Question

What is the purpose of performance management?

What are the main activities (steps) of performance management that can be placed for this case?

What are some issues/challenges relating to performance management and how can these be addressed?
 

Tom Stapleton is the owner/operator of Dungate Drains - a small but growing drainage company in Ashburton. The company provides drain laying services for both rural and urban customers. Its services include installing septic tanks, stormwater and drainage for farms (including dairy farm conversions), general industrial, residential subdivisions, and residential alterations. In some of their recent jobs Tom has noticed that the standard of workmanship isn't as high as he would like it to be. There haven't been any customer complaints, thankfully, but poor workmanship could significantly affect the reputation of the business. On a recent site visit Tom noticed that there were no trenching supports in place, which are required for deep pipe work. He also noticed one of the apprentices (Harry) was not wearing any earmuffs and was using the wrong tool for grinding a pipe. Tom talked to Harry while onsite but was a bit concerned at his response (he thought it didn't matter what tool he used because it was getting the job done fine; and the grinding wasn't very loud so didn't need his earmuffs). Tom recently discovered that Scotty, one of the labourers, had been involved in an accident while driving one of the trucks to another job a few months ago, but hadn't told him about this. When Tom asked Scotty about the incident, Scotty said that he knew he shouldn't be driving (he doesn't have his heavy traffic licence) but was just trying to help get to the next job sooner. Plus it was only 10km down the road. The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 requires that all accidents are disclosed to the employer and noted in the health and safety register which is kept in the staffroom back at the yard. Scotty is also regularly late for work. It's usually only 10-15 minutes so is not a big deal, but it holds the crew up as they have to travel together in the work truck to the job site. Tom is concerned that with no current site foreman, workmanship and safety practices are beginning to deteriorate and increase risks to workers, as well as the business itself. Tom wonders whether some workers are taking short cuts to get the jobs done faster because of the current workload.