Next Plc Performance Management

Human Resource Management can have a large impact on organisational performance; similarly, high-performance work practices such as incentive compensation, performance management systems and employee involvement improve the knowledge and skills of an organisation’s employees, whilst also increasing their motivation (Jones and Wright, 1992, cited in Huselid, 1995). Therefore, there is much cause for organisations to utilise staff management practices to receive the highest level of performance. Two such management practices employed within Next Plc are performance management and succession planning. Performance management can be defined as “a disciplinary practice because it incorporates notions of individual accountability and self-regulation”

It could be argued that, for performance management to be most effective, employees need to be able to differentiate between being treated respectfully by the organisation and being rewarded for their work. In the case of Next Plc, many former employees felt their good performance was never properly addressed. “I think talent management was an important part of working at Next, however I always felt that hard work was never properly appreciated by the managers, which often caused me to think ‘why bother?’ and probably stopped me from developing as much as I could have.” (C. Bass, 2018, Personal Communication, appendix B, 15 February). The poorly handled aspect of performance management throughout this organisation could therefore lead to a negative impact on the talent management of the employees, as many felt resentful towards the managers and underappreciated. The lack of appreciation felt by the employees could consequently mean they are less inclined to develop themselves and further their progression through the

Succession planning “identifies and prepares talented employees to step into key positions and leadership roles” (Department of Training and Workforce Development, 2018). It is arguable that providing employees with informal and formal training, such as on-the-job experience and mentoring, can improve employees’ development. Next Plc employed apprenticeship schemes enabling young people to complete on-the-job training. The training and development of employees encourages talent to grow using training/leadership programmes (Cohn, Khurana and Reeves, 2005, cited in Lewis and Heckman, 2006). Apprenticeships and succession planning are, therefore, beneficial to organisations as they create the next generation of organisational leaders and develop the competency of their employees. H. Little (2018, Personal Communication, appendix A, 12 February) stated “I feel the managers were pretty encouraging of developing their staff; as an apprentice I had many opportunities for development and I feel they took pride in developing other employees to reach the best of their ability too.” Next Plc also used internal, computer-based training where the focus was on introducing their employees to different areas of retail work and laws and quizzing the employees once the training was complete. This perspective of talent management focuses largely on the idea of talent pools and the concept that talent