Performance Management
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Abstract
Toyota Motor Corporation is a multinational company that has more than 360,000 employees. The Company has many departments, including the production, processing, and distribution departments. The production department is considered by the board of directors as the most sensitive area that the performance management should be carried out. Performance management, in this case, has been defined as the way of checking the general status of the employees as a way of meeting the long term goals and the objectives of the Company. The paper, therefore, explains the performance management processes as they are used by the Toyota Motor Company in the production jobs. The paper tackles the processes such as the planning, coaching, reviewing and the action. The processes have been clearly explained and also explained the importance of general performance management to the Company.
Performance Management of Toyota Motor Company on the Production Jobs
Introduction
Performance Management is best described as the understanding that is shared by the board of the directors or the management on how the various individuals within the firm or organization have an impact on the goals and the objectives. The process of performance management mainly focuses on aligning the workforce, building a sense of competency within the organization, and improving the employees’ performance using the various techniques. The performance management can is said to focus on the employees so that they can carry out their duties effectively and be able to meet the goals and objectives of the organization (Buckingham & Goodall, 2015). The performance management is kept alive by the communication and the management styles used in the organization. The bottom line communication and management are regarded to be the best when it comes to performance management. For instance, when a company wants to make the employees work for their best, they may employ various techniques such as the training services, incentives, and the good remunerations as a way of increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the employees (Kroll & Moynihan, 2015). In this case, the paper is analyzing the performance management for the Toyota Motor Company on the production jobs and how the management has helped the Company in meeting its goals and objectives.
A Brief Overview of the Toyota Motor Company and the Production Jobs
Toyota Motor Corporation is a multinational automotive firm from Japan. The Toyota Motor Company has more than 360,000 employees all over the world. The Company is termed as one of the top automotive corporations in the world operating with vehicle brands such as the Toyota brand, Hino, Daihatsu, Lexus, and Ranz. Toyota Motor Corporation has used modern technology to ensure that it maintains its good image to the market and produce quality products to the customers. On the side of employees, the Company applies all the techniques to make sure that they are happy and always work for their best. Toyota has one of the best management in the automotive firms that balances between the goals and the objectives of the firm, and the employees and customer satisfaction. The Company is also known for initiating the employees in the decision making processes as a way of making them feel like they are involved (Bititci, Cocca, & Ates, 2016). The management is always active in the communication to ensure that everything is alright, and any obstacle within the firm is communicated before it causes severe damage. The Toyota Motor Corporation has different sections of the management and the employees. The firm has the board of directors, top management team, departmental managers, line managers, branch managers, supervisors, and junior employees. The junior employees are divided into different categories, including the production jobs, office massagers, accountants, department workers, and financial analysts, among others. This paper will, therefore, analyze the performance management for the production jobs.
The production jobs in the Toyota Motor Corporation include fabrication, assembly, material handling, shipping, warehousing, material handling, maintenance and repair, and auxiliary production, among the other activities. Most of the production jobs in the Toyota Motor Company are done manually. Out of the 360,000 Toyota Company’s employees, 60% of them are working on the production jobs. This means that production jobs are the most sensitive sectors in any firm or organization. For that matter, they need to be taken great care of since they are directly proportional to the general production of the Company. The eyes of the board of directors and the management team are on the production workers. One of the secrets that keep Toyota Motor Corporation, one of the top companies in the world, is by the way it manages the production jobs. When you look at the Toyota Company’s overview, you will find out that most of its activities are carried out manually. Activities such as assembling of the raw materials and mechanic work mostly need to be done manually. That is why most of the time, all the stakeholders of the Company do all that they could to make sure that the production jobs are purely managed, and every employee in those sectors feels satisfied. The performance management of the production workers involves the following dimensions. First, their goals must be defined clearly, second, all the progress of the employees must be measured, third, the Company must have the control over achieving the goal, and finally, there should be a reward system when the goals are met (Bititci, Cocca, & Ates, 2016). The four dimensions are very important in motivating the employees and also meeting the general goals and the objectives of the firm. Sometimes the production employees may feel that they are the least in the Company, and that is why most of the performance management lay a lot on them. The researchers argue that all the organizations or the business firms who consider the production employees first have a high chance of meeting the goals and objectives within a short period.
