RESPONSES
Each peer response should be a minimum of 100 words, and use a minimum of one academic source (outside of the textbook) to support answer/response.
PROMPT #1: Learning Outcomes:
• Evaluate the relative merits of a variety of human resources interventions such as organizational development, succession and workforce planning, strategic staffing, diversity training, cultural change, and rewards and recognition redesign.
• Demonstrate how to design, develop, and implement effective HR policies and programs.
You are hired as a consultant to help identify potential managers among current employees at a fast-food restaurant. The manager's job is to help wait on customers and prepare food during busy times, oversee all aspects of restaurant operations, and motivate employees to provide high-quality service. The manager is also responsible for resolving disputes between employees. The position can be stressful and involves multi-tasking. Outline the type of assessment program you believe will do the best job of identifying employees who will be successful managers. Discuss why you feel this program will be effective and how an employee's current job can be changed to develop management skills.
#1 Response
I work for an organization that focus on the current individuals who hold leadership positions and not improving or investing in the individuals who exhibit the potential or interest to become leaders. I feel if my organization would utilize one of the assessment programs, they could identify individuals suited for leadership or other higher positions. Assessments may be performed by HR or managers to help predict how employees would perform in the future (Penn, n.d.). Assessments will help employees understand a little bit about themselves as well their needs, work environment they fit in and the type of work they strive in.
For this scenario I would follow along the line of what an assessment center would do. There would be leaderless group discussions, interviews, in-basket, and role-play. A leaderless group discussion would involve a group of employees that are required to work together to solve a problem within a certain time frame. I believe in these situations the employees who have potential to become leaders will exhibit it through the discussion of solving the problem. Interviews would be conducted to gather more information about employees, things like career plan, where their strengths are, the weakness they have and need to develop on and their current job. In-basket exercise is conducted because it allows the employees to step into the role of the manager with having an "in-basket" where assignments to be completed would be placed. This assessment is used mainly to see how employees would prioritize the work by putting more tasks on the table than can be completed (Roberts, 2017). This is an opportunity for employees to shine and show off their skills. Role-play is just how is sounds, an employee would be placed in the manager role to see how they would handle various situations.
I feel utilizing the different tests that an assessment center would administer would help to give a broader picture and allow employees the chance to show their strengths and skills through multiple tests. The test would also help the employees to develop upon themselves, which can be applied to their current position. The tests would also teach employees what it takes to be a leader so they can take the teachings and apply it to their current role and work to become a leader. Assessments could tell an organization if employees are capable of fulfilling a leadership role and what skill sets they hold (Penn, n.d.).
References
Penn, S. (n.d). Types of Assessments Used by Human Resources Department.
Roberts, M. (2017, June 5). The In-Basket Exercise.
#2 Response
A manager of any organization is someone who can wear many hats and (hopefully control their emotions). I was reading an article from thebalance.com and they identified the manager as the "plate spinner at the circus" (Reh), I thought this was a very and accurate way of describing a manager. After reading chapter 8 in our text I found that the graphic rating scale would be the best and least expensive fit to rate a potential manager at a fast food restaurant. In this setting it is important to think about the cost and the average turnover in a fast food restaurant. "Employee churn especially challenging in restaurants, with industry averages for turnover at 30% for managers and 114% for hourly employees" (Morgan) I find that rating many different topics numerically and then adding up the overall number is decent way to judge overall performance in a fast-food environment. The way the graphic rating scale works is that you have categories called ‘performance dimensions' and the are the following: knowledge, communication, judgment, managerial skill, quality performance, teamwork, interpersonal skills, initiative, creativity, and problem solving. Then you have the rating scales that very from: Distinguished (5), excellent (4), commendable (3), adequate (2), poor (1). You then rate the employee accordingly. This has come with some skepticism and employers must be careful when choosing the exact performance dimensions but I fell it does a great job at a low cost, identifying assessment. While I think that having this assessment take place is important for a fast food company to take into consideration, it is also important to base some of the decision on your gut feeling of the employee. I saw a quote in the Harvard Business Review that is titled " Hire for attitude, train for skill" (Taylor). I feel that this is an important motto to follow in any business. You must have individuals who want to put in the effort, and individuals who care about being present in work. When discussing the current of the employee and how they can develop more management skills its important to stat small, start adding more responsibilities one at a time and see how the react/develop. Overtime you can rate how well they perform to the new task and eventually it will be a natural fit into a position.
