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7/27/2019 islm finance

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institute suggesting that there is no definition consistently emerged during employers

1800 surveyed. The same thing followed by Williams (2009) that it is difficult to

define management performance. It is defined as an integrated and strategic

process which delivers a sustained success for organization, through improving the

peoples performance of their work and improving as well as developing teams and

also individuals (Armstrong 2010). It is further said by Armstrong that performance

management contributes to the success of an organization if or when it is used

effectively and efficiently because the vital function of management depends on it.

The key features of performance management by Williams and McMaster (2009)

are:

i. identify the objectives of strategy

ii. making separately goals for teams/departments

iii. A developed plan for activities of performance/identified

iv. Outcomes/results must be agreed

v. The Performance reviewed and monitored by appraisal

vi. All needs clearly determined for development

vii. For encouraging the performance, a reward allocated

The public sector performance management:

The performance management is an increasing part of the public sector

organizations. A high increasing trend of performing management in public sector

organizations and develop the strategy or made changes in it time to time to

make progress of staff work efficient and effective towards getting organization


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objectives. It was first time used in the public sector organizations in conservative

government by early 1990s. Increasing trends to become part of market oriented

by public sector organizations, the conservative governments took steps forward

to improve and develop accountability standards and targets (Goulding and

Harrison 2007). Improving the standards led to form Citizens Charters in 1991,

which, later on, triggered in forming many standards in public sector

organizations. The Citizens Charter (1991) gave an idea about the performance

by creating link between pay of individual and their performance without

examining the fact that money, however, motivate the workers/staff. The Local

Government Management Board (LGMB) formed in 1993, aiming clearly for the

first time to create that management performance is the link between objective

and strategy of organization to its people and their jobs. After some research

findings, the LGMB create also a link of reward strategies to performance

management. The most public sector employees by means are labour intensives,

for that purpose the performance and ability of staff needed capitalise. By

following this approach, to achieve the advantage of human capital is the main

focus and goal of performance management by pointing out the individual staff as

the very important root of the capital advantage (Armstrong & Baron 2005).

The information, decision making cycle of Passenger Focus

The performance model of management of the Passenger Focus varies on very

individual based and don not allow the performance of team.

The sequence of the performance management elements which also called its

cycle are:


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i) Familiar to the strategic objectives

ii) To develop the best routes for team which meet the objectives

iii) Planning and developing separately targets for individual and their outputs

iv) Evaluate the performance time to time base

v) Forming rewards and plans for the personal development

This research will test the applications in details and theory for reasonable

appearance. The model of The Passenger Focus is mainly captured by its HR

department, with the exception of circulation of notice to managers, there is no

any type of training is given for the development or improvement. According to

Williams (2002) the regularity of application ensured by recommended trainings

into the company cycle of performance management.

The Appraisal of Performance:

Performance appraisal is the most important and increasingly considered for the

practices of human resource (Boudreau and Boswell 2002). Connecting to

performance, Birds (2003) arguing about performance appraisal that producing

what and how. With prior to this research commencement by author in a

workshop, described the performance appraisal such as a measurement of doing

which and what as well as how to complete the process. A reasonable system did

not deliver, mentioned by author in his previous research into the performance

managements effectiveness among The Passenger Focus predecessors (Rail


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Passenger Council). It was seen corporately to be ineffective the organization,

the excellent or good rated more than ninety percent (90%) of staff. It follows the

comment of Brumbach (2003), in which, who indicates the system of appraisal

could be as ritual annual dishonest. There is a large number of research

suggests that in some cases it is not practiced well. The performance appraisal,

as right of yearly passage, gives rise to frighten and dread for the most managers

suggested by Pregitzer and Roberts (2007). Morin, St-Onge, Dupuis and

Bellehumeur (2009) drawing a collective number of surveys which show appraisal

dissatisfaction worldwide, the research conducted over 50,000 respondents, only

19% (6% of executive and 13% employees) reveals as useful the companys

process of appraisal. Brown (2001) quotes the major and serious problems for

performance appraisal in Tower Perrin. Further he quotes the training is very

important particularly for managers. The key finding of Hartle (1997) were:

Managers are responsible for taking process but they do not take it

seriously.

The insufficient efforts or work involving whole staff.

Improper and weak communication delays the process of effectiveness.

The systems are so egoistic, remote and troublesome.

There is irregular, unfair and erratic rating.

Western and Wilson (2001) suggesting the current procedures of appraisal level in

staff by comparing as a free trip to a dentist. Apart from distrust and to criticise, the

performance appraisal works as to enclose firmly the private and public sector. Here

it has been said by (Morin, Bellenhumeur St-Onge & Dupuis 2009) the managers


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and rest of employees without agreeing to accept filled with inaccuracies they

welcome the systems of performance appraisal.

