Managing Strategic Performance - Human Resources Case Study - Management Assignment Help

Assignment Task

Case Study  
You are the Human Resources (HR) Manager of Australian Travel InsuranceCo, founded in May 2018,  which specialises in providing travel insurance and advice to travellers. Australian Travel InsuranceCo has  rapidly grown to be a market leader in providing travel insurance, with consistently strong ratings and  reviews. The company has also expanded considerably in only a short amount of time, from 10 staff initially,  to now employing 35 ‘Travel Specialists’ in its Sydney office. All staff provide tailored advice to customers  via phone and email as well as process insurance claims received. The CEO, Mark Strong, believes the  company can improve on its already exceptional performance and be the market leader in this sector.  
The group of 35 staff, managed by 5 team leaders, have developed a strong sense of collegiality working  together at the Sydney office. In addition to having regular company lunches and a competitive table tennis  tournament, there was a high level of morale amongst workers.  
Inspired from his reading in practitioner magazines about the benefits of flexible working practices for  individual and company performance, Strong saw value in considering how the company could work more  flexibly. With Sydney rental prices increasing, Strong also believed the company could save money on some  of its overheads by having fewer staff needing to come into the office each day. Strong was also inspired  by his reading of the new ‘in vogue’ way to appraise performance – holding regular performance  ‘conversations’ instead of an annual performance review. Strong is a strong believer of evidence-based  Human Resource Management practice and thought the company’s new approach would follow a new trend  in performance management he had been reading about. Following discussions with other members of  senior management in late 2019, the company introduced a modified performance management system  and a new flexible working policy in January 2020.  
Before the announcement, each team of Travel Specialists would set their annual performance goals with  their Team Leader in January. In July, Team Leaders would conduct a mid-year check-in to see how each  team was performing against the set targets. Each team of Travel Specialists were measured on how many  insurance claims they closed each month and their quality of customer service, judged by star ratings  received from customers at the close of each claim and customer comments. Each team would then receive  a final appraisal and single performance score in December. This was linked to salary increases for the  following year and an annual bonus for the best performing team.  
Under the new performance management system, Travel Specialists would now have their performance  measured on an individual basis. Instead of an annual performance appraisal, Travel Specialists would have  individual performance feedback sessions every 6 weeks with their Team Leader. Each session would have  a particular ‘theme’, such as ‘strengths’, ‘growth’ or ‘my values’. There would still be consideration of the  Travel Specialist’s KPI’s (claims closed each month) and ratings from customer feedback. Strong believed  this was a way to build more ‘individual accountability’ for performance outcomes. Under the new flexible  working policy, staff were also encouraged to start working ‘remotely’ from their home for 3 days each week. 
Mark Strong held a meeting with senior management and Team Leaders 2 months into the operation of the  new policies to receive feedback. The feedback was disappointing to say the least. Travel Specialists and  Team Leaders felt under pressure to constantly discuss performance issues and were given no extra time  to complete these discussions (the same KPI’s still had to be met). The ‘themes’ did not seem so relevant 
either to help in improve their performance. Despite Strong’s desire to achieve some cost savings, morale  was dropping from Travel Specialists frequently working remotely. Team Leaders have also reported less  staff engagement. Some Travel Specialists are consistently late to virtual team meetings and others aren’t  communicating with their Team Leaders in a timely manner.  
Strong is pleased with the cost savings being made, but less pleased with business having declined 10% in  the last month. Customers are also receiving poorer service. While Travel Specialists previously received consistent 4/5 and 5/5 ratings for customer service, since January 2020 ratings have fallen to 3/5 on  average.  
Strong isn’t keen on reverting to the ‘old’ ways of working, but still sees some value in the new performance  and working practices that have been introduced, seeing these practices as the way of the future based on  his reading from practitioner magazines. Help is needed to refine the company’s performance management  practices and recommend solutions.  
Your Task 
1. As the HR Manager of Australian Travel InsuranceCo, identify and analyse the problems at the  company in relation to performance management.  
2. Recommend two practical solutions for Australian Travel InsuranceCo to help in refining and  improving their performance management practices. 
In answering both sections of this task, you are required to draw upon relevant performance management  theories and concepts in identifying and analysing problems and recommending solutions.  
Submission and Format 
This assignment is due on Thursday 8 October by 10.00pm (Week 10). 
Please submit via UTS Online (Turnitin) (under the ‘Assessments’ tab) before the due date.  Your response should include an Introduction and Conclusion.  

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