Taylor, Bill. "Hire for Attitude, Train for Skill." Harvard Business Review, 23 July 2014, hbr.org/2011/02/hire-for-attitude-train-for-sk.
Moran, Greg. "10 Steps to Restaurant Recruiting Success [Infographic]." Toast: Restaurant Point of Sale & Restaurant Management System, pos.toasttab.com/blog/restaurant-recruiting.
Reh, F. John. "Understanding the Role and Responsibilities of Today's Manager." The Balance, www.thebalance.com/what-is-a-manager-2276096.
#3 Response
When choosing a new manager for the company, it is very important to make sure to pick the right person for the job. This may not always be a straightforward decision, and it is important to determine exactly what criteria you will be looking for. Of course each industry varies, but there are most definitely some key aspects that any business should desire for the individuals that they place in managerial roles. So, exactly who should get promoted? Let's discuss a few important aspects that should be considered for this particular management role in the fast-food industry.
The most promotable employees are the ones that are going above and beyond. They are essentially doing more than just meeting the job expectations. These employees have the numbers to back them up. In this way, it is helpful to have some sort of way of tracking them along the way. Perhaps a spreadsheet that keeps track of things such as customer feedback, etc. With this, you would be able to see patterns as they occur. This will help to find those employees that are on the right path for a promotion. These sort of employees usually don't always clock out right at 5pm (Augustine, 2017). It is important to take note of the employees that jump in to help with urgent situations, or are willing to skip breaks to help out when needed. That being said, it's always important for employees to take breaks, but you can easily identify the ones that make their work a priority through this too.
I firmly believe that it is very important to seek out the employees that voice solutions as opposed to complaints. This shows a level of maturity and responsibility within their job role. This would tell me that this individual is capable of handling problems that come their way, without grumbling, pitching a fit, or causing drama. This is definitely a characteristic that I would like to see in a management or leadership position. As management leads, the employees will follow. If you have a manager with a bad attitude, it is likely that the rest of the team will have that same attitude as well. The same holds true for the opposite, and when you have a manager with a positive attitude, chances are that the team will emulate that same outlook as well. I would also search for employees that seek out knowledge, ask for feedback, and who are willing to discuss their career advancement.
Although it may seem like a waste of time to sort through the internal hiring process, I believe that it is very important to do so. If we do not follow the correct process, we may not choose the best candidate. When this sort of situation happens, we can undermine team morale, which can be very detrimental for the business team (Ladimeji, 2015). I have unfortunately seen this happen in a company that I worked for several years. Choosing the best person for the position is so very important for the long term success of the business.
Augustine, Avery (2017). Who Should Get Promoted? The Ultimate Guide for Managers. The Muse.
Ladimeji, Kazim (2015). Who Should Get Promoted? 4 Signs of a Promotion-Ready Employee. Recruiter.
#4 Response
If I was hired as a consultant to help identify potential managers among current employees at a fast-food restaurant I would use the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) because it identifies how people feel about energy, importation, decision making and lifestyle which are all important factors to be successful in this position. I would also watch firsthand the way the current employees handle stressful situations, their overall work ethic and devotion to their job as well as experience and past behaviors. Additionally, I would hold random role play assessments in which I would send in a secret shopper to test the patience of potential candidate and see how they react when pushed to their limits. I think the best way to see if a potential candidate can handle tasks like these is by firsthand experience. There are many different issues that arise in fast food restaurants because you are dealing with many different people and personalities in small amounts of time, It is important to make sure that the manager that you hire is able to function professionally and efficiently regardless of the stressful circumstances they are surrounded with, It is also important that they are able to make sound judgements and act fast in detrimental situations and at the same time obey all of the rules set forth by the corporation. This will be effective because it puts candidates to the test with hands on situations. An employee's current job can be changed to develop their skills by adding on managerial responsibilities slowly and gradually to see if they are able to handle it properly. Based on their progress additional managerial roles can be added to their work load until they are able to demonstrate that they can handle everything that the managerial position requires them to handle.
