|
Building
quality into sales and bottom line
Performance
appraisal if done with an integrity of purpose would enable each
and every human resource feel useful to achieve Managerial Results
instead of the feeling of being used
Building
quality in organisational result starts from hearts and minds of
its people with the mission beginning from top and not middle or
below management, asserts K V Narayan
 MANY
organisations invest a lot of time and money in inducting their
human resources in TQM and Bench Marking best practices in the industry
with the stated objective of keeping their customers delighted.
A
seminar was organised on Bench Marking by the chief of corporate
HRD wherein all senior managers of the company were invited. At
the end of the seminar the faculty was asked how to change the ‘Mindset’
of people before embarking on the project. Another manager asked
what should the top management do to provide a conducive performance
climate to ensure the success of ‘Bench Marked Efforts’.
The answer was ‘‘That needs to be addressed by the HRD
function’’. And the corporate HRD chief did not come back
on the subject. That was the end of Bench Marking.
Then
a facilitator was sent to the company to build total quality in
every aspect of the organisational output. When it came to the marketing
function the subject chosen was how to improve ‘‘MR-Productivity’’.
After developing systems to achieve this objective, the productivity
infact came down. Because the focus was on what is to be achieved
rather than how to create and retain progressive prescription generation
as well as how to build managerial effectiveness in this process.
This project was handled by two managers in the sales administration
who failed to perform as regional sales managers. Infact, the senior
management team in marketing should have been involved in this project
for accountability.
Such
failures are because the planning possibly does not consider the
process involved, its health and the attitude of the people and
their level of efforts at various stages of process.
The
focus should be on what needs to be done and how to ensure ‘‘Delighted
Human Resources’’ who in turn keep their customers delighted
and not focus on desired output alone.
Role
of seminars and imposed exercises
There
is a belief that seminars and imposed exercises build quality. This
does not happen. Otherwise, why should one distribute air-conditioners,
wall to wall furnishing and cars for getting sales?
It
is just enough to build quality in the products of the company to
create delight customers. The quality should also be built deliberately
in the other two important outputs of organisational endeavour.
They are ‘‘Company Sales’’ and the ‘‘Bottom
Line’’.
It
is a discipline, which enables the organisation to have an outward
focus on the customers and thereby the work-culture and not ‘‘Meeting
Culture’’. Most of the times when I do not know what to
do I call for ‘‘Conferences’’.
One
of the tools that help organisations to develop work-culture and
build quality into Human Endeavours is performance appraisal and
work planning.
Performance
appraisal and work plan
Performance
appraisal when looked at from this angle becomes a sacred task that
empowers every individual to actively participate in realising the
organisational goal in his/ her role, by making them progressively
competent.
Performance
appraisal should not be an annual ritual
for deciding or justifying annual increments and become an end in
itself.
Some
appraisals describe the efforts against broad questions of their
adequacy. They fail to identify the impact and extent of results
achieved.
Some
companies give weightage for sales in the appraisals of all managers.
Consequently many managers have been rewarded even though more than
40 per cent of territories have declined in their jurisdiction.
Is it not obvious that managers do not achieve sales and Medical
Representative’s (MRs) only do?
The
product manager should be rewarded for the creativity of the product
strategy if the product has grown in all the territories where it
has been completely implemented. Simply rewarding for sales achieved
through bonusing/ heavily discounted ‘Hospital Sales’
does not help build creativity in the product management.
Similarly,
field managers should not be assessed on their call average but
on its possible impact on MR efforts and results.
Every
manager in marketing should be rewarded only when his/ her efforts
in the role has positively impacted the market place. The manager’s
efforts should have helped majority of the MRs ‘actually working’
to achieve demand growth.
Even
medical representatives should be rewarded for not just the sales
‘‘The visible numbers’’, but it should have
relationship to the territory coverage, doctor coverage and promotional
plans implementation.
Performance
appraisal and work planning should primarily help the employee to
acquire progressive ability to perform. Therefore performance appraisal
should be a process with continuity and the future work plan and
expected results should be derived relevantly from immediate past
performance. This would help development in every responsibility
area of the role.
HRD,
marketing should team-up
Every performance appraisal and work plan should emanate from the
role and responsibilities of the performer. Hence it is imperative
that HRD and marketing functions team up to define clearly the roles
and responsibilities for all the layers in marketing organisation.
From
these roles the system of performance appraisal should be derived.
The performance analysis of the employee in all responsibilities
of the role should be made from his/ her actual efforts. These findings
form the beginning of the performance appraisal process. The performance
expectations should be planned from the above findings as well as
the desired output in the next time frame.
If
such an exercise is done atleast at four month intervals, every
member of the team becomes aware of the extent of performance and
the reasons for the current results and what needs to be done and
the expected outcome.
Infact,
the boss who does the performance appraisal of his subordinate,
should also specify his efforts to support his subordinate’s
performance, so that there is a team to improve performance and
also become accountable. This would also help the boss to plan his
time meaningfully, as well as the needed work plan to help each
of his subordinates to realise the planned expectations.
Besides,
such an exercise would also help identify relevant training content
both classroom and on the job, for the self-development of every
member of the team.
Performance
appraisal if done with an integrity of purpose would enable each
and every human resource feel useful to achieve Managerial Results
instead of the feeling of being used.
The
powerful tool
Building
quality in every aspect of organisational result starts from the
hearts and minds of its people. The mission should start from top
and not middle management and below.
It
is the attitude of the management to treat the flower girl as a
lady and progressively the flower girl starts behaving like a lady.
Performance
appraisal and work planning is a powerful tool to build quality
into ‘sales’ and ‘bottom line’ by building in
performance and therefore its effectiveness.
The
writer K V Narayan is a Chennai based marketing
consultant
|
