Question

You have recently accepted a position as Human Resource Director for Jupiter Industries, a multi-national organization operating across 5 business segments, specifically, industrial valves and controls, plastics, fire suppression equipment, electronic components, and specialized medical products. Jupiter Industries has established worldwide headquarters in Bremen, Germany, and has groups located in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Pacific Rim countries. The MENA group is the most recently formed division within the Jupiter organization, and is composed of various concentric businesses that fit into one of the five organizational business segments, all of which have been acquired over the past two years in both the Middle East region (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Bahrain, and Jordan) as well as North Africa (Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria). You will be working at the MENA headquarters located in Manama, Bahrain and will be responsible for all divisions located in the MENA (Middle East, North Africa) region. You will report directly to the VP of Operations in Manama, with dotted-line reporting responsibility to Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) in Bremen.

Specifically, you are being tasked with establishing Human Resource policy and practice in regard to strategic collaboration with divisional heads, utilizing HRIS systems in addressing areas such as recruitment and retention, training and development, performance management programs, compensation management, employee benefit programs and employee relations, including motivational programs, incentive programs, and disciplinary procedures. You will be working on policies and procedures that can be utilized throughout the region, to bring some semblance of order and uniformity in dealing with strategic HR employee programs.

After a thoughtful review of current HR programs for the region, you will prepare a report for the VP of Operations and CHRO and distribute to all division heads, formulating your HR strategic goals across all HR areas of responsibility, highlighting recommendations for improving the overall impact of these programs on talent management initiatives including attraction and retention of top talent and the methodologies used to do so.

This report will be inclusive of all Human Resource functions and provide both strategic and operational goals of the desired outcomes and, the means or “how” to reach these deliverables.

In regard to performance management, describe your plans for setting up a management-by-objectives program, detailing the steps of the program, how to secure both employee buy-in as well as management participation, and what the advantages are to the company, the line manager, and to the employee utilizing such a program. Explain the importance of the performance review (appraisal), how often you recommend they be conducted, and what topics of discussion should be included in the performance meeting

Answer 1

Answer:

In regard to performance management, describing our plans for setting up a management-by-objectives program, such that the business will develop the objectives. These objectives will be for the business, then individual departments will develop their own objectives which will be supporting the business objectives. Thus the work plan of the senior management and leader will be with respect to the business objective and departmental work plans will also be made in-line with the departmental objectives. Thus we can see that the management by objective approach is adapted and all the business leader, manager and employee have their work plans which are supporting the business objectives. Thus this is the way for implementing the management by objective approach in the business.

The approach of developing work plan with respect to the business objective and departmental work plan with respect to the departmental objective will help to secure both employee buy-in as well as management participation, in the implementation of management by objective process in the business. Both employee and management have got their buying by following their work plan with respect to the business objectives.

The advantages are to the company, the line manager, and to the employee utilizing such a program is that it will drive the organization energy in one direction which will help the organization to gain the business targets and achieve the desire financial outcome for future growth of the organization. This will create the right synergy at the organization and aligning all the efforts in one direction.

The importance of the performance review (appraisal) is that it will help to make the assessment of the employee with strength and weakness demonstrated in the current performing period. Thus the employee manager will be one the same page and will list out the accomplished achievements and areas of improvement where the employee can work in next period and manager can plan training or coach for employee improvements. These should be conducted on six monthly basis. So that employee and manager can get enough time period to judge and make recommendations for each other. The topics of discussion should be included in the performance meeting is the work plan – plan vs actual result, strength demonstrated by employee, weakness observed, individual development plan , career aspiration, future role interest etc.