#5 Response
In order to ensure sustainability of an organization, it is a prudent idea to have a program in place to replace managers to limit gaps or leadership vacuums within an organization. It is the responsibility of those in leadership to mentor the manager in facilitating and maintaining the program which should be in line with an organization policy (Sanghi, 2016). I believe the 360-degree feedback assessment would be an effective tool to spot potential leaders in an organization. Through the program performance appraisal, the organization identifies potential leaders who are supposed to push the organization to attain the desired vision. The strength of an employee is identified through the program in such that it is the possible to note what interest an employee may exhibit or has verbally stated their passion. Once a passion has been identified, it is possible to realign the employee identified with the leadership position researched (Church, Fleck, Foster, Levine, Lopez & Rotolo, 2016).
The program will be effective to ensure employees are identified through their strength and weaknesses. An organization can start offering tasks to employees through leadership roles. Thus, the employee will be able to undertake the challenges to steer the organization and attain their roles positively, as well as assisting the current manager's stress (Church et al., 2016). It is the best platform to attract employees to the goals the company desires, hence a motivating platform. As program leaders will be able to communicate with junior employees, hence learning from them as well through training on leadership roles and what they ought to do.
Appraisal format will be able to motivate employees to work hard, therefore the organization productivity increases in the long run. Employees will be able to focus on core goals while undertaking various tasks so that they can attain leadership roles and enhance accountability (Sanghi, 2016).
Church, A. H., Fleck, C. R., Foster, G. C., Levine, R. C., Lopez, F. J., & Rotolo, C. T. (2016). Does purpose matter? The stability of personality assessments in organization development and talent management applications over time. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 52(4), 450-481.
Sanghi, S. (2016). The handbook of competency mapping: understanding, designing and implementing competency models in organizations (3rd Ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
#6 Response
A fast-food restaurant manager is one of the most important employees. The manager plays a variety of roles including helping wait on customers, preparing food during busy times and controlling all restaurant operations including scheduling of shifts, conducting on-the-job training, and overseeing the purchase of food. With the manager playing these important roles, it is important to choose the best qualified manager to run the restaurant. Employee performance appraisal, employee personality assessment, and employee feedback present some of the ways of choosing the best suited candidate for the managerial position.
The first task when selecting a candidate for the managerial position will be employee assessment. Assessment will also help identify candidates with managerial potential by looking into their strengths and weakness as individuals and as team players. One of the tools I will use for employee assessment is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The test will help assess whether an employee is introverted or extroverted, their information gathering ability (intuition vs. sensing), their decision making capabilities (thinking vs. feeling) as well as their life-style (judging versus perceptive). This will help pick the best candidate in terms of their interpersonal relationships, leadership style and team building (Cascio, 2016).
Secondly, I will conduct an employee performance appraisal which is the process through which I will measure the employees' performance. I will use several methods up to but not limited to ranking employees in terms of their performance, rating their work -related behavior, traits and performance at work. To efficiently implement this process, I will give the employees my expectations and give them specific instructions on tasks I want accomplished and how I want them executed. This method is important as it also results in employee development as I will suggest ways in which they can improve their performance (Boswel & Boudreau, 2002).
Thirdly, I will also engage the employees through upward feedback. Fundamentally, this process entails appraising employee performance by collecting information on their behavior, abilities and skills from other employees in this case junior staff members who are not being considered for the managerial position. This will help identify employees who are team players and who the junior employees believe in.
Lastly, I will employ the 360-degree feedback process to assess the employee. The 360-degree feedback is a performance appraisal process which entails the collection of information and evaluations from "all around the employee" (360). It will entail gathering information from junior employees, counterparts, the clients, as well as the potential candidates for the managerial position (Noe et.al. 2005). The 360-degree feedback process will help get a comprehensive picture on the performance of the potential candidate from all the people the selected candidate will be working with hence effective in selecting the best candidate.
In conclusion, a restaurant manager is one of the most important employees. Accordingly, this calls for a careful selection of the ideal candidate because the manager plays some of the most crucial roles in the restaurant. To pick the best candidate, one needs to employee a variety of processes in order to pick the best candidate. Merit will be based on employee personality, their performance and what other people think about the said candidates. With these three elements, I will not only be able to get the best candidate, I will also be able to improve the employee's performance by setting standards I want met by the candidate.
References
Boswell, W. R., & Boudreau, J. W. (2002). Separating the developmental and evaluative performance appraisal uses. Journal of business and psychology, 16(3), 391-412.
