Case Study of Role of Performance Management in Pizza Hut

Introduction:

Many of us attribute the success of Walmart to its high rated managerial skills and business techniques. But it is a fact that Walmart could achieve success due to its excellent human resource management and human resource management capabilities. Mr. Walton was well aware of the role of workers in a successful business and devised policies to get the support of the worker and consumers from the start of his business. It was because of this reason that he started ‘happy employees – happy customers’ at the beginning of his business. There are evidences for the continuation of this policy for Walmart all over the world. It was not started by Walmart, but he backed on it and got great dividends.

In the history of business, there have been good effects by following this method to bring success to business, for example a good chauffeur can certainly operate a bad engine but a bad chauffeur would not be able to do it with even a good engine. Deshpande and Golhar (1994) also confirm this view. They say that poor and inexpert HRM practices often result in poor quality, low production, consumer dissatisfaction, and also higher employee turnover.

Here the researcher develops on the hypothesis that organisations should look after the interests of the worker in order to taste success in their respective fields. These days HR management also refers to training, development, and retention. We cannot just talk of selection and recruitment responsibilities alone. Each of these processes has a vital role to play in the HR management. The vital aspect of the organization has lot to do with the growth chart. (Scarborough & Zimmer, 2000).

These days no industry can survive by employing a group of people who are not well skilled. It is a necessary to employ and keep good people. (Audretsch et al, 2000). It is really hard task to manage employees and extract good results from them. In order to realize this goal, the HR managers should have the intuition of understanding and experience. . One of these Human Resource management strategies is efficient employee performance management system in place, both recruitment and retention should be the prime objectives of HR departments (Deshpande and Golhar, 1994).

Background:

When the researcher was in search of a suitable subject for his courser work, came across lot of activities the social environment and got struck to the business activities going on around. He had the opportunity to visit a “Pizza hut” with a friend who was an employee there. The author could notice that many of the employees had no knowledge of the HR policies. They did not even have a good knowledge of their organization even. The researchers also could see lots of stickers placed on the walls of the shop on the ethical code, but lacked proper communication between management and employees. The restaurant was running on the principle of making financial gains and the employee’s interests were given least priority. The researcher had the opportunity to interact with the employees and could find that they were over burdened due to the cost cutting measures adopted by the employer. The number of staff remained same even in the peak business hours. It brought an extra pressure on the existing staff. None of the HR policies were in practice here.

The researcher did not stop there but visited some of the other Pizza Hut restaurants and found the same scenario. There were also no sufficient staff at the peak hours of business and the workers were over burdened at those times. Due to this problem, the workers were unhappy and it reflected in their service and quality. The author also could come across a survey conducted by Pizza Hut, which reflected the same observations. It was found that these problems occurred due to excessively focused on cost-cutting mentality of the management.

The above observations of the local Pizza Hut restaurants suggested a good topic for the research, hence this proposal.

Aims and Objectives

The researcher takes Pizza Hut as a case study and tries to prove that Performance Management and appraisal system is necessary in the success of any organization.

The study shows that Pizza Hut is the biggest Pizza provider in UK. It has also invested a lot of money to maintain its status in the pizza outlets in UK. Thus selection of Pizza Hut for the case study might be a bit surprising. It is fact that there is great competition that Pizza Hut has to face from its rivals and the studies have revealed that they have lost their market share to its competitors. The researcher is interested to make an attempt to know if its HR policies have anything to do with the losing of market share, if so.

The researcher tries to look into the following objectives from this study program:

Review the current Performance Management practices at Pizza Hut?

Effectiveness of these policies.

Look into the current business performance.

Possible measures for improvements.

Possible achievements.

However the researcher will seriously make an attempt to examine the position of Performance Management policies in success of any business.

Literature Review

Here the researcher gives a number of literatures that he wants to review for this research program. This is not a fixed list as there can be changes at the actual research program to improve and enhance the work. These lists of literature give an idea of researcher’s comprehension towards topic and the direction.

Grote (1996) is of the opinion that the performance appraisal is the sole responsibility of the managers which should be managed well. He also stands for good communication system between the employees and the management. He also views that if there is a good management; it will take care of the talents of the workers and can avoid lot of conflicting situations with the workers. It will only do well for the organization as a whole. It will turn out to be good for both the organization and workers.

