If you want to know the degree of modernization of the administration of a country, the best indicator available is that of human resources and, more specifically, the transition from traditional personnel administration to the strategic management of human capital, according to (Chiavenato, 1998), which is also valid for the business system.
Cuban-hotel-performance-evaluation-procedureThe destiny of a nation depends on its inhabitants, knowledge, skills, health, ideology, motivations, in short, the human resources that a country has will outline its own future. Therefore, an effort is required to take advantage of them in the best way for the good of the individual, the organization where she works and the country in general.
A country is considered to be more competitive the better trained its human resources are. Cuba is not free from these considerations, which is why Cuban companies must direct their functions to increase competitiveness. To achieve this, they must pay special attention to their human resources, since this will decide the future of the organization and its success.
The present work aims to:
Propose a procedure for performance evaluation with specific indicators based on job skills.
1. Procedure for evaluating hotel performance.
Assuming international and national trends and research as a reference base, a performance evaluation model adapted to the tourism sector is contextualized, allowing the real involvement of factors in the implementation of the procedure and its subsequent application. This procedure is characterized by its viable and comprehensive nature; managing to involve experts, executives and workers with successful performance in the organization.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MTSS) and the Ministry of Tourism (MINTUR), based on the challenges posed by the current national and international context, demand the carrying out of studies that allow the systemic application of scientific advances, from innovative procedures associated with productivity, that respond to Cuban standards NC.3000 - 3001 - 3002: 2007 and Res 71/2007 of Mintur.
The new directives and legislation require the application of a contextualized conception, which reflects the design of the performance evaluation process based on job competencies, based on the modifications made in 2005 by the (MTSS) in the job qualifiers, and to the Cuban standard - as an official document - to be used in Human Resources Management in all organizations in the sector.
The proposal requires those involved to analyze and update business strategy and to study processes, which in an analytical and general way, allows not only perceiving the conditions (internal and external) that affect the development of competent performance in the organization, but also act on it; which requires means of (investigation - learning) that facilitate the logical analysis of the mission and the functions of the position, its integration into the organizational strategy and the critical examination of the situations that have prevented or allowed its maximum accomplishment in the historical conditions. - social; In order to do this, determine the organizational, process and labor competencies required to achieve business goals.
The procedure is part of the search for ways to enhance self-motivation in the organization itself, so that the workers feel like true participants in management, as an advanced way of managing a participatory culture of human potential, considering that “the Competency management will begin to have an impact at the social and business level, if people manage to be the true self-managers of their performance; which is reflected in the so-called “smart organizations”.
Although since a man works for another his work has always been evaluated. However, large companies have considered this valuation to be insufficient in the last decade and usually use a formal performance evaluation system to assess the performance of workers.
Performance evaluation is not an end in itself but an instrument to improve human resources, because through this system, problems of supervision, integration of the worker in the company or in the position he occupies, of lack of use of their potential or low motivation. The company uses the results when deciding job changes, assigning economic incentives or the need for training or motivation of its employees. Workers also obtain benefits such as knowing the expectations of their bosses and seeing their problems channeled.
The proposed procedure is presented below, with the stages that comprise it and the rationale for the techniques and actions that can be used in each one:
Grounding of the stages that make up the methodology.
First Stage: Diagnosis of the current situation of the organization.
The diagnosis is an analytical photograph of the current situation of the organization, and of the dynamics of its possible development, which reflects the problems, insufficiencies, virtues, weaknesses, strengths, and threats that the business organization presents in its operation. This constitutes a starting point towards the higher objective, which is business development in the performance of service provision, allowing us to project the way forward to achieve the efficiency demanded by the national economy.
The diagnosis must be used to act in advance on the processes, before deviations occur, indicating the possible obstacles that will oppose the set strategic direction, creating the conditions so that the results coincide with the objectives, in accordance with the characteristic of the control. modern management, referring to the fact that it should be more future-oriented as a prospective management control.
Carrying out a comprehensive diagnosis of the organization becomes an exhaustive analysis of the internal and external factors that hinder the achievement of the expected results, for which reason the group of experts with advanced colleagues in the organization and who have the following conditions must be created.:
a) they have practical experience and know the activities carried out in the area.
b) who have a successful performance in the position or position. Endorsed by their superiors, colleagues and performance evaluations.
c) that demonstrate interest and capacity for collaboration.
The colleagues of the organization's Committee of experts, who apply the procedure, must participate in all phases or stages, up to the writing of the performance evaluation procedure with a focus on labor competence, as well as in the validation, monitoring and control of the same.
For the selection of the initial group of experts, the Delphi technique is used.
