Performance Management Assignment: Employee Retention in Marks and Spencer

Question

Task

Prepare a performance management assignment investigating different performance management techniques for retaining employees in Marks and Spencer.

Answer

Introduction
It is evident herein performance management assignment that employees refer to critical success factors for the companies to attain objectives and goals, so there is a need for proper direction to head the employees. Performance management is the solution to well integrate and design activity to attain a high level of goals. Performance management can be defined as an on-going procedure between manager and employees that is used to improve and maintain workforce performance (Richards et al., 2019). A collaborative communication-based procedure is where managers and employees work cooperatively to plan and review long-term goals. It includes measuring, managing and reporting progress to improvise performance at both levels, corporate and individual level. It assists companies to become successful and brings competitive advantage to survive for longer periods within the business field. Retention refers to the ability of an organisation to retain its employees over for some period. High employee retention describes an increase in productivity and profitability of the firm (dos Santos Durão et al., 2017).

Thus, performance management tools assist in enhancing employee retention. It assists in eradicating all the barriers to development. Performance management in retention involves rewarding employees rather than punishing and satisfying its ever-growing desire to perform better within the organisations. It is an imperative procedure with evaluating, training, mentoring and monitoring within its workforce. The organisation comes up with ideal retention strategies to make the employees happy and engaged.

The conducted study provides a detailed understanding of effectiveness of performance management techniques in retaining employees. The Mark and Spencer Company, UK has been taken into consideration to provide succinct understanding about the ways and techniques to attain objectives and goals.

Research aims and objectives

Aims
The aim of the conducted study is to understand the effectiveness of performance management techniques in retaining employees in Marks and Spencer, UK.

Hypothesis
H0: Performance measuring techniques are not solely responsible to enhance the employee retention.

H1: Performance measuring techniques can be used to improve employee retention strongly.

Objectives

• To investigate the importance of performance management practices in the business spheres
• To determine the relationship between performance management techniques deployment and effective retention of employees
• To analyse the implication of employee retention on the business outcomes in Marks and Spencer
• To recommend strategies to Marks and Spencer for effective performance management strategies formulation so that the retention ability can be improved

Research questions

• What is the significance of performance management in the current business world?
• How performance management techniques help in managing retention issues at Marks and Spencer?
• What are the implications of employee retention on the business outcomes?
• What are the recommended strategies and techniques for effective employee management for enhancing employee performance and retention?

Literature review

Introduction
The conducted study will discuss the findings related to performance management and will exhibit its importance for better management. It will focus on the impact of implications for retention of employees and better management of employees. It will show the ways it affects the business profitability via several effective performance management strategies.

Concept of performance management
Performance management is a very wide topic in the business field. Several authors describe performance management differently. Armstrong & Baron define this topic as a strategic approach to enhance the effectiveness of business units by improvising performance of employees and developing capabilities of the workforce team. Mohrman states that it is a tool that manages the business.Walters states that Performance management is the procedure of mentoring and supporting workers to work as efficiently and effectively as possible in alignment form for the organisations (dos Santos Durão et al., 2017). Therefore, performance management refers to a system via which management can check the performance of employees. Companies can track whether the output and activities the workers are producing match with the company’s goals. Performance management is centralized to gain competitive advantage. History is full of great examples due to weak performance management. It fails to excel in business unless aimed on actions rather than outcomes (dos Santos Durão et al., 2017). Performance management procedures involve people orientation, benchmarking, monitoring, measurement, quality of product life and usage of tools & techniques. Organisations are formed to attain certain objectives. However, achievement of objectives and goals depend on performance of employees. The performance management stresses on building communication and chiefly focuses on summing up value by endorsing job performance and skill development.

Significance of performance management practices in business
Performance management is important to business. By its both informal and formal practices, it assists the company to align its employees, systems and resources to meet strategic objectives (Murdock, 2019). Organisations, which get performance management accurately, become terrifying competitive machines. It benefits the companies in several ways. Some are discussed below:

Encouraging employees reward & recognition: Recognising and rewarding employees in business can be beneficial. Meaningful recognition and reward systems can be operated only where accurate and distinct procedures of discussion and feedback exist. Continuous practice of performance management makes the management to analyse the activity, efforts important to praise and reward (Matookchund et al., 2020). In return, this encourages a mindset growth among team members. Practice of performance management in business allows the managers to look at employees on its goal or not. It assists in making them on track for personal development by providing appraisals such as bonuses, pay-rises. Ideal reward systems are immensely essential for workers' happiness.

