Buy Managing Performance Assessment

Buy Managing Performance Assessment

Assessment Brief
Managing Performance through People

5HR515

Assessment Brief for Coursework 2

Key dates and details
Assessment Type:

Management Report

Assessment weighting:

70%

Word count/Length

Your answer must be between 2,000 and 2,500 words long.

Learning Outcomes:

2 & 3

Description of the assessment
This module prepares you to analyse the causes of poor performance within organisations and the principles and practices of effective performance management. By the end of the module you will be able to explain how these practices can be integrated into high performance work systems (HPWS) and analyse barriers to high performance working and the development of high performance cultures.

You are required to write a management report to demonstrate learning outcomes 2 & 3:

· Analyse the signs, causes, principles and practices of performance management in a modern organisation, the impact of practices on key stakeholders, and how work and people performance can be measured

· Outline the concept and components of a High Performance Work System (HPWS) and evaluate evidence of their impact and effectiveness and barriers to their successful implementation.

You should apply your answer to the Middleton NHS Trust case study. Related information sources are provided at the end of the case study in Appendix A and we will work with the case study during lectures and seminars as a teaching and learning aid.

For students on the HRM pathway, successful completion of this assignment is also mapped against the CIPD core knowledge indicators KO2.02A, KO4.04A and KO4.07A.

Assessment Content
Task

Analyse the indicators and possible causes of performance problems at Middleton NHS Trust. Advise the senior management team how they could build an effective High Performance Work System to address the problems you have identified.

Your response should consider:

· The multiple possible causes of poor performance and how this shapes the approach to managing performance within an organisation

· The concept and key components of a HPWS

· Possible barriers to the successful implementation of the system you recommend

Your answer must be:

· Presented as a management report of 2,000 – 2,500 words (NOTE: 2,500 words is the MAXIMUM word limit. There is no +10% allowance on these questions.)

· Supported with relevant literature using the Harvard Referencing system. This requires citations (references to relevant literature) within the answer itself which then must also be listed in full in a reference list at the end of your work . Work will not be awarded a pass grade at this level of study without a clear demonstration of this skill

Work will be assessed using the undergraduate marking scale shown in section F3 of the assessment regulations for undergraduate programmes and the assessment rubric shown below

Spring 2022

5

Spring 2023

Appendix A: Middleton NHS Trust

Susan Bell has recently been appointed as an HR partner at Middleton NHS Trust. Middleton is one of the largest NHS Trusts in the UK. With an annual budget of over £970 million and around 13,000 clinical and support staff, it provides medical services to a population of over one million patients per year and recently received a rating of ‘Good’ from the Quality Care Commission. The Trust Board of Executive Directors and Officers are responsible for setting the strategic direction of the Trust lead by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Its vision of providing “Exceptional Care Together” is supported by clinical, quality, people and finance strategies that aim to: put patients first; get things right first time; invest resources wisely and develop and nurture staff.

Departments are organised into four clinical divisions: medicine; surgery; cancer diagnostics and clinical support; and women’s and children’s services, each lead by a Director of Services and General Manager. There are also six nonclinical departments in the structure: operations; finance, performance and IT; workforce management; strategy improvement; corporate affairs and governance; and patient experience and facilities management, each run by a non-medical Director.

Since April 2021 The Trust have implemented the pay progression framework for all of its staff. Prior to the changes, employees received automatic annual increments moving upwards through the pay points each year until they reached the top pay point for their job role. The change made movement through the pay increments dependent on individual performance as shown in the Band 5 Example below.

Timeline Description automatically generated

https://www.nhsemployers.org/system/files/media/Pay-progression-diagram-Jan-19_0.pdf

Performance is assessed through a traditional annual appraisal between a member of staff and their line manager. To move to a higher pay band, individuals must now demonstrate they have the appropriate knowledge and skills they need to carry out their roles enabling them to make the greatest possible contribution to patient care. This includes assessment against the six core dimensions of the simplified NHS Knowledge and Skills Framework (KSF):

1. Communication

2. Personal and people development

3. Health, safety and security

4. Service improvement

5. Quality

6. Equality and diversity.

At the pay step date the line manager must use information from the appraisal to make a decision as to whether the individual can progress to the next pay level. The NHS Terms and Conditions of Service state that:

To progress to your next pay step point, you must have met the following standards:

1. Your appraisal process has been completed within the last 12 months and outcomes are in line with the organisation’s standards

2. You are not in a formal capability process

3. There is no formal disciplinary sanction live on your employment record

4. You have completed all the required statutory and/or mandatory training

5. If you are a line manager- you have completed all the appraisals for all your staff

If managers conclude the employee is not meeting the requirements, the pay step will be deferred and the manager should discuss and agree a plan with the employee to bring the performance levels back up to the required standard within a clearly stated timescale, including the provision of any training and support to achieve this.

Despite this performance based payment scheme the Trust’s CEO and HR director have identified ongoing performance problems. The most recent Care Quality Commission (CQC) review reported:

“Whilst we found that the service was responsive to the local community we identified issues with the appointments system. Overbooking of appointments had become common practice which led to clinics over running and frustration for patients who experienced long waits. Five percent of patients failed to attend appointments. The hospital cancelled 10% of appointments and patients cancelled 11% of appointments.

