47
CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter is divided into two parts; in the first section the researcher presents the profile of the companies the interviewees work for and in the 2nd part is reserved for discussion of the findings.
Introduction to the Cases
In this part the research presents the companies of the interviewees. The information contained in this part comes mainly from the companies’ websites and also from the interviewees themselves. The researcher has also gathered some key information regarding the interviewees’background.
A-Company Profile
A-Company
initiated enterprise market approach with delivering special package for official organizations in 1997, and had been dedicating enterprise business in Taiwan till now. With product line maturity in mobile communication, mobile messaging, mobile data, and yearly experience; the company launched “Mobile Business Solutions”in August 2004 to provide enterprises one-stop shopping for total solutions in mobile communication.
Since it’s creation in 1996 until now the company has developed itself into a strong Telecom Group. The Group's principal activities are the provision of telecommunication services, sale of mobile phones and telecommunication equipment. Its services include network infrastructure, product offering, technology development and customer service. A-Company business solution currently provides 4 service categories:
Mobile Communication, Mobile Data, Mobile Messaging, Mobile Office services.
There are several products in each category created to fulfill enterprise customer's specific requirement and constructively integrated to form total solutions.
Other activities include customer retention, information and status changes, billing, rental, customer feedback collection, and handset maintenance. The Group operates solely in the domestic market and has about 3,459 employees with total revenue of 60.05 billion NTD in 2005.
B-Company Profile
B-Company is a Financial Holding Company based in Taiwan and was the first holding company listed in Taiwan Stock Exchange in 2001. The story of the company started in April 19th 1951 as an insurance company. In the past decades the company has made headway into the business of investment consulting, securities, banking, asset management, life insurance, credit card, treasury services, trust services, government banking, lottery services, securities financing, bills and factures; becoming the group enterprise providing the most comprehensive services in Taiwan.
The company is the first Taiwanese financial institution to acquire a Hong Kong bank. The company has a total asset of NTD965.7 billion (June 30, 2005) with a capital of NTD28.1 billion (sep. 30, 2005); 121 branch network in Taiwan and 4 overseas and has 5,318 employees (sep. 30, 2005).
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C-Company Profile
C-Company
has been created by the merger of two firms each with historical roots going back some 150 years (1849). The company is an international firm operating in 148 countries and has more than 130,000 people. It’s a service industry that focuses mostly in the fields of insurance, tax, human resources, transactions performance improvement and crisis management. The branch of the company in Taiwan was established in 1970 under the name of Chen & Chu. Over the ensuing three decades, the firm grew rapidly and now has more than 1,300 distinguished partners and dedicated business professionals. It provides a full range of business advisory services to leading global, national and local companies, as well as to public entities. In Taiwan the company has six service branches island-wide strategically located throughout Taiwan to provide the most comprehensive,responsive and proactive services to its clients.
The company provides basically the following five major services:
Assurance and business advisory service:
This area offers a broad range of solution such as Assurance, global risk management solutions, transaction services (International tax consultation and planning services, Domestic tax consultation and planning services, merger and acquisition services, tax litigation services, regulatory compliance services, PRC investment services, personal tax services, international assignment services tax litigation, general accounting and relevant out-sourcing services, and legal services.
Financial advisory service:
It provides comprehensive financial, economic and strategic advice to companies. Below are the different services the company offers to clients:
Global Human resources solutions
Global human resources solutions include a wide range of services that are provided to companies in Taiwan. Human resources solutions consist mainly in the two following parts:
1- Human Resource Consultation
- Executive Search
- Payroll Outsourcing
- HR System Planning
- Transaction Service
- Organization / HR Rationalization
- Separation (Termination / Retirement)
- Outplacement
- Job Analysis and Job Description
- Compensation and Benefits
- Performance Management System
51 - Change Management
- Employment Contract Consultation
- Manager Secondment
2- Training and Development Service
- Promoting Business Competitiveness
- Training and Development Service
- Annual Discount Package
- Rental Service of the company’s Learning & Education Center / Facilities
- Training Administration Outsourcing
Tax and legal services:
C-company is the largest professional tax institution in Taiwan with 150 staffs; it provides high level tax and legal strategies and solutions for the complexities.
The products and services the company develops for the needs of customers both home and abroad include: international tax consultation and planning services, domestic tax consultation and planning services, merger and acquisitions services, tax litigation services, regulatory compliance services, PRC investment services, personal tax services, international assignment services tax litigation services, general accounting and relevant out-sourcing services
.
