Alibaba HRM Performance Management Policy

1           Background of Case

Optus has been chosen as the case study organization, which is the second largest telecommunication company of Australia and is the wholly owned subsidiary of Singtel. Optus manages number of other subsidiary brands, and it offers services to end users as well as to other service providers by being whole seller. Company has more than 10,000 employees and policy area that has been chosen to implement in Optus is of performance management. The underlying report details information on policy analysis and policy development.

2           Policy Analysis

2.1         Internal & External issues analysis

2.1.1        Internal Analysis of Optus

The mission of Optus is to ensure that communication is made easy, faster and reliable for customers, by providing them updated technology solutions. Optus is aimed to deliver high value to its customers and other stakeholders by overcoming any barriers in the way of communication and by promoting vision of connected Australia. The values of Optus are to create sense of unity among its people through creation of a performance based culture. Engagement, mutual trust and innovation are all regarded as important values for Optus.

The culture of Optus supports diversity and ensures that equal treatment is offered to all employees belong from diverse background. Team based structure is being followed in Optus, where individuals are encouraged to work in small teams and their contribution in decision making is encouraged. Ethicality and social responsibility makes up core of company’s strategy and for being a responsible corporate citizen, Optus focuses on four areas, including; environment, people, community and marketplace and customers. The creation of shared value is the key focus of sustainability strategy of Optus.

The role of human resources is highly appreciated in business strategy of Optus, as any innovative solution is delivered through human resources of the organization (Bianchi, 2016). Optus has large number of employees, who are from diverse backgrounds and hold diverse set of personal values. Although, strong values are being held by company regarding promotion of performance based work culture, yet it has been found that turnover rate is high for Optus. High turnover rate indicates that Optus has not successfully implemented its value of creating workplace culture that promotes commitment and high work performance (Briscoe and Schuler, 2004). Additionally, over the past years, Optus has also outsourced some of its call centers, whereby outsourcers provide services of 800 people. In spite of recruiting additional staff repeatedly and incurring high training cost, Optus needs to work on its performance management system and to link with reward policies and employee development programs. It will enhance employee satisfaction and will most likely lower employee turnover, which is one of the significant internal issue faced by the company.

2.1.2        External Analysis

In order to work effectively Optus needs to consider input from its external environment, such that internal practices can be improved to seek compliance with regulations and other factors. Guidelines of Work Safe Australia are highly important with regard to management of human resources, whereby employees’ wellbeing, safety, workplace surveillance and anti-discrimination are addressed. These aspects are well addressed by Optus and it is assured that wellbeing of workforce is regarded as key priority of business.

Additionally, economy of Australia is much stable and is developing, which provides substantial prospects of growth to Optus. Qualified workforce is aspired to be hired by the organizations which offer them prospects of developing and have competing culture. By making reliance on right set of HR practices, and by offering growth prospects to employees, retention can be encouraged by the organization. With respect to prevailing social values, the concern of work life balance has emerged among workplace. Employees preferred to be empowered and develop commitment towards organizations which protect their right and assess their performance in fair manner. Optus needs to respond to these trends with an aim of assuring that through effective performance evaluation of workforce, they are provided with fair growth prospects.  

Finally, the growing urge of consumers to use rapid and fast internet and networking services, has created hustle among competitors to innovate continuously. The competition is getting intense within industry and in order to remain competitive, businesses within this industry are needed to develop its human resources, which are key source of competitive advantage (Van Waeyenberg and Decramer, 2018).

2.2         High priority issues

The most important internal issue is that performance of employees is not up to the desired standards and rate of turnover is high for Optus. The cost of new hiring and training and development puts high burden on financial resources of Optus and there is need to create high performance work culture, where retention of staff can be increased. The important high priority issue from external environment is about the demand of qualified and knowledgeable applicants to work for organization that has competing workplace culture, better prospects of growth and well development performance management system that is further aligned with reward system and developmental plans. Additionally, another high priority external issue is associated with competition which is becoming intense with every passing day and in order to reach the standards of high performance, Optus needs to redevise its performance management system, such that breakthrough innovation can be encouraged through excellent performance of its people.

2.3         Policy problem

The existing human resource management policy of Optus is although well developed, yet there are few gaps in performance management policy of the company. For instance, the performance of employees is rated on annual basis, yet it is not linked well with reward management and employee development programs. The two way communication during the performance management system is not appreciated by Optus and formal review of performance is provided to employees, without appreciating voice of employees. It is mentioned by Sharma, Sharma and Agarwal (2016) that recognition and investment in development opportunities for employees are two key outcomes of performance management which are likely to enhance satisfaction and retention of employees. Therefore, the new performance management policy will make several adjustments in existing appraisal policy.

3            Policy Development

3.1         Overview

An effective performance management policy is aimed to provide clear understanding to all employees regarding the expectations of management about their performance (Schleicher et al., 2018). When employees are provided continuous feedback based on well formulated performance management system, then they seek understanding of how they perform relative to the performance goals (Kuvaas, Buch and Dysvik, 2016). The performance which will not meet expectations of management, will be clearly communicated to employees with an aim of bringing improvement. The focus will be on assessing the employee performance, such that any development opportunities are recognized and rewards are effectively distributed. Overall, the performance management policy is aimed to ensure that input of employees is encouraged in their career progression and criteria of rewarding and recognizing employees is agreed upon by them in advance. In order to encourage high level of employee performance, the performance management system is needed to be carefully explained and communicated to all employees (Gerrish, 2016).

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