The researcher makes use of another book written by the same author Grote (1996). The title of the book is ‘The Complete Guide to performance appraisal’. It has been published by AMACOM, in New York. This book is supposed to give great insights into academic studies as the author is an experienced hand as a successful business consultant for quite some time.

The content of this book is well established and thus the managers who seek to practice an effective Performance Management will find it handy to practice them in their respective industries. The book also puts forward few tips to sort out the situation existing to improve. The author has elaborately explained everything about performance management and appraisal system that seeks huge contribution from the part of management for the success. These great works of Grote will contribute to the present topic for information.

Another book the researcher has included in his reference is ‘Performance Management’ written by Bascal R (199). The book has been brought to light by the McGraw Hill, NY (USA). Here the author has dealt with the Performance Management elaborately. He has very cleverly pointed out the problems as well as solutions. The researcher feels that this book will contribute greatly to the topic in the research.

The researcher also finds some recent developments on the topic and has included recent articles and journals as source. So some relevant literature also is cited below.

Westerman (1996) has published a journal on Employee Responsibilities and Rights titled ‘Rethinking the Role of Performance Appraisal in Total Quality Management. Here the author has taken up a very good study of the effective human resource management policies in TQM implementation for the organizations holding business in the global level and face a stiff competition from the rivals in the same field. He asserts that Performance management and appraisal is the sole effective measure to gather the wholehearted support from the part of employees.

The researcher also found the work from Krathanos (1996) very effective. This is a journal that holds the idea of ‘The role of expert systems in improving the management of processes in total quality management organizations’. This researcher also got involved in the study of Baldrige Award Criteria and recognized came to know the value of information and analysis for the promotion of business performance.

‘Three Trends around Data Quality for Performance Management’ an article written by Schmitz J (2008) also was found to be good by the researcher. The author, who is the Product Marketing manager of the IBM, suggests that organizations must stand for the correct collection of data for the most effective performance appraisal system. She develops on the idea that proper Business Intelligence and Performance management can improve the quality of business performance. She also reminds us the success rate of these tools depends on the accuracy of data.

The author of this research proposal also have gone through some of the previous works done on this same subject, in order to find how they had been successful in executing ideas and to understand how useful were there findings.

The author also came across a case study conducted by 2GC Limited in UK. It was given a job of restructuring EPM System for a fast-developing international retailer. They have more than 200 centers worldwide. The author has found this case study to be useful in writing his own case study for Pizza Hut. The similarity is that Pizza Hut too has got international chain of fast food restaurants.

The author has found a case study conducted by Soltani et al (2010) to implement PM system in quality oriented firms in UK. The researcher also has gone through the working of more than 150 organisations. The prime motive of the author was to study the human resource performance evaluation systems and its effects on business performance. The study reflected a huge gap between Total Quality Management in force and actual EPM system that was going on there. This also revealed many confusions and illusion prevalent in these organizations.

The author also plan to go through some of the most effective and practiced human resource management models in order to get a better idea of the requirements for this research. These proposed studies will come in handy for the conclusion and is necessary recommendations. Some of the Human Resource models that are to be gone through are Michigan Model, or Fomburn Model, Tichy and Devannna model. All these models are found to be effective in the Human Resource Management activities.

Fomburn (1984) has come up with three strategies that could be applied in any organization. They are:

Mission

Organisational activities

HRM

The author has realized the importance of drawing main aims and objectives of the organization and taking up enough resource to arrive at these goals. There are three main management activities forwarded by Fombrun. They are:

– Policy formation and goal setting,

– Segregating resources and

– Management

It is evident that Fomburn has devised a model in accordance with business strategies.

Harvard Model of Human Resource Management et al (1984) has come out with six important strategies for a successful business performance.

– Situational components

– Stakeholders interests

– Policy choices

– Outcomes

– Future consequences

– Feedback system to access all the stakeholders

The researcher plans to go through all three Human Resource Management models elaborately to find out their merits and benefits in EPM implementation and success.

Research Methodology

Following research methods will be followed to fulfill this research project.