D-Company Profile
D-Company
is the Taiwanese subsidiary of the largest DIY retailer in Europe and the third largest in the world with 36,000 employees worldwide, 650 stores in eleven countries in Europe and Asia. The sales for the 52 weeks ended 28 January 2006 were £8 billion. The mother company was founded in 1969. It’s a subsidiary of the retail group Kingfisher PLC, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange. The company grew rapidly through a combination of mergers, acquisitions and expansions.In 1995 the mother company of D-Company co-operated with parent company Kingfisher PLC to open its first oversea subsidiary in Taiwan, the first oversea large home improvement center in located in Taoyuan City, Taiwan.
This was done trough a partnership with Test Rite Group, the Taiwanese enterprise which was formerly one of Taiwan's largest trading companies. In recent years it has transformed its business to focus more on retail and distribution.
Among the many overseas investments made the mother company of D-company, Test Rite retail chain is currently the most profitable with 24 stores and 2000 employees.
The summery of the companies profile is displayed in the table 4.1.
53 Table 4.1 Companies’profile
Company Name
Category Year of creation
Business Area
Number of
employee
Capital or revenue A-Company Local
Company
1996 Telecomm unications
3,459 employees
2 billion USD in 2005 capital
B-Company Local Company
1951 Finances, Banking and Insurance
5,318 employees
28 billion USD capital
C-Company
International Company1849 Service Industry
-130,000 worldwide -1,300 in Taiwan
20 billion USD 2005 Total revenue D-Company
InternationalCompany
1969 Retailing and home appliance
-36,000 employees worldwide -2000 in Taiwan
14 billion
USD Total
revenue
January 2006
Interviews Schedule
As it appears it the table 4.2, the average year of experience of the interview sample are more than eight years and half (8, 75 years). The most experienced interviewee has 16 years of experience in the fields of HR while the less experienced one is 3 years. The interviews are done during break time, or after work hours. And one is done in a work time. All the interviewees have important responsibilities in their companies.
Table 4.2 Interview schedule
Company Name
Department Gender Years of experience
Interviewee Job or Title
Date of the interview
The time of the interview A-
Company Human
Resources Division
Male 3 years Leading Administrator
May the 1st2006
15: 00
B-
Company Human
Resources Department
Female 6years Human
resources Manager
April the 3rd2006
12:10
C-
Company Global Human Resources
Solutions Department
Female 10years Senior Manager
May the 5th
2006
12:10
D- Company
Human Resources Department
Male 16 years HR Director March the 28th
2006
10:05 am
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Roles of HR professionals in Performance Consulting
This section has two parts. The researcher analyzes the role description of the HR professional for performance consulting in the first part and in the second part the findings regarding the skills and knowledge that are necessary for HR professionals to do performance consulting.
Based on the literature review, the researcher has developed his own open-ended questions to investigate the roles for HR for performance consulting. The questionnaire is figured in the appendix A.1. The researcher shifted the role described by authors and others researchers into questions and asked the interviewees to describe and express their own opinion regarding those roles.
From this practice the researcher has developed the descriptive table 4.3 showing the categories of the roles of performance consultant used during the interview. Besides those categories the interviewees were asked to tell what other roles they think a performance consultant can play. Several roles were described in this research however the researcher has classified them into 5 classes which are: Strategic Partner, Change Agent, Human Resources Improvement and Evaluation, Manager Advisor and Communicator. These 5 classes were used as code reference during the coding process is figured at the appendix 2.
Table 4.3 Description of the Tasks and Roles of Performance Consultant
Task Category Role Description
Partner with organization to define or refine business goals -Strategic partner
-Define and refine business goals
-Contribute to organizational goals achievement
Identify strategies and recommendations directly linked to organizational and business goals
-Identify strategies for business goals success
-Provide recommendations for performance improvement Identify performance requirements that are directly linked to
the organization’s operational and business needs
-Match performance
interventions to business goals
Determine the conditions of the organization’s environment that must be modified, if needed performance is to take root
-Long term planning of performance improvement actions
-Collaborate with managers to change organizational
environment Contract with leadership to take the actions needed to
support improved and/or different performance, including organization development and human resource development
-Partner with manager to improve performance -Support Manager
-Collaborate with managers for OD/HRD activities
Transit the focus on training to the focus on performance improvement
-Focus in performance -Solve performance issues -Think performance first then training
Ensure that all required actions are completed and the identified performance will be successfully implemented
-Evaluate efficiently performance solutions or interventions
57 Table 4.4 Summery of the Roles for HR for Performance Consulting
Partner with organization to define or refine business goals
Identify strategies and recommendations directly linked to organizational and business goals
Identify performance requirements that are directly linked to the organization’s operational and business needs
Determine the conditions of the organization’s environment that must be modified, if needed performance is to take root
Contract with leadership to take the actions needed to support
improved and/or different performance, including organization development and human resource development
Transit the focus on training to the focus on performance improvement
Ensure that all required actions are completed and the identified performance will be successfully implemented
A Communication channel between employees and manager
Advisor of the manager regarding performance issues
The comments concerning the investigation of the roles of the performance consultant are discussed one by one.
