Solution MAF651 - JULY 2020 PDF

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JULY 2020 2A. The balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system that is extensively used in the business industry, government and non-profit organisations worldwide to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organisation.

(Sharma & Ashu, 2009)

Required: Explain with examples how the four (4) perspectives of the balanced scorecard can be used by the government in improving public service delivery. (20 marks)

The balanced scorecard (BCS) provides governments with a more holistic performance management methodology. There are numerous examples of public sector balanced scorecards. Some add additional perspectives such as human resources. Important differences from the private sector includes the replacement of the customer perspective with the citizen perspective. Public sector organizations focus on the citizen perspective as result, rather than financial perspective.

Public sector organizations are budget driven. The balanced scorecard enables tying longterm government goals to annual and medium-term budget proposals which improves program evaluation. It is also an effective transparency mechanism for citizen and employee communications. Besides that, the BSC provides evidence of progress towards goals and validates policy.

There are four perspectives of the balanced scorecard.

PERSPECTIVE

OBJECTIVE

LAG INDICATOR

LEAD

Financial

-To maintain

-Economy declined

INDICATOR -Reduction in

perspective

economic

reflected

number

sustainability in

measures to control

a state of

the

pandemic

globally

-To benchmark

domestically

other effective

-Customer

companies

purchasing power

as

of

unemployment

pandemic and

depending on demographic of Citizen perspective

classes of income -Number of COVID- -Number of citizen

- To let citizens

be aware of COVID- 19 cases per day

going for swab test

19 hotspot

per day

- Track citizen who got

infected

with

COVID-19 Internal processes

-Citizen satisfaction

Business -Improve the delivery information

-Reduce the amount of fake news spread

of

through different

related

platform

to COVID-19 and ensure that the information delivered the right facts and are easy to Learning Growth

understand and -Improve the wellbeing of the front liners during COVID-19

- Employee

-Improvement

satisfaction

childcare facilities

to

2B. Physicas Fitness Centre (Physicas) operates a professional fitness centre located in a popular shopping complex in Alamy City. The company aims to offer an affordable and convenient fitness training services for both men and women of all age. The business engages experienced certified professional personal trainers, who are able to provide first-class quality services to all clients.

Mr Conovan, the general manager of Physicas has identified service quality, people, innovation and resource utilisation as part of the critical success factors for the centre to sustain lucratively and remain competitive in the future.

Required: Suggest the most suitable non-financial performance measure for each of the critical success factors identified by Mr Conovan above. Give reason on each of the non-financial performance measures proposed. (20 marks) Critical success factors Resource utilization (Financial)

Non-financial performance measure Number of employees

Average daily studio attendance

People (customer perspective)

Number of conversion rate

Reasons

Physicas provided services of professional fitness training where it requires a staff to deliver the services. The general manager needs to make sure all staff will be fully utilized to get a good result in their business. However the general manager need to ensure that the duration time spent is efficient enough in assessing the utilization because longer time spent does not necessarily increase the efficiency rate in this type of services. The average daily studio attendance show that the fitness centre is being utilize frequently as it is convenient to the customer. Conversion rate for a fitness centre is when potential customers subscribe for the membership after trial period has ended. This is an important measure to knows whether Physicas able to satisfied the customer needs. A low conversion rate indicates that Physicas need to improve their services.

Service quality (internal business process perspective)

Innovation (learning and growth)

Average length of membership

The average length of membership indicates how long a fitness centre can retain its membership. A high average length of membership indicates that the members are satisfied and happy with the services provided by Physicas.

Number of skilled trainers to improve service quality.

It is important for Physicas to look into its trainer’s qualifications in order to ensure that they are capable of providing the first-class quality services to all clients. Skilled trainers are important to ensure the customer satisfaction and the business growth. From the above case, it can be seen that Physicas has taken into considerations on the trainer’s qualifications where they engage experienced certified professional personal trainers.

