Jay Healy
P5,M3 & D2
P5
The most common measurement that
Whitbread use to monitor their employees performances are with performance indicators.
Performance indicators are used to evaluate the success of a particular activity within the
business. Therefore, to help the manager of each department to manage the employees
that is within their span of control, they will use performance indicators to monitor the
performance of their employees. This could be through using key performance indicators
to measure the work rate of the department as a whole or to measure the quality of the
work being produced by staff members within different departments of Whitbread. These
key performance indicators will show the manager whether or not that department as a
whole is either succeeding or failing in terms of progress and achievement. If the
department is failing, the mangers will be able to use the information that they have
received via these indicators and use this information to help them make a decision of
what needs to be done in order to get the department to succeed again.
Another way that Whitbread measure performance is by putting its employees on
probation which they will do throughout all of the businesses they own. When new
employees join Whitbread they will be put on a probation for 3 months which allows
Whitbread to assess how well new employees are coping with their new job. Probation
requires weekly chats where questions will be asked where the answers given will tell
Whitbread what department the employee feels most comfortable and uncomfortable in.
Also targets will be set, these targets will usually be related to the job role and will be a
good indicator whether or not they are competent worker or not. If after every weekly
chat they are progressively getting better and feeling more comfortable then they will
most likely then take them off probation; if this employee is still a bit edgy after 3 months
Whitbread will most likely get rid of them.
Smart targets are also used to help employees meet the requirements for their specific
job. One of the main beliefs for Whitbread try to provide for their customers is "Customers
are always able to get the products they need" So they will then set targets for
departments to try and meet the company target. For example they will set OSCA targets
(On Shelf Customer Availability) where you would have to attain a certain percentage of
when they check to see if products are on shelf's and ready for sale. The targets are used
more as a motivational technique as employees will know that they have to meet this
target and will do their upmost to try and do so.
Whitbread will also use buddying schemes which really kill two birds with one stone as the
new employees not only learn new things off their buddy but this also gives them a better
chance of having a friend within the workplace and keeping them happy at work. The idea
behind a buddy is for them to teach them everything they know and assess how the
newbie gets on. Buddying may take as long as a month and after every week the buddy
will go to the manager of someone of power and give truthful feedback on how
progression is going. Whitbread may also swap the buddies throughout the month just to
see if they have the same response.
,Jay Healy
P5,M3 & D2
Punctuality and attendance is also another aspect that will get monitored by Whitbread. In
order to monitor this Whitbread have a clocking in system which is recognises the
employee by their fingerprint. When employees arrive they will sign in via this system
which will then tell the management exactly what time they go into work. This allows
management to be able to look back and see how many times someone is late or how late
they were by. Employees will also clock out when they leave, from this the system
calculates the time each employee arrived and the time they left which it will then
calculate the total hours they worked for that day and then that week, making it very easy
for management to be able to know how much each employee is owed come pay day.
M3
Whitbread can use their employee performance results when they next choose to recruit.
Specifically where they need to recruit, if the results say that most of their staff perform
best working with sales then they know that they don’t need to hire anymore people to
work sales. If the results tell Whitbread that some areas of the business are lacking this
will indicate to Whitbread that they may need to look for new people to try and increase
the performance of this area. From this Whitbread can put out a specific advert for this
specific job, meaning only the people who believe they have what it takes with the right
qualifications and right attitude in order to do it will apply rather than just hiring a whole
bunch of people and then putting them into departments based on their interview like
they usually do. I have no doubt that this will increase the results of these
underperforming departments which is an advantage for Whitbread but it will be a much
slower and tedious process than usual recruitment processes as they want to hire the
perfect candidates.
Like I said in P5 smart targets are very important, the targets are used in my opinion as a
motivator because if employees don’t have a target to work towards then they are more
likely going to think that they’re job isn’t very important within the business so don’t
need to work too hard. However if they had a target to strive towards they would know
how harder they would have to work in order to reach it meaning they would increase
their work levels and their whole ethic would change instantly. They would also be more
motivated to complete it as usually if a target isn’t met there are consequences.
With probation this allows the manager to get a front row seat of exactly how well their
employees are coping with customers and overall responsibilities. The manager can see
first-hand what essential skills are really needed for the job role and what personality is
really needed. This helps employee development because the manager will now know for
next time when he/she hires a new employee what to look for. This will prevent this new
employee being another person who can’t cope as the manager will have hired the right
person first time due to the past employees. This will be greatly beneficial across all of
Whitbread’s departments as each department will be full of much more qualified workers
to better the customer service and will also save Whitbread valuable money on constant
recruiting.
Customer feedback will be vital across all the business that Whitbread own because they
all represent that company so if a customer’s finds Beefeater to be a bad place to visit
, Jay Healy
P5,M3 & D2
then they are most likely going to think that the other businesses they own are going to be
more of the same which as an effect Whitbread will have lost a customer from not just
one business but possibly all seven they own resulting in a major cash flow decrease.