Boosting workers engagement and productivity: Engaged workers stay longer and actively participate within the workplace and provide better results. Improvising levels of workers engagement can be a key to boost productivity & maximising ROI.Its practice provides high engagement of employees. It creates ongoing dialogue and an atmosphere of belief, trust, encouragement and support (Matookchund et al., 2020). It assists in developing relationships between company and employees. If workers are aware that leaders care about them then this would intend to perform better within the organisations. Consider an organisation where employers only speak with its employees fewly in a year about its growth. This tends to cause the employees not to get connected with the company. Thus, there is less chance to derive benefits from its employees to obtain goals and objectives of organisation (Richards et al., 2019).

Assistance in creating employability development strategy:The Performance management practices in business mean to proactively develop workers by covering its development needs. By regular catch-ups, Employers can pursue continuous improvement, as employers frequently meet with discussion on each employee's performance and development plans. With the combination of these flexible employee development objectives, an organisation can cultivate its employees' talent to attain its performance at best that will increase productivity of organisations (Richards et al., 2019).

Performance management techniques for retaining employees
Largely, the organization success depends upon its employee engagement with the task and employee retention for the loner period in the organization. The most important challenge in front of the organization is to retain its employee and upgrade their skill to contribute to the objectives of the organization (Wankhade& Kundu, 2018). In order to boost the organizational performance and the retention of the employee, the performance management technique plays a crucial role. The performance management techniques include manager training and skill enhancement for handling the employee effectively in order to enhance their productivity. The manager's interaction with the employee decides the employee's engagement level and the satisfaction in their task. The well trained and skilled manager helps the employee in overcoming the obstacles in their task. This develops the interest of the employee in the assigned task and promotes better productivity. The study has shown that the clear goals and vision of the organization create an opportunity for the employee to anticipate their career future along with the organization success. The recognition of their contribution towards the organization's objective boosts the employee's confidence and protects their integrity and dedication to the organization. The well-informed employee, through an efficient and effective communication channel, always develops emotional attachment with the organization, which is one of the important aspects of employee retention.

The reward through their achievement appraisal and the short family trip in return for their achievement is one of the important strategies of the organization to associate them for a longer period with the organization. Praising the employee publicly for their achievement and loyalty towards the organization makes them accountable and boost their moral obligation towards the company. A friendly and interactive working environment at the workplace creates positive notions amongst the employees. This affects the attitude and perception of the employee towards the organization resulting in better engagement with the organization.

Managers role in performance management feasibility
The managerial position is one of the key positions in the performance of the organization. The manager's responsibility is to formulate the framework for their immediate subordinates to create a better direction for the task objective. They are an important instrument in the vision of the organization and ensure the objective could be realized within the deadline. The responsibility of the manager is very intensely. The manager needs to constantly analyze the task and support its team to achieve the set target. In other words, the manager post is the pivot in the performance of the organization (Sinha &Matharu, 2019). The manager provides leadership and communicates effectively to the other members in order to highlight the issues. A manager is also responsible for dealing with the challenges of the various operational constraints and addressing employee dissatisfaction through a proper grievance redressal mechanism. The manager increases the feasibility of the performance by scheduling the task in a proper way and channelizing the direction for its execution in a most efficient manner.

Manager a great extent, the manager, enhances the performance feasibility through various activities that are self-created and executed beyond the regulation of the organization. The better the creativity in the manager, the better outcome could be realized by the organization.

Effectiveness of performance management strategies
The Performance management is one of the challenging fields and is evolving at a very fast rate. The performance management and its approach evolve every year with the new trend. Due to the poor performance management, the complete organizational operations gets hammered. Top-level manager to an employee, almost everyone feels demotivated and does not finds any clear and define the objective to carry out the task. Nevertheless, the organization in recent time has realized the importance of performance management with its direct influence on the organization performance (Goshu&Kitaw, 2017). Therefore, the organization is focusing more on performance management to make their business operation efficient and profit yielding.

Previously organization use to carry out their business planning stage after a gap of one year. However, the present scenario has changed due to the intense competition in the business. The result, the company involved in planning its organizational operation every trimester in order to check the competitive advantage in the business environment. This type of planning helps the organization to analyze their performance and bring necessary change into their various systems. From the year 2015, it has been witnessed that even top companies are adopting the performance management philosophy.