The Review of orgnization performance

A detailed review of literature on performance appraisal should be starting with the

aims and objectives of appraisal system. A change in thinking approach on benefits

of appraisal system has been moving on time to time. It was best demonstrated in

early literatures by Stewarts and Stewarts in (1987) defining, from the perspective of

organization, the advantages or benefits. In 1997 Kleiner and Boice gave suggestion

to let employees become known about comparison of their work or performance with

the expectations of their manager. This is, however, again a one dimensional view. A

more balanced view is taken by Fletcher (2006), suggesting that to be constructive

and useful for performance appraisal, for appraisee and appraiser, there needs to be

some in it. Here tends of performance appraisals common purpose is to be aimed at

individuals measurement and also consider that this is the insufficient focus.

From the organizational perspective view, the successful system of performance

management plays a very important and a key role in achievement of organizational

corporate goals. It is argued above that the performance managements central

component is the performance appraisal, so for an organization it must be that, the

performance appraisals purpose is attainment of organizations corporate goals.

Humphreys and Caruth (2008) adding their views with suggesting it as an imperative

business because the system of performance appraisal, which includes the

characteristics, to meet or achieve needs of organization and to all of its

stakeholders (including staff and management).


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in expansion of performance appraisal. The guidelines of passenger focus do not

clearly define that, which has to conduct appraisals but over all accepted that by line

performance appraisal between experiences and expectations. The initial findings

Managing Information

on 1 to 10 scale basis in the self completed questionnaire. The impact was

considered a small return rate on the findings because of relatively the small size of

organization (46). The appraisal systems concerns were raised in form of literature

review as seen just to tick boxes the options. It was unwise considered by adding

their box ticking burden, when, for any staff who was identified with that issue. In

addition, from following the above text mentioned on case studies in purpose to get

the understand in depth, it was, however, felt that the completed questionnaires

would not give enough material to author in order to really tell the story. The

questionnaires also limit the respondents ability in order to explore their own views

and interpretations of appraisal, performance and outcomes because it does not

have any option which allows for free format answers. Furthermore, very recently a

depth survey about the opinions of employees had been carried out, and in order to

cover performance appraisal a small element added in it with other form of feedback

also. The findings and conclusions of research will be informed primarily by the

qualitative interviews, but, however, if possible some triangulations will be attempted

with the survey results of that survey. More human, face to face discussions, one to

one and also one to many (focused groups) approaches was adopted in order to

give the research a real depth. A detailed review of performance appraisal and

performance management had been carried out. This created a path for the


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researcher in form of a frame for issues plot developments and recent history within

the subject matter of researchers areas of survey and analyse experiences and

expectations of appraisal performance and appraisal management from other

organizations. The following process was followed to answer the questions regarding

research by providing further empirical evidence.

A focus group with forum of staff

A semi structured interviews with the appraises

A number of options were considered in order to collect the actual data from

interviews. It was very important to capture accurately and correctly the points made

by respondents and also pay full attention to what were they saying about. For this

reason, it was very helpful and recommended the transcripts of tape recorded. For

the business purposes, the author had used, a secretary offering her services for

subsequent transcripts and short hand notes taking. For confidentiality reasons this

was ruled out as primarily, but converting transcripts into summary notes would have

been avoided. Taking notes was final option by the author. It had a drawback of

potentially to make weak the validity and enhance the researcher bias that was

chosen. As it is the work of researcher, he had an experience in taking notes and in

active listening he has had coaching. In terms of maximizing the efforts of efficiency

the approach was most convenient used by the author himself.

The focus group


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A focus group could be described as a group of individuals are brought together to

have a free flowing discussion but must be on a particular focused subject (Fisher

2004). This research purposes from the focus group is to bring out two outputs.

Firstly, in order to satisfy the necessary research objectives in details, the literature

review identifies the following issues;

The performance appraisals purposes, Design of the system, Executive or delivery

of performance appraisal and Outcomes

With all important factors considered, the researcher would give confidence by

conducting the focus group.

Secondly, the outputs or results would be important and also helpful from focus

group in order to contribute to get overall findings and it would also help to key out

the gap scale between experiences and expectations. In new organizations there is

no union representation, with the creation of staff forum the senior managers were

given the opportunities to receive and give communication and also important

feedbacks. The all focus group attendance was on basis of voluntarily. A five

minutes presentation was given by researcher on the objectives of academic in

research project at staff forum by asking to explore the issues in an open manner for

an hour. Any could decline to take part in group. For this research the methods

chosen a text based presentation responses which lend themselves and will also

contribute to tell the story. Naturally the strategy of research is very qualitative. In

some way to quantify the scale of gape, will be graded in each of the key themes for

expectations approximately 1 to 10 and also same for the experiences.


