managershave to face. According to me, people managers should utilize the HRM model or the HR framework which is a designed model for organization’s strategic scheme to provide assistance to the managers to cope with the issue of human capital.

Contemporary Issues Facing Line Managers when It Comes to People Management
Understaffed
Lack of Communication
As stated by Fletcher, (2018),poor communication causes confusion, frustration, misunderstanding, friction and extremely tense environment.Management can motivate and provide positive feedbacks to its employees through effective communication to make them productive and creative. For instance, the big supermarket giant, Tesco prefers to use verbal communication such as face to face and over the phone conversation. However, being a global organization Tesco hires employees from different countries, caste and genders. This cultural diversity within the organization creates difficulties for establishing great communication.

Poor Teamwork
In order to ensure qualitative and quantitative production, teamwork is very important. Teamwork helps the employees to perform a good quality of work within strict deadline. Even when a team member falls behind, other teammates help him to gather up himself. On the other hand, poor teamwork can decrease the positive vibes among the employees, conflict emerges frequently and thus the organizational success will be jeopardized.

Currently Tesco is focusing on creating great working environment through concentrating on teamwork for its employees.

Reputation
It is very important and tough to hold the reputation that was gain long time ago.For instance,Tesco is a leading supermarket giant, yet it is known for being difficult towards the suppliers. Even Tesco was involved in an accounting scandal with its suppliers which came under a strict scrutiny. Tesco is still considered as the largest retailer, but its reputation received a massive knock.As it is important to improve the organizational culture and performance of employees to hold the reputation. Therefore, it is another contemporary issue that the line managers face.

Presence of Strong Competitors
Though, Tescois having success since 1993, yet it faced serious competition by its leading competitors such as ASDA, Morrison’s and Sainsburry’s. Aldi and Lidl are other companies famous for offering huge discounts, which is a threat for retailers like Tesco.

Decreased Performance Level
Managers have the responsibility to supervise the employees who are in-charge of quality management. Nowadays customers are more health conscious, they keep knowledge about what they are intaking. According to Smith and McElwee, (2021), it has been reported that Tesco was involved in selling the horse meat. This horse meat scandal indicates the decrease in quality of Tesco’s products and services.

Reflection on the Knowledge, Skills and Behaviors to Be an Effective People Manager
In my opinion, in this era of uninterrupted changes and of remote work culture, people managers are facing more challenges, issues and strains due to upgradations and advancements in organizational standards, treatments and policies. In order to mitigate such issues and to be an effective people manager, I realized that HR department needs to have a better understanding of knowledge, skills and behaviors specially in this recent time of remote work culture due to pandemic. Administration and Management- According to Lehman, (2017), a people manager must possess a good and upgraded knowledge of business ethics, management principles, production process, leadership methods and resource allocation and maintenance. A detailed knowledge of human resource model and strategic planning is also essential to be an effective people manager.

Personnel and Human Resources- Besides keeping and maintaining personnel’s detailed information, I realized that an effective people manager must have good understanding of the company policies and rules regarding recruitment and selection process, training, employee relation, compensation and benefits. Though, unemployment is a big issue in this pandemic era, still according to Vahdat, (2021), people manager should focus on knowledge, skills and experience of the candidates while recruiting.

Law, Regulation and Government-As stated by Kostalova, Bednarikova and Patak, (2018), a people manager must have detailed knowledge of law, regulations and government policies to run an organization ethically and smoothly.I realized after the pandemic, many changes have come in government rules and regulations. Therefore, to be an effective people manager, individuals need to upgrade themselves regularly regarding such essential changes in law, regulations and government rules.

Language-In order to manage people, communication is the only way. According to me, a manager must be fluent in English and in regional language in order to communicate with the employees.

Organized and Flexible- I realized that while working with remote teams, managers should grant flexible work hours to employees in order to maintain consistency and quality production.

Progress Tracking and Meeting-According to me managers should track the progress of their employees and conduct virtual meetings with them to discuss the progress or to suggest for improvement. Connection Building and Availability to Team- I realized that many employees feel isolated and stressed with this remote work culture. According to Tannenbaum, Traylor, Thomas and Salas, (2021), it is the responsibility of the people manager to establish a positive connection with the employees through virtual fun chat, positive feedback and ‘meeting over coffee’.