These major organizations previously relied on the traditional planning approach. Due to the competition, they are no0w focusing on performance management to grab the newly created opportunity in the market. The basic element of the performance management is the goal setting, effective communication, recognition of employee's achievement, regular feedback, Employee development etc (Brown et al., 2019). The goal setting allows the organization to move its business operation in the desired direction in order to achieve the objective set by the organization. A better and transparent communication mechanism allows the employee to address their concern with the organization. The constant development in employee skills helps the organization boost its production capabilities.

Application of theory
Performance management is applicable in the engagement and retention of the employee. The goal-setting theory of performance management suggests that the goal set by the individual employee play the most crucial role in achieving the objective and constantly motivating him for better performance.

Figure 1: Goal theory

Source: (Gomes, Facin&Hourneaux, 2019)

Because of this, the employee constantly engages in following the set goals. In this way, if the performance of the employee is improved, this, in turn, enhances the performance system of the entire organization (Gomes, Facin&Hourneaux, 2019). This helps the organization in creating better engagement and retention of the employee. This reduces the overall expenditure of the employee and increases its revenue collection due to the higher production efficiency.

The expectancy theory in performance management ensures a better nexus amongst the employee and the organization.

Figure 2: Expectancy theory

Source: (Brown et al., 2019)

This theory work on the hypothesis of individual adjustment in the behaviour as per the demand of the organization. The employee adjusts their behaviour and gets align themselves as per the organizational operation. This enhances the overall performance of the employee. Therefore, the application of this theory has a great role in the performance of the organization.

Literature gap
The conducted study has solely emphasised on performance management efficiency in retention, it discussed the ways benefited the company by retention and increased profitability of the concern by following some strategies. It has discussed practices, strategies, feasibility, and techniques for retaining the employees only. It failed to provide an insight on several benefits obtained by performance management in different business spheres such as tally management, budget management, better project management etc. It failed to provide the practices of performance management which is used in tally management to provide success to business and it is currently used by managers in business spheres to derive successful outcomes of performance management. Thus it is solely focused one effectiveness however there are some aspects that can be covered to have deep insight about the effectiveness of performance management. Performance management brings succession to every business spheres if properly applied.

Research methodology

Introduction
Research methodology is a significant aspect of any research work (Snyder, 2019). It is associated with providing an insight into the systematic steps and procedures taken for solving significant problems related to the research work. In the course of research study, research methodology is recognized for having an extensive scope. Research methodology is effective in allowing the readers to scrutinize the research study critically. This chapter on research methodology will provide an insight into the research approach, design of the research work, and research philosophy that will be chosen by the researcher for conducting the research work. In addition, this chapter will highlight the data collection methods, tools, and techniques of data collection that will be chosen by the researcher for conducting the research on "Investigating different performance management techniques for retaining employees: A case study of Marks and Spencer”

Research approach
Choosing the appropriate approach for research is very essential. It is helpful for analyzing the data effectively (Woiceshyn&Daellenbach, 2018). There are three kinds of research approaches. They are “deductive”, “inductive” and “abductive'' research approaches. For this research study, the researcher will choose the "deductive research approach”. The deductive approach will be chosen because it will be effective in testing the assumptions or hypotheses related to the research topic. Another factor that is behind the choosing of the deductive research approach is that the research study will focus on collecting quantitative data and this research approach is effective in measuring the quantitative concepts. In addition, this approach will help in the development of in-depth perception associated with the interrelation within the research concepts and research variables. The data collected is based on the individual experience, known theory etc.

Research design
The term research design represents the adoption of an organized and systematic approach by the researcher in order to accomplish the research work effectively and efficiently. It combines the effective and coherent integration of strategic components associated with the research work (Abutabenjeh&Jaradat, 2018). Among the four research designs, the researcher will choose "explanatory research design” for his research work. This research design will allow the researcher to conduct the research work abundantly. The current topic on the investigation of different performance and management techniques in retaining employees of Marks and Spencer has not been discussed effectively before. Therefore, this chosen research approach will enable the researcher to describe the issue in-depth.

Research philosophy
Research philosophy aims to depict the vast understanding associated with the different aspects of the research work. It is effective in enabling the researcher to identify the relevant data that will be helpful for him to conduct the research work (Ryan, 2018). For this research work, the researcher will choose “positivism research philosophy”.The utilization of this research philosophy will enable the researcher to gain an effective perception that will be based on gaining authentic knowledge. This research philosophy will allow the researcher to conduct the research work based on obtaining information.

Data collection method
For any research work, the data collection method is highly significant. The entire research is based on the collection of reliable and effective data that will fulfill the research objectives. The data collection method is recognized as the process or activity of gathering information from various available sources. For this particular research work, the researcher will choose primary data collection and the quantitative data analysis method. The main objective of choosing the primary data collection method for this research work is that it will be effective in learning about the issues faced by the employees of Marks and Spencer that are causing them to resign.