Partner with Organization to Define or Refine Business Goals
For a performance consultant this stage is very important. As one of the interviewee stated “The HR or the performance consultant needs to be deeply involved in this stage. He needs to work closely with the manager to define and redefine the goals otherwise it will be hard for the consultant to provide any solution or recommendations for business goal achievement.” This show how strategic is this point. This role match the recommendations done by Ulrich in his book entitled
“Human Resources Champion”.
By playing this role HR professionals can contribute efficiently to the organizational goals achievement and also become strategic partners of the manager as observed by the interviewees. The HR as a performance consultant must be associated in business planning meeting and should play an active role in the organization.
Identify Strategies and Recommendations Directly Linked to Organizational and Business Goals
From the definition of the Robinsons (1996), there are four kind of organizational
59 3. Training needs: They consist of identifying what people need to learn if
they are to perform successfully;
4. The work environment needs identify what systems and processes within the work environment of the employees must be modified if the performance needs are to be achieved.
This role is directly linked to the on cited previously. And as a natural consequence of the involvement of the HR in business goals definition, it’s his duty to define strategies and recommendations to solve performance problems for an efficient business goals achievement. And as the interviewees explained; if the HR doesn’t have a clear understanding of business goals he cannot plan successful interventions. “If the HR cannot play this role, then he doesn’t worth it” one of the interviewees said. By playing this role, the performance consultant confirms his role as a strategic partner. He should
“Align HR plans to business plans” (Ulrich 1996).
Identify Performance Requirements that are Directly Linked to the Organization’s Operational and Business Needs
This role starts by a deep assessment that will help to define performance gaps. The performance consultant needs to identify skills gaps so that he can work with manager to find appropriate actions to close those gaps. The performance consultant must prioritize his interventions; by identifying the relative importance of skills gaps t know which gaps need to be addressed first so that the recommended actions can have the greatest impact in the shortest period of the time.
He should match his interventions with business goals and use diversified approaches and interventions. The training activities he may recommend for example must be linked to the business agenda.
The Robinsons recommend that the performance consultant to gather an information data regarding employees’performance and performance requirements.
The information required consists:
- The relative importance of job practices or competencies to achieve performance results. The importance is rated as key, basic or low.
For instance key requirements are the practices that are so critical to success in the job that someone who could not perform them would most likely fail. Therefore it is important for employees or performers to be proficient in these requirements.
- The current skill level of the incumbent performers. The skill level is defined as minimal, adequate or proficient.
Determine the Conditions of the Organization’s Environment that Must be Modified, if Needed Performance is to Take Root
This involves both the environment inside and outside the organization. There are all the factors in the business environment that the host organization must adapt to in order to survive and prosper economic conditions, legislation, competitive initiatives, and critical resources. And Within there are the organization policies, culture and budgets.
The performance consultant has to have a clear understanding of these factors and
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Contract with Leadership to Take the Actions Needed to Support Improved and/or Different Performance, Including Organization Development and Human Resource Development
According to the interviewees, the term contract can be changed to partnership or collaboration depending on whether the performance consultant is in or outside the company. So, if the company has an internal consultant or a performance consulting division it is better to say collaboration or partner with the management.
In order for the performance consultant to accomplish efficiently this, the interviewees have observed that the performance consultant needs to have good partnering skills or networking. The strength of this partnership relation depends on the capability of the performance consultant to support business goals and his contribution to increase employees’performance in the organization.
People in the performance consultant’s network provide him with the means of staying current regarding strategic plans, department objectives and initiatives. “The performance consultant needs a very strong partnership not only with the manager but also line managers, business units’ supervisors and employees. The Robinsons suggest that partnering can, and should be formed with various people in an organization: senior managers, other managers and supervisors, leaders and subject matter experts whatever their title. Partnership should also be extended to costumers and suppliers of the organization.