Formal complaints processes were embedded however we did not see evidence that informal complaints were being recorded in line with the trust complaints policy

Despite the extension of the treatment centre into a state-of-the-art building, the largest investment in the Trust for over a decade increasing the number of patients who can have surgery, the department has failed to meet the government’s target to reduce the wait for elective cases to less than two years by July 2022 ( www.england.nhs.uk). By April 2023 this should be down to less than 18 months! The Accident and Emergency Department is also under huge pressure. As a result of limited GP capacity, the number of patients attending the Trust’s A&E department has increased to nearly 1,000 patients a day. The average waiting time in the department is currently 8 hours and 20 minutes, breaching the target of 4 hours from arrival to admission, transfer or discharge.

Susan reviewed the hospital’s National Staff Survey results published in March 2022. At Trust level results are largely in line or slightly above the national average, however there is still a decline in the number of people who would recommend the Trust as a place to work (60.1%) and an increase in the number of staff thinking about leaving the organisation (30%). Only 33% said they were satisfied with their level of pay, 44% said they felt able to meet all the conflicting demands on their time at work and 26% said there were enough staff at the organization for them to do their job properly. She was unsurprised therefore to see that 47% said they had felt unwell as a result of work related stress in the last 12 months. A recent report from the Health and Social Care Committee estimated a shortage of 50,000 nurses and midwives and 12,000 hospital doctors in England alone (Ford, 2022). With accompanying concerns about staff wellbeing, an environment of chronic stress, and burnout, The Nursing Times reported 1/3rd of healthcare workers ‘feel overwhelmed at least once a week,’ almost half are considering a job change and nearly a fifth plan to leave the care sector all together.

Digging deeper into the data she notices that the Clinical Support Division have a number of results below the Trust and National average (shown below).

National average

Clinical Support

We are compassionate and inclusive

My immediate manager:

· Works together with me to come to an understanding of problems

· Is interested in listening to me when I describe the challenges I face

· Cares about my concerns

· Takes effective action to help me with any problems I face

66.8%

69.3%

68.4%

64.6%

54%

49%

45%

57%

We are recognised and rewarded

My immediate manager values my work

70.6%

62%

We each have a voice that counts

I am trusted to do my job

90.4%

78%

We are always learning

There are opportunities for me to develop my career in this organisaion

52.9%

48%

I feel supported to develop my potential

52.5%

45%

My appraisal:

· Helped me improve how I do my job

· Helped me agree clear objectives for my work

· Left me feeling that my work is valued by my organisation

20.4%

30.9%

29.8%

14%

22%

19%

We are a team

My immediate manager encourages me at work

69.9%

52%

Staff Engagement

I look forward to going to work

52.5%

43%

Morale

I often think about leaving this organisation

31.1%

47%

In a meeting with the Clinical Support general manager, Susan tried to explore the Staff Survey results further. He told her that a new waiting list manager was appointed in June 2021, about 4 months before the hospital staff completed the recently published survey. The manager has strong hospital experience, working for 3 years as a receptionist in the radiology department, followed by 2 years as a team leader/supervisor in the hospital call centre. They are young and enthusiastic and have already made an impact on the department’s KPI’s (key performance indicators) by implementing changes to some of the systems and processes. Patient waiting times and ‘no shows’ have gone down and he speculates that this may have had an impact on the small increase in patient satisfaction scores that have been reported this month.

However, the new manager is also young and relatively inexperienced in the people management aspects of his role. While the appraisals have been completed within his department Susan notices that the staff have all been set the same objectives. The personal development plans have little detail and the departments training budget is underspent. She also notices there are a number of missing return to work interviews and that the absence rates in the department are higher than the hospital as a whole. The Clinical Support manager also confesses that he has some concerns about how he has heard the new young manager speaking to some of his staff members when he has been walking through the department. He has observed the manager holding morning meetings with his team where he passes on hospital information and allocates tasks for the day but thinks that overall his style is very autocratic and has been picking up on some friction within the team.

Further resources

Department of Health (2004) The NHS Knowledge and skills framework (NHS KSF) and the Development Review Process [Internet] Available at https://www.nhsemployers.org/system/files/2021-07/The-NHS-Knowledge-and-Skills-Framework.pdf Accessed January 2023

Ford, M. (2022) Concerns NHS and social care face ‘greatest workforce crisis in history’, Nursing Times, 27th July

NHS (2022) Survey Documents [Internet] Available at https://www.nhsstaffsurveys.com/survey-documents/ Accessed January 2023

NHS Employers (2019) Pay progression [Internet] Available at https://www.nhsemployers.org/articles/pay-progression Accessed January 2023

NHS England (2022) Delivery plan for tackling the COVID19 backlog of elective care [Internet] Available at https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2022/02/C1466-delivery-plan-for-tackling-the-covid-19-backlog-of-elective-care.pdf Accessed August 2022

Nursing Times (2022) Third of healthcare workers ‘feel overwhelmed at least once a week’, [Internet] Available at https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/workforce/third-of-healthcare-workers-feel-overwhelmed-at-least-once-a-week-12-08-2022/ Accessed August 202

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