Cascio, W. F. (2016). Managing human resources. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Noe Raymond, A., John, R., Barry, G., & Patrick, M. (2005). Human Resource Management: Gaining A Competitive Advantage.
#7 Response
It is essential to invest in the development of employees as it allows them to become more productive and perform at higher levels (McCarthy, 2017). Employee development helps with recruiting and retaining employees allowing managers to focus on their tasks with support from employees (McCarthy, 2017). When addressing the process of identifying employees who will be successful managers, role playing is a very good assessment program (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart & Wright, 2017). Role-playing involves an employee taking the role of a manager at an assessment center to practice management duties (Noe et al., 2017). Some of the management duties utilized include: giving performance reviews to subordinates, meetings with various individuals, performing employee assessments, and solving conflicts (Noe et al., 2017). By practicing these management duties with role play, an employee can learn more about what will be expected of them while the manager is evaluating their ability to handle situations.
Interview role plays can be effective to help employees learn how managers are trained to solve problems, make decisions, be assertive, and improve reasoning skills (University of Kent, 2017). Role playing can be completed in an interview format, group format, or other exercises to determine if employees can handle difficult situations (University of Kent, 2017). I believe role play is very effective as it helps employees to see what it would be like to work as a manager and helps to further explain difficult situations that may occur. In order to transition an employee into management, it may be beneficial to start giving the employee an additional duty every few weeks that has a management component to it and evaluate how well they are doing with the new responsibility. It is beneficial to use a transition period for employees prior to offering a full management position to ensure that the expectations of the employee and their manager are met in the process. Many different types of assessment programs can be beneficial, but role playing provides the employee and the manager with a chance to assess the new position and the changes that will be made to the employee's current role.
McCarthy, D. (2017, September 18). 10 powerful ways to develop your employees.
Noe, R. A., Hollenbeck, J. R., Gerhart, B., & Wright, P. M. (2017). Human resource management gaining a competitive advantage (10th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.University of Kent. (2017). Role playing interviews.
#8 Response
The book states that there are four approaches that can be used in order to develop great employees. The approaches are assessment, formal education, job experiences, and interpersonal relationships. (Noe, 2017). And I will be talking about assessments centers that fall into the assessment approach.
I came to the conclusion that the best way to find the best people for the company that potentially will become great managers would be by using the "assessment center", this includes many exercises where the employee will be put to the test and many evaluations by certain evaluators. When it comes to the assessment centers, it can identify employees with many skills, some people can be talented in administration, human resources, and interpersonal skills needed for managerial jobs. Also, by using this, we will find out if this person is good to work with teams, this is where teamwork is something this employee likes or not. I would also use the leaderless group discussion, where I would put all the candidate together, give them a problem and see how they solve it, however, it has to be done together, as a team in a period of time given by me. The problem can be anything, from creating a product, a case study, etc.
Role plays would be very useful since I would like to see how the employees perform as a manager in real examples, this would show me and forecast how the person will perform with the new position. Personality test something I always consider, since I would like to see people's judgment, how the handling stress or their oral and written communication. John Buelow says that "When your team role-plays, you can throw any number of situations at them. Role-playing provides a safe environment to encounter these scenarios for the first time, which builds confidence in team members that can help them in their day-to-day roles." (Buelow, 2014), so that is another reason why role play is important, we want managers to be confident of what they do all the time.
I believe this program would be perfect to find the right candidate, it is not as easy as an interview, but with the assessment center, it will take more than that to earn a position as a manager, so the strongest one will survive so to speak. I believe that anyone can learn how to be a manager if the person is taught the right way, if someone who was just a regular employee or a supervisor wants to be manager, we as upper management should guide them and help this person to develop management skills, examples such as job enrichment, or shadow work can help the person to develop these skills. Miranda Brookins states "Job enrichment gives employees a chance to stay in their current roles, but experience a greater depth of responsibility through enhanced tasks." (Brookins, 2016). We can see here that an employee can still do his or her jobs while getting some manager duties (acting manager) in that way this person is learning and developing managerial skills.
Work Cited
Buelow, J. (2014, February 06). 3 Benefits of Making Role-Play Part of Training.
Brookins, M. (2016, June 9). Job Rotation & Job Enrichment Examples.
Noe (2017). Approaches to Employee Development. Human Resource Management 10th Edition, p.384. McGraw-Hill Publishing Company.