The Performance Management Processes as the Toyota Motor Corporation uses them in managing the production employees
Planning
Planning is the first process of performance management, whereby the management and the human resource fully defines the job. The Toyota Company management addresses the things such as the comprehensive description of the production jobs, the goals to be met by each employee, the key objectives, and then come up with the ways of accessing goals and the objectives. The Company ensures that the goals are very clear while uses the SMART format, which stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. At this stage of planning, the firm sets up a clear performance standard that focuses on making the employees perform their tasks effectively. After defining the goals and objectives of the employees, there comes a feedback stage. In this stage, the employees are expected to give input on the materials (Barron, Pereda & Stacey, 2017). Since the employees are the ones who directly interact with the jobs, they are expected to advise the management on what the skills, competences, and goals are likely to help the Company meet their goals and the objectives. The next stage of the planning stage is referred to as the approval stage. At this stage, both the employees and the management agree on their roles, goals, and objectives of performing the task (Barron, Pereda & Stacey, 2017). This makes it simple to manage the employees and measure what they have attained. Under this stage, the production employees feel that they are involved in setting the goals, and the Toyota Motor Company terms it as a motivating factor. The planning stage of performance management is very crucial since it lays the foundation for the strong relationship between the employees and the management.
Coaching
The second stage of performance management is coaching. Under coaching, there are other dimensions such as organizing the meetings regularly, providing the necessary training programs, giving the solicit feedbacks, and revisiting the goals and objectives if necessary. The coaching process is very crucial and should be done on a regular base (Barron, Pereda & Stacey, 2017). The employees at this stage should be trained on the best ways of performing their tasks. This is the most relevant stage of ensuring that the employees adapt to the changing technology. Toyota Motor Company has the training and coaching programs which focus on making the production employees remain relevant all the time. The coaching stage also helps the management in accessing the feedback of the plan that was initially established. If it is working effectively, the process continues, and if it does not perform well, it should be revisited for some amendments. In addition to that, the objectives should be revisited and come up with the necessary adjustments which target meeting the long term goals and the objectives (Barron, Pereda & Stacey, 2017). This involves reviewing the general performance of each employee. If the employee seems to be happy with the current process, then the firm continues to apply them, and the overall process becomes a policy. The Toyota Motor Company is doing all that it could to ensure that all the employees adapt to the initial plan stipulated for the working processes. They also have an active technological team that makes sure that the employees remain relevant in all the duties they undertake. Through this, the production employees feel motivated and hence helping the Company reach its goals and objectives within the stipulated time, efficiently, and effectively. This process has played a very important role in ensuring the production side of the Toyota Motor Corporation performs well.
Reviewing
The next stage of the performance management that is commonly used by the companies in the reviewing stage. This stage has dimensions such as reviewing the performance of each employee, reviewing the management performance to the employees, reviewing the overall completion of the goals, and giving the feedback that can be relied on by the Company. This is termed as the most sensitive stage of performance management since it determines if the plan went successfully or not (Barron, Pereda & Stacey, 2017). This stage helps the performance management decide whether to take any action or remain with the goals they had planned initially.
On the part of reviewing the performance of the employees, the Toyota Motor Company does this every year. The employee review is also termed as performance appraisal. Performance appraisal helps the management know which employees are working hard and the ones who are not working hard. Under this part, each employee is reviewed individually, and the performance record is kept as a point of reference in the next reviewing period. The records can tell the management of the employee is competent in doing a certain job or not. With this in their minds, employees tend to work hard to make their record look good. In most cases, management tends to reward the most performing employees. This acts as a motivating factor, and that has been a secret for their continuous success in the market.
The second dimension of the reviewing stage is checking the performance of the management process. Under this part, the management should be reviewed depending on the previous performances (Noe et al., 2015). If the Company underperforms, then it can be said that performance management is not effective, and if it over performs, then it can be said that performance management is effective. The guiding questions for this stage include are the personal and the objectives of the organization met, the challenges which the employees face in their areas of work, the training which would help the employees work best, the importance of the management feedback, how to improve the management process. The time spends in accomplishing the goals and the objectives of the organization.