Primary Research:

Researcher plans to execute empirical study by interviewing both employees and customers of local Pizza Huts. There are many outlets within reach. The researcher also plans to personally interview some Pizza Hut managers to know about their approach of Pizza Hut and performance appraisal system and its effectiveness. Author is of the view that a personal interaction with the Pizza Hut

Customers will help him to get a clear cut idea about the effectiveness of the Performance Management and Appraisal Systems at these outlets. The researcher also plans to compare these feedbacks with the responses of the Pizza Hut managers. The researcher also plans to utilize the literary works to understand the implementation of the Performance Management and Appraisal Systems at work. All these activities will enable the researcher to put forward some recommendations for the overall progress of the Pizza Hut.

Secondary Research:

Researcher plans to execute a secondary research on the topic by carefully analyzing literature and other relevant information which will be available both online and offline. This study will be conducted before actually going into the empirical research thus acquire sufficient knowledge and skills to complete the research topic and arrive at a decent conclusion. This will enhance the understanding of the Pizza Hut and Appraisal existing Human Resource Management practices and performance appraisal systems. This procedure will help to analyze data gathered through research.

Data collection

The researcher offers to collect data by conducting questionnaires to employees and customers of the Pizza Hut. Researcher also would conduct small interviews keeping in mind the importance of getting more information. The prime aim of the researcher is to review maximum number of outlets, customers and employees that could be well managed in the available time.

The researcher purposes to prepare three questionnaires for each category-employees, customer, and managers. Questions are to be prepared participants friendly to make it easy and interesting. The researcher offers to take back the forms immediately to get a spontaneous response and enough time will be provided to those who need it.

Limitations:

The main reason why the author has decided to choose Pizza Hut is that its quick accessibility to the customers and employees there. The planned interviews of the Pizza Hut managers depend on their interest and approval. The researcher plans to visit only some of the Pizza Hut outlets that are easily accessible in UK. A lot depends on the spontaneous response of the participants.

Ethical Issues:

The researcher is well aware of the problems that can arise from the participation of the volunteers. Thus he has promised them to keep their personal identity secret. The facts like name, address, email, phone numbers, or identity will not be disclosed to anyone for any purpose. The facts are not asked from the participants to provide to the researcher at all. They have been instructed not to give any of their personal information as they are not required for this research program. The participants have been informed formally for their participation in the research program.

This research program involves a multinational organization for case study. Thus the researcher vows not to disclose any of his findings with any other person than his supervisor and staff assigned by the University.

The researcher plans to present the final result in a readable and comprehensive way. For this he plans to present it in the form of summaries and graphs.

Conclusion

The researcher offers to review a number of literature books, journals, various Human Resource models and other available resources elaborately. The study of literature will definitely help to get a great understanding of the subject and that will be a solid foundation for the empirical study that follows. The researchers plans regularly in touch with the seniors and teachers at every part of the research and thus make sure that the development is in the right direction.

The author has also offers to a case study on Pizza Hut restaurants in UK. The main aim of the researcher is to develop an understanding of the Human Resource Management policies and practices and its result on the business performance as a whole. For this some relevant questions will be asked to the Pizza Hut customers, employees and managers (if allowed to).The researcher plans to understand and judge the performance of the employees by studying the responses received from the customers. In the same way an attempt would be made to know Human Resource Management practiced by the managers by examining the feedbacks from the employees. Likewise the managers of the local PH outlets will be contacted to know the overall function of the restaurants. When all the desired data is collected, it will present as a copy of overall Pizza Hut’s performance, its Human Resource Management policies, Performance of the employees, and its consequences on the customer experience and overall business performance. It is a fact without saying that no organization would grow much without looking into the feedbacks of the customers. Only an organization that would give sufficient importance of the feedbacks customers can progress in business. It is same with both product and service industries. As an organization is run by people, worker, and employees there arise the need for satisfied customers. Therefore there is a need for the organizations to develop an effective customer support. This is what is expected of the apt Human Resource Management in place.

The research will definitely improve the knowledge of the researcher and provide him with information that is very helpful. It will also tell the readers of the Performance Management policies and about an effective performance appraisal which will lead to a good employee performance, an improved customer satisfaction and a good profit for the business organization. This research will throw light to the Human Resource problems greatly and suggest some solutions and employ performance will be improved.

This research will greatly help the researcher and other Human Research managers. This research will open ways to the reliable sources that can be accessed to get factual information on the result oriented Employee Performance, and Performance Appraisal techniques to help organizations to transform workforce into a good unit of happy employees.