Increases the number of additional services

By providing additional services such as personal training and nutritional counselling can also help in improving the service quality of Physicas. This is because some customers may only want a private or personal session with specific trainers. Satisfying the customer needs will gives a positive growth for the business and indirectly able to get a high retention rate.

Establish new invention

Providing a professional fitness centre is not something new in the market. Therefore by introducing a new invention such as using application or live-streamed fitness classes may attract a new target market to use their fitness service. In return, the company can charge a subscriptions fee which will benefit them to increase their revenue. This is because some people prefer working out alone at home since it is more convenient than to go out just for exercise. Thus, this innovation can cater to different needs of customers who want to use their services.

3A. Explain in detail the motivation effect of Vroom’s expectancy theory and Herzberg’s two-factor theory with regards to the above case. Vroom’s expectancy theory Vroom’s expectancy theory assumes that a person’s behaviour is a result from an aware choice among alternatives with the purpose to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Vroom realized that an employee’s performance is based on individual factors such as personality, skills, knowledge, experienced and abilities. He stated that effort, performance, and motivation are linked in a person’s motivation. There are three variables which are expectancy, instrumentality, and valence to account for this. 

Expectancy

Expectancy is the belief that an increased in effort will lead to increase performance. This is affected by things such as having the right resources, right skills to do the job and having the necessary support to get the job done. Based on the case, Kheir believe that if he worked very hard, he could complete the report with excellent. He believed that he would have a bright future in the company if he can achieve the target. Kheir also belief that if he spent several nights reviewing the project brief and developed come creative ideas, he can impress Daim and Julia, his teammates.



Instrumentality

Instrumentality is the belief that if someone perform well that a valued outcome will be received. It is a degree to which a first level of outcome will lead to a second level of outcome. This is affected by things such as the clear understanding of relationship between performance and outcomes, the trust in people who decides on who gets the outcome and the transparency of the process that decides who gets the outcomes.

Based on the case, Kheir believe that if he can complete the report excellently and pass the probation period, he can earn a bonus as stated by the HR director. He also spent long hours using his creativity to ensure that he can produce a great outcome which is an excellent report.



Valence

Valence is the importance that the individual places upon the expected outcomes. It also refers to the emotional orientations that people hold with respect to rewards. It is the depth of the want of an employee for extrinsic or intrinsic. As an example, if an employee is mainly motivated by money, he or she might not value other offers of additional time off. Based on Kheir case, he seems to value more intrinsic value rather than extrinsic value. This can be proven when he is more motivated and passionate to do his work after Julia said that he can use its own ideas and creativity in completing the report. He also feeling motivated to create an excellent report to impress Daim and Julia. Before he started his job. the HR directors said that they are not offering a big salary, but Kheir still determined to get things done.

Herzberg’s two-factor theory The Herzberg Two Factor theory states that there are certain factors in the workplace that cause job satisfaction, while a separate set of factors cause dissatisfaction. Herzberg suggested that there are two factors that affect employee behaviour, which are hygiene factors and motivators. 

Hygiene factors

Hygiene factors are the factors that do not give positive satisfaction but will give results of dissatisfaction without them. It provides the setting for encouraging employee motivation but do not themselves motivate employees. It relates to the context of the job and based on the need for a business to avoid unpleasantness at work. Therefore, it is a need for employers to ensure that employee is not dissatisfy. Examples of hygiene factors are job security, wages level, working conditions, rules and regulation, and relationships with colleagues. 

Motivators

Motivators relates to factors that give positive satisfaction, arising from intrinsic conditions of the job itself. It relates to the context of the job which refers to what the employer asks the employees to do at work. Therefore, it is a need for the employer to motivate employees to higher their performance. Examples of motivators are achievement, recognition, the nature of the work, responsibility and opportunities for personal growth.

The idea is that hygiene factors will not motivate, but if they are not there, they can lower motivation such as pay and conditions at work, which can make you unhappy with your job.

While motivational factors will not necessarily lower motivation, but can be responsible for increasing motivation such as the type of work you do and the respect you get for it, which can make you happy with your job.