Primary data collection method:
With the helpful utilization of the primary data collection method, the researcher will collect information directly from the employees working in Marks and Spencer. For this, the researcher will conduct an online survey on the employees of Marks and Spencer. This will help in the development of the research study. The ground level employees from the stores and office staff from the UK branch will be chosen for conducting the survey. The responses of the participant will be collected and stored in the password-protected device. Only the authorised person related to the research will be allowed to use the data limited to the present research purpose. This will ensure the protection of confidential data provided by the respondents of Marks and Spencer. The authorisation will be done after contacting the organisation regarding volunteer participation for the research purpose.

Quantitative data analysis:
The researcher will choose the quantitative data analysis for conducting the research work. For this, the researcher will utilize quantitative data analysis tool such as SPSS.

Data collection tools and techniques
Data collection tools and techniques are helpful tools or instruments that help researchers to collect or obtain information (Pal, 2017). There are various tools for collecting data for research work. For this research work, the researcher will select primary data collection tools and techniques that include the instrument of the questionnaire for collecting quantitative data. In addition, the researcher will choose quantitative data analysis techniques in order to interpret the collected data effectively. The researcher will prepare online questionnaires and will send them to the employees of Marks and Spencer. In order to analyze the collected data, the researcher will utilize the "SPSS tool” for data analysis.

Sample size and techniques
In order to conduct the research work and collect data effectively, the researcher will conduct a survey on 100 employees of Marks and Spencer. These 100 people will be selected based on their experience level as well as from various job roles. A comprehensive message sent to them with all the details of the survey along with the objective of the survey. Around 90 responses anticipated and the maximum number of respondents would be 85 in order to carry out the study. Simple random sampling will be used to select the participants from M&S. With the helpful utilization of surveys, the researcher will be effective in obtaining authentic and reliable data from the participants. The researcher will prepare closed-ended questions for the employees. For preparing the questions the researcher will utilize "Google form". The prepared questions will be mailed to the employees directly to their official mail-ids. The employees will answer the questions and will send them back to the researcher. This will help the researcher to gain effective information that will help him in accomplishing the research work. In the survey participant has been asked to provide their own opinion in order to record more effective and relevant data for the research purpose.

Plan of work

Figure 3: Gantt chart

(Source: Created by the researcher)

Ethical consideration
Ethical consideration is recognized to be one of the most crucial aspects of research work. Ethical consideration allows the researcher to conduct the research without violating the research norms and maintain the validity and authentication of the research work (Dooly, Moore & Vallejo, 2017). In this respect, the researcher will follow principles related to ethical consideration of the research work and will ensure in producing bias-free results. The researcher will not influence the participants involved in the survey in order to follow research ethics. In addition, he will maintain the authenticity and the reliability of the collected data will not be misinterpreted any manner. The researcher will keep the personal information and identity of the participants private and will not disclose the personal information without their formal consent. By signing the ethics form and respondent’s participative forms, the survey will be started. The respondents will be ensured regarding their privacy.

• Any participant will not be forced to conduct the survey
• Transparency is required to be maintained by the researcher
• The data protection and avoiding the utilisation of data for another purpose is necessary.
• A proper guideline and clear communication about the survey would help in assuring the participants that their privacy is protected.
• The participant will have choice to provide specific information or not
• No sensitive data or question will not be used.

References
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Appendices

Appendix 1: Survey questionnaires

Q1. Gender

• Male
• Female
• Others

Q2. Age

• Under 25
• 26 to 35
• 36 to 45
• Above 45

Q3. Years of experiences

• Less than 6 months
• 6 months to 2 years
• 3 years to 5 years
• More than 5 years

Q4. Is Marks and Spencer successful to measure performance of employees?

• Yes
• No
• Maybe

Q5. Are you motivated and satisfied working in the company?

• Yes
• No
• Maybe

Q6. How far do you agree that Marks and Spencer successfully retains their employees?

• Strongly agreed
• Agreed
• Neural
• Disagreed
• Strongly disagreed

Q7. What techniques Marks and Spencer use to measure the performance?

• training and skill enhancement
• Performance Management Software
• Peer Reviews
• Rewards and incentives
• Others

Q8. How far do you believe in performance management to affect employee retention?

• Strongly agreed
• Agreed
• Neural
• Disagreed
• Strongly disagreed