Customers are the most important stakeholder within a business so it’s important that
Whitbread get some feedback from them, the feedback may then give an indication of
what employees didn’t do a very good job or who lack confidence. This would then give
Whitbread the chance to improve the development of its employees; from the feedback
given they could look at the comments given on a certain employee and revise whether
they should re-train this person again in order to up his customer service skills to where
they need to be. If Whitbread were to improve every employee who seemed to be the
weak link in their respective businesses then as a result their customer service levels
would be through the roof, keeping customers happy and giving them no choice but to
return next time.
D2
Management is so important within a business because it shows power and control, the
term ‘manager’ isn’t just a job name it actually has to be enforced and if it isn’t then the
business will have no control over its staff which could result in chaos. Businesses need to
continually monitor their staff’s performance to see how it effects the overall
performance of the business. It is also important that a business like Whitbread evaluate
all of their employees in order for their business to function at the highest possible
standard.
Setting targets for staff shouldn’t just be for the fun of it, don’t just set them and forget
about it because that’s pointless. Management will have to monitor the progress being
made towards these targets throughout the duration just in case it looks like the target
may not be met, so then the manager can then tell the staff that they are not on course
to meet the target which will make them wake-up and work a bit harder in order to meet
it, benefiting the business overall as employee productivity will increase as well as a cash
flow increase from a higher amount of sales. However, if management don’t monitor the
progression then they wouldn’t even know that they were not on course so come the end
of the deadline the target would not have been met and that particular department would
have underperformed. Even if the target was not met but management at least gave them
a heads up they would then know that it’s the teams fault and not theirs, if results were
really bad then they should be thinking about upgrading the team or re-training the
employees within the team so the next target can be met.
Management need to take into consideration customer feedback, it is vital that they know
what customers like and don’t like so they can correct these and make sure customers
carry on buying off them. The first benefit of managing customer feedback is that it’s
going to work, if the customers say they want it then it’s going to be a hit with them. If
management can only guess what customers want then they’re never going to fully be able
to please them. Management can also put the comments on a staff board or on a wall
somewhere so employees are aware of what customers are saying about them so they can
look at themselves in the mirror and think about what they must do to change. This
benefits Whitbread because this will undoubtedly motivate employees to want to do
P5,M3 & D2
P5
The most common measurement that
Whitbread use to monitor their employees performances are with performance indicators.
Performance indicators are used to evaluate the success of a particular activity within the
business. Therefore, to help the manager of each department to manage the employees
that is within their span of control, they will use performance indicators to monitor the
performance of their employees. This could be through using key performance indicators
to measure the work rate of the department as a whole or to measure the quality of the
work being produced by staff members within different departments of Whitbread. These
key performance indicators will show the manager whether or not that department as a
whole is either succeeding or failing in terms of progress and achievement. If the
department is failing, the mangers will be able to use the information that they have
received via these indicators and use this information to help them make a decision of
what needs to be done in order to get the department to succeed again.
Another way that Whitbread measure performance is by putting its employees on
probation which they will do throughout all of the businesses they own. When new
employees join Whitbread they will be put on a probation for 3 months which allows
Whitbread to assess how well new employees are coping with their new job. Probation
requires weekly chats where questions will be asked where the answers given will tell
Whitbread what department the employee feels most comfortable and uncomfortable in.
Also targets will be set, these targets will usually be related to the job role and will be a
good indicator whether or not they are competent worker or not. If after every weekly
chat they are progressively getting better and feeling more comfortable then they will
most likely then take them off probation; if this employee is still a bit edgy after 3 months
Whitbread will most likely get rid of them.
Smart targets are also used to help employees meet the requirements for their specific
job. One of the main beliefs for Whitbread try to provide for their customers is "Customers
are always able to get the products they need" So they will then set targets for
departments to try and meet the company target. For example they will set OSCA targets
(On Shelf Customer Availability) where you would have to attain a certain percentage of
when they check to see if products are on shelf's and ready for sale. The targets are used
more as a motivational technique as employees will know that they have to meet this
target and will do their upmost to try and do so.
Whitbread will also use buddying schemes which really kill two birds with one stone as the
new employees not only learn new things off their buddy but this also gives them a better
chance of having a friend within the workplace and keeping them happy at work. The idea
behind a buddy is for them to teach them everything they know and assess how the
newbie gets on. Buddying may take as long as a month and after every week the buddy
will go to the manager of someone of power and give truthful feedback on how
progression is going. Whitbread may also swap the buddies throughout the month just to
see if they have the same response.