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Ethical consideration

It was seen that the Author is well known in small organizations to all members of

staff and was also a member of executive team, the ethical considerations were high

in the organization. The purpose of qualitative research is to provide and help to

understand the subject matters deeply and the response quality relied on honest and

open answers. Like this, it was very important that participants had a very high level

of trust in honesty of researcher. A commitment of high confidentiality and anonymity

was given by researcher to the all participants members of focus group. An

opportunity of reviewing the summary of interviews was also offered to interviewees

which is included in the findings of this research. Within the focus group the

discussions were facilitated by the researcher. Within focus group the anonymity

would have been impossible; a commitment was given by researcher not to attribute

the individual comments. At last, the anonymity was assured who took part in

activities of semi structured interviews. The interviews were held privately. The

confidentiality, in order to that the all data will be used to inform purely to this

research, was given to all participant members and their suggestions will lead to

bring improvements in performance appraisal system of the passenger focus group.

The data was shredded, after the completion of study. To remove the conflicts of

interests and to avoid bias, the researcher ensured, that all members who

participated not to respond the line reports or to line managers to researcher. The

use of semi structured interviews helped to avoid the bias of interviewer which,

however, was used consistently throughout the whole system. Furthermore, some

opportunities were given to participants in order to review and read the summary of

observations and subsequent notes. However, to ensure in order to a given consent

was gained, the key purpose were also advised to the all participants of this present


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research in order to fulfil this dissertation for an academic research purpose. They

were advised also regarding the findings those could be used and help to improve

the present system of performance appraisal. However, all respondents and

participants were satisfied in order to participate with the knowledge basis.

The present system of performance appraisal (expectations and experiences)

Without prompting, all the respondents have raised an issue regarding training and

guidelines as very important requirement. This is particularly highlighted as an

expectation by all five managers. More than 60 percent considered that training

would be beneficial for appraisers as well as appraisees. The expectations overall

were high. The issue regarding experience from training and also guidelines came

across as experiencing the most negative way, even with no any positive comments

received at all. This left and makes a biggest and difference gap between

experiences and expectations. This was happened similar with the documentations,

which was given to interviews. The expectations were suggested for a robust system

that ensures in order to cover all issues. But there was a lot of negativity once again.

The three respondents of all junior level staff members appeared satisfied. But on

other hand all five managers were critical about currently use of documentation.

There is again a significant gap noticed. For feedback methods, there was a mixed

support for multi-source feedback. In case of implementation and executed properly,

a consideration of 360 feedbacks would be useful, mentioned by all five mangers.

From junior staff members, only one member expected further feedback from the

appraisal. The remaining four members, however, were sceptical. Within passenger

focus, in terms of experiences, all respondents will receive feedback from their

managers only, which is the part of current system of performance appraisal. The

main gap appears between experiences and expectations in the views of those


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mangers who are appraised but not from the staff members. It suggests that a

feedback system of two tiers could be trialled, with receiving of managers multi-

source feedback. There is a suggestion of two respondents that it should be

attainments of objectives, if it is seemed in terms of what appraised. Two further

efforts added for consideration of what should be appraised. Including all five

managers, the remaining six expected behaviours, expected objectives and all

competencies to be measured. For this the experiences were mixed. These all were

mixed against the mentioned objectives. From all participants the 50 percent

responded by favouring that the appraisal conversation has also covered the skills or

competencies and behaviour. A lack of consistency is applied here. The current

system of rating was considered by all respondents. A rating in expectations and

experiences considered in this system, where a low rating scored to experiences,

while a high scored rating for expectations. The all respondents including five

managers and two staff members considered this current and updated system as too

much narrow. For avoiding middling, particularly managers suggested a system for

the improvement of this current rating system from formally rating system of

competencies.


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Financial comparison on upcoming rail fairs in some parts of country 2013-14

From Destination Existing fare

2012 in

New fare

2013 in

Change

%age

Canterbury Kent London 4588 4860 5.9%

Colchester London 4376 4556 4.1%

Oxford London 4360 4556 4.5%

Northampton London 4745 4980 4.6%

Cambridgeshire London 4488 4700 4.5%

The rises could have been steeper but for an intervention by the government to limit

the rise to inflation plus one percent, rather than the planned inflation plus three

percent increase. Some tickets will rise by less than the average 4.2 per cent,

meaning some commuters will be better off than others. This decision puts an

average of 45 per year back into pockets of over 250000 annual season tickets

holders Norman Baker (the rail minister), further he said many more holders of

monthly and weekly season tickets could also see lower fare rises and some

commuters could be over 100 better off. The 4,500 a year season ticket will soon

become a reality for thousands of commuters. The rail season ticket holders face

average fare rises of 4.2% in January meaning many annual tickets are passing

4500 mark for first time.