Transit the Focus on Training to the Focus on Performance Improvement
This can be summarized by the sentence maid by one of the interviewees, “Training alone cannot help us solve employees’ performance problems.” He continue “ When our store managers ask us to deliver training activities to the sales people, we ask them to tell us what can they expect from that training activities, how important training is for his people. I ask them to give me a performance target. This is how we manage training in our company”.
All interviewees have admitted that training can be a solution to performance but not always. Training can be useful if only it is used for the right reason. Here are other comments made by one of the interviewees. “It important because training alone cannot solve performance problems. The HR must inquire employees’ performance needs before deciding the kind of interventions he will use.” Another one made comments like: “First of all, the interventions of the performance consultant must focus of performance improvement. Training is one of the performance improvement activities”. Some advocated that “Focusing in performance more than in training is a duty for the training manager and the HR or the performance consultant”.
These observations are not new in the field of human performance; many
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Ensure that all Required Actions are Completed and the Identified Performance will be Successfully Implemented
“The performance consultant must evaluate his interventions. The evaluation system depends on the type of intervention he did, the kind of performance improvement process he used”. From this comment made by one of the interviewees, it appears clearly that this role also has to deal with evaluation.
The performance consultant needs to make sure that training and non training activities are measured for performance change and cost benefit. This includes using diverse evaluation approaches. This idea figures in the recommendations of on of the interviewees; “The performance consultant must evaluate his interventions. The evaluation system depends on the type of intervention he did, and the kind of performance improvement process he used”
Besides the roles identified from the literature review that have been commented previously, the interviewees have also identified roles they estimated of being important for a performance consultant too. These roles are:
Advisor of the Manager Regarding Performance Issues
The performance consultant is regarded as the advisor of management in issues regarding human resources performance and the way to link HR activities to business plans.
A Communication Channel Between Employees and Manager
Business plans, objectives, and targets need to be shared among all the individuals in the organization and mostly employees. Employees need to be aware of what the management is expecting from them, their performance expectations. And from the other hand manager need to be aware of factors that can hinder employees’
performance and general employee performance issue; and between these two sides we have the performance consultant.
Develop Strategic Point of View for the Organization
This role is also similar to the 3rdchallenge described by Ulrich in “Human Resource Champions”. He stated that the real challenge of HR planning is to occupy the continuum’s middle ground, to integrate HR practices into business strategy so that the HR planning becomes an integral part of the business planning process. HR professionals must work with line managers to identify HR practices that accomplish business strategy.
Description of Competencies of a Performance Consultant
The skills and knowledge required for a performance consultant are displayed in the figure 4.1
65 Figure 4.1 The List of Competencies for Performance Consultant
Analysis skill.
The List of Competencies for Performance Consultant
Analysis skills
Business Knowledge
Change Management skills
Facilitation skills
Human performance
technology
Influencing skills
Model building skills
Project management skills
Questioning skills
Listening skills
Relationship building skills
Performance
management system design
Knowledge of performance management cycle
Strategic planning
Strategic thinking
HR information system building
Communication skills
Conceptual skills
Solution providing skills
Networking building
Negotiation and conflict management
Open-mindedness
Good personality traits
Skills and Knowledge for Performance Consulting
Analysis Skills (Numerical and non-numerical analysis Skills)
The performance consultant must able “to see the big picture”. He must be able to make very strict analysis of very complex situation, and problems regarding organizational challenges like performance and business goals achievement. Analysis skills require both numerical and non numerical analysis capability.
Business Knowledge
While a performance consultant must have an in-depth knowledge of the disciplines associated with human resource management and development, it is also important that they become immersed in the “business of business” Robinsons 1996. They must seek out information regarding business. They must broaden their knowledge in the other areas of business.
Change Management Skills
“When we talk about changing we take decision that involves a lot of people” said one of the interviewees. Solutions or recommendations that are provided by a performance consultant can impact deeply an organization and involve some major change in the business. These can involve compensation structure change, organizational
67
Facilitation Skills
Facilitation skills are a corollary of change management. It enables a performance consultant to facilitate the implementation of changes necessary for the development of the organization and the achievement of business goals. The performance consultant must be able to implement successfully the solutions he provides and he also needs collaboration from all the persons involved. This can be done without good facilitation skills. It can help come over “contradictions”.
Knowledge of Human Performance Technology
Human performance technology is a systematic approach analyzing, improving, and managing performance in the work place trough the use of appropriate and varied interventions. Performance consultant must possess knowledge of this technology and operate from a systems approach each time a problem or a performance challenge is presented to them.
Influencing Skills
A performance consultant needs to convince or influence the people he works with or his collaborators. His ability to influence people will help his consulting activities. He must be able to make people trust him and support him in what he is doing.
