Question

C & S Department Store is the second largest clothing and retail store chain in Jamaica. At present, they have 5 clothing and retail stores in all 14 parishes and are planning to expand to 7 stores per parish in the next 3 years. C & S Department Store has a centralized Human Resource Department located at its main office in Kingston. Unfortunately, although the HR processes are managed centrally, there are many HR tasks, policies and procedures that are controlled by the clothing and retail store managers or by the lead parish manger in each parish. Currently, the HR management processes are using Excel spreadsheet to compile reports from various parish Headquarters and stores. This task is being performed by a team of HR executives at its main office in Kingston.

Simone Coram is the Senior HR Manager of C & S Department Store and has discovered various administrative and HR issues with the clothing and retail store sites. Due to high focus on sales revenue and stores profitability, Retail Store Managers have difficulties in managing the stores in the areas of staff attendance, discipline and critical HR practices.

The fundamental emphasis and foundation of C & S Department Store has been centered on always maintaining the highest standards of customer service and for that reason they are in direct contact with customers at each and every Department Store. What sets C & S Department apart is a commitment to exceeding expectations making it one of their unique selling points. Giving excellent customer service is one of the main reasons why their customers choose C & S Department Store and why they keep coming back.

Imperatively, the entity’s strategy is purposed towards employing the ideal candidate for both their part-time and full-time sales associates with the capacity and proficiency to grow and hone their skills for prospective advanced position within the organization. Presently, the store managers for three (3) of C&S Department Store have made the announcement that they plan to retire within the next 18 to 24 month. These three managers have insisted that they will not remain in their position beyond this particular point.

A team of HR internal auditors has conducted a study and identified that there are irregularities in the staff attendance data both at the retail stores and regional offices. Sometimes many of the staff did not sign the attendance register or signed intermittently. During the HR audit, it was discovered that some staff signed the attendance register only at the end of the day. Further, sometimes staff signed the register and then left their post. There was also no mechanism to track the leave data of employees. Employees did not know their exact leave data. At the end of the year it was revealed that some employees have taken excess leave while some employees worked incessantly, creating frustration among staff.

There was also no standardization in the reports between head office, regional offices and the retail stores and this created discrepancies. HR provided a set of excel sheets and paper-based forms to help store managers maintain data. However, many store managers used and made unique formats of reports making it difficult to collate the reports. The data thus collated had to be verified over again and again, as there was a tendency for errors to emerge.

This discrepancy has caused a significant issue in salary. HR and attendance data were used to generate data for payroll. As there were many discrepancies in HR data and reports, this created several salary discrepancies and caused numerous issues among the employees, thus lowering employee satisfaction rate and affecting the employee morale.

Training and communication have become a major issue at C & S Department Store. As the company was growing at a fast pace, training employees on various HR procedures and policies was becoming increasingly difficult. Thus line managers took decisions based on their previous experience or personal insights and created unnecessary hassles that required HR intervention.

The staff turnover in two (2) key departments of Marketing and Accounts was running at 90%. Estimated cost of staff turnover - including overtime, loss of revenue, loss of skills, training time and management time to replace a staff member – is equivalent to approximately $3,000 per position thus costing the business around $500,000 per year.

Human Resource Management focuses on matching the needs of the business with the needs and development of employees and as such you are required to answer the following questions based on the scenario represented above

Question 1:

4. As Ms. Coram, you have suggested the implementation of a Management by Objectives method to improve the performance management system at C & S Department Store. Justify the use of this method to assist the company in meeting its performance standards. Explain five (5) factors that the team should take into consideration before implementing the MBO.

Answer 1

As there are a number of issues being faced by the employers such as staff turnover, it is advisable to implement Management by Objectives. Management by Objectives refers to planned or calculated management model, created with an aim to improve the performance of an organization or business by clearly stating objectives that are agreed by management as well as employees. Use of this model encourages participation as well as commitment from the employees’ end. The objectives laid out are challenging but are achievable as well.

The factors that the team should take into consideration before implementing MBO are as follows :

1. Support of Top Management : The support of top management is the most important factor that not only motivates the employees but also helps them in achieving their goals. If top management shows a sense of belonging towards the employees of the organization, it firms their faith towards the top management and company/organization as a whole.

2. Clear and Defined Goals : The goals laid down by the management for the employees must be clearly understandable as it would ensure that the efforts of the employees are directed towards the concerned direction. If there is vagueness in the goal-setting procedure, it would not be advantageous and would lead to waste of time, efforts and money.

3. Decentralization of Authority : Decentralization refers to transfer of authority/power from top position to lower positions. If the tasks given to subordinates are challenging, they should be given adequate authority in order to accomplish such challenging tasks. Otherwise, the employees/ subordinates would resist and not welcome new assignments whole-heartedly.

4. Training of Employees : Training is an integral part of every single employee’s professional life. It also gives a feeling that the organization is concerned towards its employees and wishes to work on their professional as well as personal growth and development. They should be trained what methods and tools to use in order to achieve the pre-set or pre-defined goals.

5. Modification of Goals : No business operates in the same static environment for a long time. Due to the dynamic nature of the markets, the goals must be revised and modified as per the new environment. This is so because the new goals would help the employees in broadening their area of expertise. Moreover, employees won’t become lazy and lethargic, which they could become if they do routine work on a daily basis.