Based on this case, the culture of SMZ Consultants is discouraging the appreciation of effort by the team and this lead to decrease the motivation of Kheir. Kheir and the rest of the team have spent several nights reviewing the project brief and developed some creative ideas and put to significant effort collecting a mountain of data, which would form the basis of their client’s report to impress Daim and Julia but Daim and Julia throwing their ideas and interpreting the vast data that have been made by the team just like that. Kheir still put some effort to amend the client’s report and worked very hard and spent long hours in completing what he thought was an excellence report by using his own idea but Julia ripped the report into shreds. This event leads to building of anger and resentment inside Kheir and his enthusiasm for the job has gradually diminished. This is a hygiene factor that what cause dissatisfaction to Kheir in the workplace.

However, there is motivation factors that influence Kheir to still stay in the company which are the bonus that he entitles to receive if he successfully completed his four-month probation period. He still came to work just before office hour started and left earlier than before. He was no longer interested in dazzling anyone. To the worst, he thinks he want to resign from the company, but he chooses to stay when he remembers the bonus that he will receive if he stays. Due to this, although the workplace is not encouraging, Kheir is still has motivation to work in the company due to bonuses that have been promised.

3B. Interpret the significance of Locke’s goal setting theory to the top management of Lacominda Sdn Bhd in an attempt to elevate the motivation of the employees and to encourage them to stay in the organisation.

Answer: Edwin Locke put forward the Goal-setting theory of motivation. This theory states that goal setting is essentially linked to task performance. It also states that specific and challenging goals along with appropriate feedback contribute to higher and better task performance. It means that goals give direction to an employee about what needs to be done and how much efforts are required to be put in. Locke also demonstrated that the best way to feel motivated is to push yourself to do something that you’re not 100% certain you can achieve. Tackling challenging goals headfirst allows the employees to work hard, develop skills and reap the awards in terms of positive feedback and sense of personal achievement. There are five principles of effective goal setting that the top management of Lacominda Sdn Bhd need to do to elevate the motivation of the employees and to encourage them to stay in the organisation which are: 1.

Clarity

Clarity which means a goal must be specific and clear. The top management need to set specific and clear goals as it lead to greater output and better performance. The willingness of the employees to work towards the attainment of the goal is the main source of job motivation. Unambiguous, measurable and clear goals accompanied by a deadline for completion could avoids misunderstanding between the top management and other employees.

2.

Challenge

Challenge means the goal must have be realistic and have a decent level of difficulty in order to motivate the employees to strive towards the goal. The top management of Lacominda Sdn Bhd need to set goals that are realistic that the employees can achieve and have a decent level of difficulty to motivate the employees to strive towards the goal and encourage them to stay in the organisation. This is because the more

challenging the goal, the greater is the reward generally and the more is the passion for achieving it.

3.

Commitment

Where employees of Lacominda Sdn Bhd need to be fully committed in order to successfully achieve their goals. It is the commitment that keep them going when they encounter obstacles along the way. The participation of employees of Lacominda Sdn Bhd in setting of goals makes the goal more acceptable to the employees and will results to more involvement among employees in efforts to attain such goals.

4.

Feedback.

The top management need to provide regular feedback throughout the whole process. This helps to keep the goal on track. In addition, better and appropriate feedback of results directs the employee of Lacominda Sdn Bhd behaviour and contributes to higher performance than the absence of feedback. It assists employees to work with more involvement, leads to greater job satisfaction and will make them stay in the organisation longer.

5.

Task complexity.

Challenging task can be motivating and it is important for employees to have the time and space they need to work through complex tasks. However, highly complex tasks may make employees become overwhelmed and lose confidence in their ability to achieve the goals. Therefore, the top management need to give the employees more time, space and resources for them to work through the complex tasks given. This will motivate them to work better and efficiently.

In conclusion, employee motivation is a crucial task for the top management. The employees must be highly motivated and proactive in order for employees to value-add their company. Therefore, it is important for the top management of Lacominda Sdn Bhd to implement the goal setting theory as it can lead to increase the motivation of the employees and make them stay longer in the organisation....