Ramp up performance,
maximise productivity

Many businesses tell us that their people are their most important asset. Even for those that don’t employees are usually one of the highest cost line items on the profit and loss statement.

Learning to work effectively with your people to help them achieve their optimal performance is key to improving a business’s productivity and adds value for both customers and employees alike.

Burke Consulting can assist you with:

• recruitment and induction
• employment agreements and contracts
• employment relations
• performance management
• training and development
• competence assessment
• restructuring and change management
• disciplinary matters

Find the right applicant first time

Introducing new people into your business is expensive and if they aren’t a good fit the cost implications are even greater. Costs arise from having to advertise, interview and carry out pre-employment checks on candidates and once the appointment is made there is a period of reduced productivity while the successful candidate gets ‘up-to-speed’.

Our best practice formula will reduce your risk of employing someone inappropriate by teaching you how to recruit and select better employees.

Our role is to work with employers to improve in-house recruitment processes to reduce costs. We don’t offer recruitment services directly but can recommend some appropriate recruiters should you so wish.

Several factors impact on a business’s ability to identify and recruit the right candidate

1. A clear understanding and definition of the role as it is now (not how it was) and consider:

• What is required to be done?
• What standard must the work be performed to?
• What specific skills, knowledge, natural traits and abilities
  should the successful candidate possess?
• The expected level of experience and / or qualifications
• The salary or wage you need or can afford to pay

2. Use good interview techniques to gain a deeper insight of the candidates and determine whether they can do the job and fit into your organisation. Key differences in the type of questions asked help better understand the candidate before employment is offered.

3. Use good selection processes to ensure potential candidates are chosen objectively and legal obligations are met. Include a variety of checks, tests and assessments to reduce the risk of a poor decision when hiring.

4. Use a concise employment agreement and job description that clearly specifies the arrangement you have with your employee, your expectations, what work must be completed and how well it must be performed. Many agreements are very brief and do not provide the employer or the employee with the rights and obligations to optimise the employment relationship. Better written agreements improve your control over work performance and the employment relationships.

5. Induct your new employee into the business. From the start ensure your new employee is doing the job correctly, productively and safely. Help your new employee to succeed so that they can help you!

Build better employee relationships

For the uninitiated employment relations can be a complex and difficult animal. However, two rules of thumb apply when it comes to employment issues:

• Prevention is better than cure
• Strike while the iron is hot

Be proactive in your dealings with employees: implementing employment agreements, managing employment and performance issues expeditiously and have regular open communication.

Some good practices that business's can undertake are:

• Clearly defining the nature of the employment arrangement and the work to be performed
• Ensuring people are treated fairly and in “good faith”
• Ensuring the right decisions are made at the right time
• Dealing with performance and misconduct issues as they arise
• Preventing a difficult situation from deteriorating
• Managing your liability with regard to personal grievances

Burke Consulting has a range of clauses that can be inserted into employment agreements that:

• ensure your obligations are covered
• ensure employee obligations are covered describe employment terms and conditions and behavioural expectations
• ensure your business is looked after by including job descriptions that clearly describe the role and assist performance measurement and management
• assist you with your employment relations needs and dealing with challenging situations.

Improve staff performance

Performance management involves focusing employees' behaviour to ensure they carry out their work to the correct standard and in a safe manner.

A variety of matters can influence behaviour such as the work environment, interactions with managers, levels of motivation, sense of achievement, enjoyment, home life etc.

Performance management requires defined and communicated standards of output and behaviours. Essentially employees want to know:

• What do you want me to do?
• How well do you want me to do it?
• How will I know when I have finished?

While the answers often seem obvious to the boss, it isn’t necessarily so to employees. Performance management includes:

• setting performance objectives and establishing expectations for individuals, groups and teams and the organisation as a whole;
• planning, monitoring and reviewing the performance of people in the workplace; and, may include managing performance problems arising from lack of clarity, insufficient knowledge, unwillingness to perform the work correctly, safely or at all, and identifying the aptitudes required to complete tasks.

While some of these things may sound complex in application they can be very simple, but will provide significant benefit to your operation. Burke Consulting has methodologies that will identify performance gaps and can assist you to implement strategies to improve the performance of your employee base.

Lastly, when all else fails there is the option of disciplinary action, see disciplinary action section.

Accurately analyse competence

Burke Consulting can also provide a range of competence assessments and psychometric testing using the Hogan system. We have a relationship with a Psychology Assessment Centre which can assist with your pre-employment assessments and your performance development activities.

Psychometric Assessments include:

• Personality inventory
• Development Survey
• Motives, Values and Preferences Inventory
• Business Reasoning Inventory
• Additional Assessments such as:
  – Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal
  – Advanced Verbal Reasoning
  – Advanced Numeric Reasoning
  – Ravens Advanced Progressive matrices
  – Critical Thinking Appraisal
  – Risk Adversity (will the candidate behave in a safe manner)

Competence Assessments include NZQA unit standard assessment or customised assessments against your procedures.

Get staff assessments
from 360 degrees

360 degree assessment is a form of gathering data to assess an employees performance from those who work closely with that employee. Data may be collected from their bosses, workmates, subordinates as well as customers and suppliers and aggregated to make it anonymous. This is more of a feedback that an appraisal but can help to identify areas for development, and is usually focused on managers.

Climate surveys can also be performed on a variety of functions to establish the feeling amongst the organisation’s employees.

Achieve successful restructures

The business climate is constantly changing and operations must evolve and change constantly to remain competitive.

Whatever leads to employee’s employment terms and conditions changing, a process must be followed that encompasses the principles of good faith and a sound and justifiable decision.

Burke Consulting has the tools and experience to implement the processes required to complete these projects minimising the negative impacts and optimising the benefit ensuring a rapid transition to business as usual.

Manage bad behaviour effectively

Ultimately discipline is about changing a person's behaviour in the workplace and many employers encounter difficulties and uncertainty when disciplining staff. It is important to take on poor performance or disruptive behaviour. Burke Consulting can facilitate a safe process minimising company risk and disruption.

The Employment Relations Act gives employees rights as to how they should be dealt with at the time of an employment problem. The aim is to resolve the problem with the employee and move forward. Dismissing the employee is a significant waste of time, effort and money. However sometimes that cannot be avoided.

Disciplinary matters should be managed with a positive approach by:

• Creating clear rules and standards of behaviour
• Establishing procedures for dealing with employment relationship problems
• Enforcing rules and standards in a fair and consistent manner.
• Taking appropriate action

Most importantly, establish a clear disciplinary process to ensure:

• Consistent decisions and continuity of process when there are management changes
• A commitment to fairness
• The authority of different levels of management is defined
• Procedural fairness is demonstrated
• Employees know there is a clear process for taking up and resolving problems and that issues will be taken seriously and treated fairly

Burke Consulting can assist you to manage these matters and develop the necessary processes. We have helped many companies do the same and have a long list of clients who were extremely satisfied with the outcomes.