,Jay Healy
P5,M3 & D2
Punctuality and attendance is also another aspect that will get monitored by Whitbread. In
order to monitor this Whitbread have a clocking in system which is recognises the
employee by their fingerprint. When employees arrive they will sign in via this system
which will then tell the management exactly what time they go into work. This allows
management to be able to look back and see how many times someone is late or how late
they were by. Employees will also clock out when they leave, from this the system
calculates the time each employee arrived and the time they left which it will then
calculate the total hours they worked for that day and then that week, making it very easy
for management to be able to know how much each employee is owed come pay day.
M3
Whitbread can use their employee performance results when they next choose to recruit.
Specifically where they need to recruit, if the results say that most of their staff perform
best working with sales then they know that they don’t need to hire anymore people to
work sales. If the results tell Whitbread that some areas of the business are lacking this
will indicate to Whitbread that they may need to look for new people to try and increase
the performance of this area. From this Whitbread can put out a specific advert for this
specific job, meaning only the people who believe they have what it takes with the right
qualifications and right attitude in order to do it will apply rather than just hiring a whole
bunch of people and then putting them into departments based on their interview like
they usually do. I have no doubt that this will increase the results of these
underperforming departments which is an advantage for Whitbread but it will be a much
slower and tedious process than usual recruitment processes as they want to hire the
perfect candidates.
Like I said in P5 smart targets are very important, the targets are used in my opinion as a
motivator because if employees don’t have a target to work towards then they are more
likely going to think that they’re job isn’t very important within the business so don’t
need to work too hard. However if they had a target to strive towards they would know
how harder they would have to work in order to reach it meaning they would increase
their work levels and their whole ethic would change instantly. They would also be more
motivated to complete it as usually if a target isn’t met there are consequences.
With probation this allows the manager to get a front row seat of exactly how well their
employees are coping with customers and overall responsibilities. The manager can see
first-hand what essential skills are really needed for the job role and what personality is
really needed. This helps employee development because the manager will now know for
next time when he/she hires a new employee what to look for. This will prevent this new
employee being another person who can’t cope as the manager will have hired the right
person first time due to the past employees. This will be greatly beneficial across all of
Whitbread’s departments as each department will be full of much more qualified workers
to better the customer service and will also save Whitbread valuable money on constant
recruiting.
Customer feedback will be vital across all the business that Whitbread own because they
all represent that company so if a customer’s finds Beefeater to be a bad place to visit
, Jay Healy
P5,M3 & D2
then they are most likely going to think that the other businesses they own are going to be
more of the same which as an effect Whitbread will have lost a customer from not just
one business but possibly all seven they own resulting in a major cash flow decrease.
Customers are the most important stakeholder within a business so it’s important that
Whitbread get some feedback from them, the feedback may then give an indication of
what employees didn’t do a very good job or who lack confidence. This would then give
Whitbread the chance to improve the development of its employees; from the feedback
given they could look at the comments given on a certain employee and revise whether
they should re-train this person again in order to up his customer service skills to where
they need to be. If Whitbread were to improve every employee who seemed to be the
weak link in their respective businesses then as a result their customer service levels
would be through the roof, keeping customers happy and giving them no choice but to
return next time.
D2
Management is so important within a business because it shows power and control, the
term ‘manager’ isn’t just a job name it actually has to be enforced and if it isn’t then the
business will have no control over its staff which could result in chaos. Businesses need to
continually monitor their staff’s performance to see how it effects the overall
performance of the business. It is also important that a business like Whitbread evaluate
all of their employees in order for their business to function at the highest possible
standard.
Setting targets for staff shouldn’t just be for the fun of it, don’t just set them and forget
about it because that’s pointless. Management will have to monitor the progress being
made towards these targets throughout the duration just in case it looks like the target
may not be met, so then the manager can then tell the staff that they are not on course
to meet the target which will make them wake-up and work a bit harder in order to meet
it, benefiting the business overall as employee productivity will increase as well as a cash
flow increase from a higher amount of sales. However, if management don’t monitor the
progression then they wouldn’t even know that they were not on course so come the end
of the deadline the target would not have been met and that particular department would
have underperformed. Even if the target was not met but management at least gave them
a heads up they would then know that it’s the teams fault and not theirs, if results were
really bad then they should be thinking about upgrading the team or re-training the
employees within the team so the next target can be met.
Management need to take into consideration customer feedback, it is vital that they know
what customers like and don’t like so they can correct these and make sure customers
carry on buying off them. The first benefit of managing customer feedback is that it’s
going to work, if the customers say they want it then it’s going to be a hit with them. If
management can only guess what customers want then they’re never going to fully be able
to please them. Management can also put the comments on a staff board or on a wall
somewhere so employees are aware of what customers are saying about them so they can
look at themselves in the mirror and think about what they must do to change. This
benefits Whitbread because this will undoubtedly motivate employees to want to do