Reflection on HR Process Which Underpin the Performance Management
According toFranco Santos and Otley, (2018), HR department and performance management are related and dependent to each other. In order to underpin the performance management, the pivotal role of the Human Resource department is to assess, determine and identify the job performances done by the employees and workers and finally to find strategic solutions that helps the organization to gain competitive success. According toKing and Finn, (2017), HR applies three pivotal theories to underpin the performance management. These theories are Goal theory, Control theory and Cognitive theory. Based on the goal theory, expected results can be achieved by focusing on employees’ performance through their work engagement. As stated byIvanov, Sethi, Dolgui and Sokolov, (2018), in order to follow control theory, HR collects feedbacks regarding employees’ performance and accordingly influences the behavior and performance of the employees. Similarly, to understand and to explain employees’ behavior in order to support performance management, HR applies cognitive theory. As stated byClaus, (2019), it is the responsibility of the human resource to manage the employee life cycle which is consisted of some process such as recruiting, hiring, onboarding, training and firing the employees. Therefore, after this lengthy, time taking and expensive process done by the Human Resource, furthermore, they need performance data, collected from the performance management which is very helpful for the HR to set strategic plans, selection process and to determine job allocation to the employees. I realized, that through maintaining employee life cycle and then collecting performance data, this HR process supports the performance management.HR process enables the performance management to keep a track and to monitor the individual performance of all the employees so that managers relating to performance management can provide relevant feedbacks to the employees and can motivate them to improve their performance. I realized, that this whole process of HR and performance management became much essential these days due to the remote work culture where managers cannot supervise their employees physically.

Conclusion
This is an era of continuous change and adoption of new technologies and work pattern in order to survive. The current Covid-19 pandemic has made this trend of change stronger and more permanent. Therefore, production-based activities along with the managerial actives have changed. Not only the expectations of products and services have changed, but the production process and work culture have changed a lot and shifted towards ‘work from home’ culture. Some challenges have identified that the managers relating to people management have to face, such as issues of uncertainty, collapsed physical and mental condition, arranging essential tools to perform jobs, economic crisis and human capital issue. In order to mitigate these issues,an individual must possess some qualities such as excellent communication skills in English and in relevant regional language, listening skills, encouraging his team, celebrating employee’s success, the drive to fix goals and ability to make innovative and strategic decisions. Besides these qualities, managers must have great knowledge and skills regarding production procedure, language, laws, rules and regulations set by the government, company policies and many more. Managers need to follow some models such as the ASTD Competency model, the Ulrich model and Harvard model to identify major issues. HR processes are also important to underpin the performance management. In order to support performance management, HR applies three major theories such as goal theory, control theory and cognitive theory.

Recommendations
Remote work culture has created many new types of challenges for the managers relating to people management and for the HR also. With this remote work culture, employees feel isolated and depressed. Their growing anxiety affects the organizations directly. Therefore, it is considered as one of the greatest challenges for the managers. I realized that identifying and understanding the issues faced by the employees and communicating with them to provide mental support, can solve this issue faced by the managers and employees. I suggest the managers and the HR to communicate with their employees frequently for providing positive feedback, for some fun chat and to motivate them to focus on their performance in order to upgrade their career. Even according to me, this strategy can improve the financial crisis faced by both the organizations and employees by increasing productivity. In order to improve performance, managers should get help from the ASTD Competency model. Managers need to arrange essential tools and provide flexible work hour in order to make the work culture easier and more enjoyable.In this case, managers can use the Ulrich model to understand the employees’ performance in order to set strategic action plans.

Reference List
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Danylyshyn, B., 2020. The peculiarities of economic crisis due to COVID-19 pandemic in a developing country: case of Ukraine. Problems and Perspectives in Management, 18(2), pp.13-22.
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Fletcher, K.A., 2018. Does Lack of Communication Regarding Pay Negatively Affect Perceived Justice in the Workplace (Doctoral dissertation, Middle Tennessee State University).
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Ivanov, D., Sethi, S., Dolgui, A. and Sokolov, B., 2018.A survey on control theory applications to operational systems, supply chain management, and Industry 4.0. Annual Reviews in Control, 46, pp.134-147.

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Bibliography Appendices
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