Performance Management

Managing the performance of your staff is essential to make sure they are working efficiently and effectively. By effectively managing the performance of your staff you are ensuring that they are working to the best of their abilities; saving both time and money.

At the Co-operative we have regular meetings with our managers to discuss performance. These meetings are often one to one with the manager which allows two way communication between the members of staff and the manager. The meetings cover a few different topics to make sure everything is running efficiently.

The manager can asses each member of staffs performance individually to ensure that staff members are happy and are working to the best of their ability. They then use the meetings to give feedback to each member of staff. The manager can then have a discussion with each member of staff about their performance; allowing any issues to arise.

The manager can then set new targets and goals for each member of staff to make sure they're working to the best of their ability; increasing performance. These targets can be set individually so it relates directly to the member of staff.

My meeting with the manager allowed me to discuss my performance and allowed him to set me new goals or targets. As this was a one to one meeting, my manager could set goals and targets that were individual to me and not to the whole staffing team. This meant that I could work towards my own goals and increase my performance.

These meetings are effective at managing the performance of staff because they can deal with any issues staff might have that prevents them from working to the best of their ability. They can also encourage members of staff to work harder and achieve goals that are individual to them along with goals for the whole staffing team. The meetings also take place several times a year which makes them more effective because it gives both the manager and staff up to date information and new goals to work towards; increasing motivation and performance.


Mentor

To be an effective mentor I think that interpersonal skills are definitely required. Without interpersonal skills the mentor would find it very hard to communicate and interact effectively with their mentee. Having good interpersonal skills as a mentor would allow them to listen to their mentee and understand and offer ideas to how to solve any problems their mentee may have. Without interpersonal skills, the mentor would find it hard to communicate effectively with their mentee and would be useless at offering ideas and advice.

Also, to be an effective mentor, some experience is required. Without experience, the mentor would have to base all their decisions and advise on the information the mentee has given them. This means that if the mentor has interpreted the information incorrectly, they might give their mentee incorrect advice or information. With experience, the mentor can use what they have learnt over the years to help their mentee; making their judgements and advice a lot more useful.

I believe that an effective mentor doesn't need experience in the specific area that the mentee is working towards because skills learnt on the job can be transferred and used from lots of different areas. This means that although experience is required to be an effective mentor, the experience can be from a different area to the mentee as they can still give advise and guide their mentee. (Simpson, 2012)


My Mentor

When setting up my first business idea in 2009, I was helping out at a local youth club. The youth leader at the time was Ben Dale. He sat down with me and we discussed different aspects of the business which I could improve on such as running different events for different age groups and the financial side of the business. Ben Dale had been running events for youths of all different age groups so he had lots of experience in this area. This meant he could give me effective advice and guide me through setting up some events. We would then meet up periodically to discuss how the business was running and discussed how it could be improved.

Having Ben as a mentor helped me a lot because he had experience in the area of business I was trying to set up. He gave me advice and helped me to set up my business. He thought of different aspects of the business which I had previously over looked and gave a second opinion.

Ben has had a positive impact on my life because he has taught me some valuable skills in setting up a business. His skills and knowledge helped me set up my own business and has taught me lessons for the future.


Conclusion

In conclusion, I believe that the Co-operative, although they set up frequent meetings with the manager to assess performance, they do not do enough in the way of rewarding the staff for their hard work and keeping up their performance.

Mentors are a great way to increase your own knowledge and skills. They help you and give you advice about subjects you may know little about. But, for a mentor be effective, both the mentee and mentor must have good interpersonal skills. Without them mentors would not be able to communicate effectively. This means that advise and guidance they give may be ineffective.


References

Simpson, M. (2012) Performance Management. Bucks New University.