Model Building Skills
The performance consultant must have the skills to build what is called the performance relationship map. The performance consultant can best influence
management when he can illustrate how actions being proposed will have a positive effect on the business.
To do this the performance consultant must be able to illustrate the interrelationship between business goals, performance requirements, training and work environment needs.
Model building skills means also the capability for the performance consultant, to be knowledgeable in HR Information System Building and Performance management system design.
Project Management Skills
A performance consultant must be able to provide changes and know how to conduct those changes efficiently. It worth nothing to provide solutions, and recommendations for organization development, and performance improvement, if the performance consultant cannot monitor their implementation process.
Questioning and Listening Skills
Questioning is important for any consulting activity and it goes in pair with listening skills. Consulting process begins with interview and data collection from different people.
The consultant must know when to ask questions, where to seek information, the kind of questions to ask and need good listening skills too. If the performance consultant don’t have these skills he is likely to make wrong analysis and wrong decisions.
69 get trust and support from many people inside and outside the organization. Performance consultant need to forge relationships with various people like: Senior managers, other managers and supervisors, and thoughts leaders and subject matter experts and also suppliers and customers of the organization.
Knowledge of Performance Management Cycle
The performance must provide solutions and recommendations, set objectives and goals that are SMART.
Strategic Planning
In order to achieve business goals, the performance consultant must develop and plan strategic human resources planning and effective performance goals. There fore it is necessary for him to get involved in business or organizational goals setting.
Strategic Thinking
The performance consultant is a strategic partner of the organization who has to transform business goals, targets and strategies into action. He plays a key role in this phase and therefore must develop strategic human resources practices that are linked to the achievement of those business objectives.
Communication, Negotiation and Conflict Management Skills
Communication is a key factor in the success of performance consulting. The performance consultant will have to communicate with many people inside and even outside the organization (senior managers, line managers, supervisors, employees, costumers and suppliers of the company).
The performance consultant can’t be a good facilitator if he doesn’t have good communication skills. And besides, he must be able to communicate, and indicate, and explain clearly performance target to employees, give them feedback, quality standards and so on. Communication is also important for conflict management and negotiation.
Conceptual and Solution Providing Skills
A conceptual skill involves creativity and the capability for the performance consultant to cope with the very complex business environment. Creativity can help him develop solutions and training frameworks to solve various performance issues. The solution providing skills of the performance consultant is rooted in his ability to make very accurate analysis of performance issues.
Open-mindedness and Good Personality Traits
There are many personal traits required for a performance consultant. He must be opened to other people wishes, expectations, and thoughts. The must have the sensitivity to get along with different people. He must be reliable and self controlled. He must be able to control his emotions when facing challenges and pressures. A performance consultant must also control his behavior and words any time and preserve company secrets. Patience is good for consulting activities. He must be opened to contradiction and diversity. This is important for the performance consultant to get support; he needs to
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Comparison with Past Research Findings
There are not many researches investigating the roles and competencies of performance consultant. However this research has contributed for a better understanding of what can be the roles and competencies of performance consultants.
Concerning description of the roles, the research has contributed to find three (3) more roles of a performance consultant compare to the Robinsons and others scholars quoted in the literature review. They are: A Communication channel between employees and manager, Advisor of the manager regarding performance issues, Develop strategic point of view for the organization.
Talking about the competencies, the figure 4.2 describes the comparison between the findings of the research and the competencies that we have been found from the literature review. Besides the competencies described by the Robinsons, Pike, Caudron and Rummler, our research has figured other 13 category of competencies.
But when we compare certain competencies we realize that some are overlapping or even just different from the terms used but still mean the same thing. For example the term networking skills is considered by the interviewees as also meaning relationship building skills. For analysis skill the research has found that there are two categories of analysis skills that are both important for a performance consultant: Numerical and non numerical analysis skills. The most important is to keep in mind that skills found in this research must be additional to the ones described by the Robinsons.
Figure 4.2 Competencies comparison
Analysis Skills
Business Knowledge
Change Management Skills
Facilitation Skills
Human performance
technology
Influencing Skills
Model building Skills
Project management Skills
Questioning Skills
Listening Skills
Performance management system design
Knowledge of performance management cycle
Strategic planning
Strategic thinking
HR information system building
Communication Skills
Conceptual Thinking Skills
Solution providing Skills
Networking building
Negotiation and conflict management
Open-mindedness
Good personality
Numerical and non-
Skills and Knowledge from the study Basic Skills and knowledge from the
literature review