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Managing finance

The role of financial institutions and their association to the Passenger Focus:

The cash requirements of Passenger Focus meet through the grant-in-aid, which is

provided by the commercial banks in association with Department for Transport. The

financial instruments play very limited role in managing and creating risk than that

would apply to public sector. The majority of the financial instruments, in line with

passenger focus, relate to contracts to buy items of non-financial are expected

usages and purchases requirement and therefore, it is exposed to little credit, market

risk or Liquidity. These financial instruments are fully provided by the financial

institutions. Without these key finances, Customer Focus cannot perform regular

obligations as per law. Through Grant-in-aid the organization is funded from

commercial banks or financial institutions and 5.5 million was received in year

2008-09, 0.8 million of which was allocated for the work carried on the National

Passenger Survey, and 0.2 million was allocated for the passengers of bus and

coach representation. In addition a total of 73,000 fund in this year has been

secured by the Passenger focus for joint projects, of a third party income. Including

the expenditures on the National Passenger Survey, coach and bus passenger

representation the staff and other administration costs of totalled 6.3million for this

year and it also include the depreciation cost due to the leasehold improvements in

the useful life of Manchester offices.


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The Financial Statements Analysis and report

Income from operating activities 2008-09 2007-08

000s 000s

Income in respect of joint projects 73 42

Contribution to additional rent costs 33 -

106 42

Income of joint projects

Additional contribution rent costs

Analysis of operating costs and income

Rail bus and coach 2008-09 2007-08

Passengers passenger total total

000s 000s 000s 000s

Staff costs 2,441 95 2,536 2,217

Other administrative costs 3,286 446 3,732 3,165

Other income (106) - (106) (42)

Net expenditure 5,621 541 6,162 5,340

Analysis of staff cost and numbers2008-09 2007-08

Total costs of staff including the Chief Executive were : 000s 000s

Wages and Salaries 1,906 1,692

Costs of social securities 171 151

Costs of Pensions (see below) 369 339

2,446 2,182

Staff Agency 90 35

2,536 2,217


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Gross expenditures

The employers contributions of 364,000 (2007-08 339,000) for the year 2008-

09were payable to the PCSPS in the range of 17.1 to 25.5 percent at one of the four

rates of pensionable pay (2007-08 : 17.1 to 25.5%) on salary based bands. These

schemes actually review the employer contributions, following a full scheme of

valuation every fourth year. From the year 2010-11 the rates were under the range of

16.7 percent to 24.3 percent. The rates of contribution are set to meet the benefits

costs accruing in the period of 2009-10 to be paid when the members retire from the

services and during the period to existing pensioners the benefits are not to be paid.

The employees also can opt to open a joint account for partnership pension, with

an employer contribution of stakeholders pension. The contribution of employer ratio

is in 2007-08: nil of 4,560 were paid to one panel or more than one of three

appointed panels of stakeholders pension providers. But on other hand, the

contribution of employer is an age-related and a range from 3% to more than 12.5%

of pensionable pays. The employers match also a contribution of employee up to 3%

of pensionable pays. Well, the contributions of employer, in addition, of 498 (2011-

12: nil), 0.8% of pensionable pay, are payable to PCSPS in order to cover the

expenses of future lump sum benefits provision on the death in services and ill

health causes the retirement of these types of employees. The pensions contribution

at balance sheet provides due to the pension of partnership at date were 660.


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Conclusions:

This organization has come through a successful path of transformation. The

evidence from the survey of Employee opinion recently backed up by the responses

of semi-structured interviews and from the focus group, confirms this. In literature

review the purpose of performance appraisal was addressed. This included the

requirement to review objectives prior to discussions, plan ahead, allocate sufficient

time and book a room for comfort and confidence. The experiences were very

positive from the passenger focus. All respondents showed that their manager put

sufficient amount of time to prepare and that preparation had been beneficial. In

meanwhile, the expectations and experiences of performance delivery is

demonstrated.

The overall research which uncovers a strong interest in the area of subject from

respondents, which is, however, encouraging and also can be linked to the

motivation level, arises from the successful transformation.


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Recommendation:

A new performance appraisal system, as soon as possible, should be implemented

and developed and should be incorporated with the following features:

Progress against individual objectives with setting and recording of new objectives

should clear the business plan. The role and responsibilities should be discussed

and clarified. The required competencies and measurement should be identified. The

identification of development needs and career aspiration should be discussed.

Prioritisation of training and development has been carried on for the sack of

innovation and get the employees interest more on the work.

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