The next part of the reviewing stage is the overall review of the goal completion. Under this part, the performance management team checks if the expected goals were met or not. The management here can determine if each employee accomplished the task he or she had been assigned for (Barron, Pereda & Stacey, 2017). The determining question here is if each employee met the goals, how well each employee did perform the tasks, and if there was any obstacle related to the planning dimensions. This part should check both the smaller and the larger goals since they would be able to tell if the employees have met their goals effectively or not.
The last dimension of the reviewing stage is giving actionable feedback. The feedback is very crucial since it tells the less performed employees and those who have performed well. This gives the challenge to all the employees and starts working for their best. The actionable feedback also helps the employees know the areas which need to be improved the next time. It also helps in designing the management process that should best make the Company meet the goals and the objectives within the stipulated time.
From this point, the Toyota Motor Corporation has a very reliable review team that can identify the mistake of every employee from far. The Company stresses a lot in the production jobs since they are the ones who most affect the general performance of the Company. The assembling, processing, and packing employees among others are categorized in a way that it would be easily to review the general performance of each employee (Bianchi, 2016). The Company does the review once in a year and prints a report to the employees. From there, they take it as their responsibility to address all the areas which are underperformed and find the alternative ways of improving the area. The Company also comes up with motivating programs to the most hardworking employees, such as giving them incentives, promotions, and also giving them some material possessions. Through this, they all work hard to make sure that they meet the goals within the time.
Action
The final stage of performance management is taking action. Under the action stage, there are other dimensions such as the reward and recognition, and setting the goals for the next years’ performance. This part allows for the performance management team to take the action that would see the organization improve on the previous targets. All the employees who performed better are rewarded, areas where there was underperformance, are addressed, and the new goals and the objectives are set (Gerrish, 2016). The management team takes it as its responsibility to countercheck if every employee met its targets or not. Just as the employees and the management met during the planning stage, they also meet together at this stage to find a solution to what to be done next after checking the results. This stage is considered essential in determining the motivation of the employees. Those employees who work better are recognized. The employees also work together again to redefine the next targets and how the processes should be made successful. Under this section, the Toyota Motor Company gives incentives to the most hardworking employees. The incentives given include the good remuneration, recognitions, time offs, and also the titles.
The importance of Performance Management on the production jobs to the Toyota Motor Company
Performance management is a very crucial thing in any company or organization. In the Toyota Motor Company, performance management is mostly done to the production employees. The Company holds that the production employees are the most sensitive people in the Company, and they need to be well-managed (Ahmed et al., 2016). Through this, the Company has been able to realize several advantages to the performance management processes. First, the Toyota Motor Company is able to identify the areas where needs to be improved through the performance management processes. Second, the Company can notice the underperforming employees and those who are performing well. Third, the management is able to use the performance management process as a factor of motivation whereby the employees are involved in the planning, and they are rewarded for the jobs they perform well. Toyota Motor Company claims that if the production employees are well taken care of, they tend to give their best, and this helps the Company meet its goals and the objectives within the stipulated time. That has been termed as one of the secrets of the Company as to why it has been meeting its goals on time.
Conclusion
From the above discussions about performance management, it can be pointed out that it is a key process within the business. Employees are the most sensitive people in the firm, and they need to be taken care of for them to be efficient. This paper has tackled the main areas of performance management. The paper has first defined the performance management and then taken the scenario of the Toyota Motor Corporation and how the process is carried out to the production jobs. The production jobs in the Toyota Motor Company include assembling, processing, and any other manual task that is being done within the Company. The paper has also described the four main processes of the performance management that includes the planning stage, coaching stage, reviewing stage, and the action stage. The three stages have been applied by the Toyota Motor Company as the motivating factor to the employees hence making them meet the long term goals and the objectives. In summary, the performance management process is a very sensitive task in the firm or the organization, and it should be exercised with great care.
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