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READ THE CASE STUDY AND ANSWER THE QUESTIONS BELOW-

CASE STUDY:
Bakersfield (new) University is in a process of change in order to promote more effective service delivery to its customers within tight budget constraints. Teaching staff have increasingly taken on higher teaching hours as the staff to student ratio has increased from 1 :1 8 to 1 :28 over the past 1 2 years. The decrease in staff numbers has been managed through the non-replacement of leavers and a limited level of early retirement. In addition to taking on increased teaching loads staff have been exhorted to engage themselves in commercial work and in research to a much greater extent and to complete PhDs. The staff have increasingly felt under pressure, but have on the whole been dedicated workers. Those staff who were most seriously disillusioned by the changes taking place were generally those opting for early retirement, although this process also meant that much expertise was suddenly lost to many departments.

The pressure of work seems set to increase and the goodwill and relatively high performance of staff are increasingly at risk. In the current circumstances departments have found it difficult to recognise the good work of staff by promotion, which had been the traditional approach. Many department heads have tried to deal with this by holding out the hope of future promotion and by recognition of a good job done. Some department heads were more effective in this than others.

The university as a whole has decided to introduce a performance management system (PMS) in order to enhance staff performance. Standard forms were produced for all departments to use and guidelines were produced relating to the purpose and frequency of appraisal. All departments conformed in terms of carrying out the appraisals, but there were great differences in how this was handled in different departments. Those heads who had experience of successful systems elsewhere, or who were enthusiastic about this change, carried out the appraisals in a more thorough and committed way, and did try to integrate them into the running of the department and link them to departmental goals. Other heads failed to do this, and some were positively against the system as they saw it as impinging on academic freedom, and in any case had never seen themselves as true managers.

The reaction of staff was mixed, often depending on their past employment experiences and length of time employed by the university. In general, staff were resistant and sceptical. The culture of the university had been easygoing with staff able to ‘do their own thing’, and relied on to focus on work that was important for the university and to organise themselves in a conscientious manner. Those who had come to the university from industry had been attracted by the opportunity to control the nature and content of their own work. The new system was perceived as wresting control away from the individual and as an indication that they were not trusted.

Managers have the impression that short-term sickness absence has substantially increased, possibly as a result of work intensification and stress but also possibly as a result of declining staff morale. Historically, however, there have been no formal systems for monitoring absence and no procedures for dealing with it. The PMS addresses performance issues but not conduct issues such as sickness absence. There is growing dissatisfaction among staff at the impact of sporadic absence on their workloads and a cynicism as to the value of attempting to manage performance against a backdrop of poor attendance from a proportion of staff.

QUESTIONS:

Question 1
Explain how a performance management system sits within a high performance work system aimed at enhancing individual and organisational performance. To what extent is the PMS likely to succeed given the wider context?

Question 2
What role do you think leadership has to play in the successful implementation of this scheme?

Question 3
What would you recommend to the university in terms of its approach to monitoring and managing staff absence?