Following the logic of the Delphi method, “ the systematic use of the intuitive judgment of a group of experts to obtain a consensus of informed opinions” Durán (1971). The use of the methodology is proposed [modification of Oñate - Ramos - Díaz (2000). Determining the competence of the expert that is given by the value of K, which is calculated according to the opinion of the expert on their level of knowledge about the problem being solved and the sources that allow them to argue their criteria.
The competition coefficient is calculated by the formula:
K = ½ (Kc + Ka)
Where: Kc. - Knowledge or information coefficient that the expert has about the problem. Calculated by the assessment of the expert himself marking nine aspects that are asked, multiplying each aspect marked by 0.1 except the knowledge that is multiplied by 0.2, for example, this value of Kc = 0.8
The competence coefficient of the first experts who start the procedure should be in the following range: 0.8 K 1
The selection of outstanding workers is made taking as a starting point the practices and the use of advanced methods and procedures, which are used by those who, in carrying out the service process, stand out for achieving better indicators in volume and quality..
Once the expert committee is formed, the diagnosis continues, to obtain the primary information, the SWOT matrix is carried out, through a Brainstorming session among the members of the expert committee. During this analysis, it will first be requested that all the weaknesses, threats, strengths and opportunities of the organization be obtained. Defining the variables as shown below:
Strengths: These are the special capacities that the company has, and therefore it has a privileged position against the competition, resources that are controlled, capacities and abilities that are possessed, activities that are developed positively.
Weaknesses: They are those factors that are negative, unfavorable, exploitable and do not allow obtaining competitive advantages.
Opportunities: These are those positive, favorable, exploitable factors that must be discovered in the environment in which the company operates, and which allow obtaining a competitive advantage.
Threats: They are those situations that come from the environment and that can even threaten with the permanence of the organization.
To process the four quadrants, ask a question for each quadrant, as listed below?
1. If we fully exploit this strength, will it allow me to take advantage of this opportunity? (relationship between strengths and opportunities).
2. If we fully enhance this strength, how much will it allow us to mitigate the effects of this threat? (relationship between strength and threat)
3. If we totally overcome this weakness, how much will it allow us to optimally take advantage of this opportunity? (relationship between weakness and opportunity).
4. If we fully overcome this weakness, how much will it allow us to protect ourselves from this threat? (relationship between weakness and Threat).
The response in each of the quadrants is evaluated following the following scale:
1. Very low
2. Little
3. Regular
4. Good
5. Very much
6. High
7. Very high.
In the group work process with the experts, the ideas that make up the SWOT elements are generated and the cross-impact matrix is created such
and as table 2.1 shows.
Table 2.1: Matrix of cross impacts.
Quadrant objectives:
First quadrant (Maxi - Maxi): Offensive.
Second quadrant (Maxi - Mini).Defensive.
Third Quadrant (Mini - Maxi). Adaptive.
Quadrant (Mini-Mini) Survival.
Once the SWOT Matrix has been obtained, these results are interpreted to determine the strategic position.
Second Stage: Definition of the process under study. Analysis of customer complaints. Quality level perceived by the client.
Definition of the process under study.
The process object of the study is defined through the kendall method that determines the order of priority of the aspects that are analyzed.
Firstly, the identification of internal processes and selection of key processes are carried out.
For this, the internal processes and activities that take place in the company will be listed through group work sessions, taking as reference the criteria of (Harrington, 1998; Amozarrain, 1999; Nogueira Rivera, 2002; Negrín Sosa, 2003), about the number of processes to list, suggesting these authors that to facilitate the analysis and subsequent management of the processes, it should range between 10 and 25. Furthermore, the name assigned to each process must be representative and they must include the activities that are carried out. It is also recommended to use lists related to the sector in which the company is located.
For the selection of the key processes, it is necessary to first identify the relevant processes by voting on the members of the EEM and calculating the Kendall coefficient, for which the importance of each process and its impact on customer satisfaction will be reflected on.. The mission of the company, the FCE, as well as the strategy defined in the Strategic Planning will also be taken into account in this weighting.
The selection of key processes is made taking into account the incidence of each process in a significant way on the strategic objectives and the impact on customer satisfaction based on the value contributed with the consequent use of resources (tangible and intangible) and the decrease in customer insecurities and risks when seeking the service.
Harrington (1998), raises five aspects to consider in this selection, with which the author agrees, since they serve as the basis or guide for this analysis:
- Impact on the client: how important is it to the client?
- Rate of change: can you fix it?
- Performance condition: how deteriorated is it?
- Impact on the company: how important is it to the company?
- Impact on work: what are the available resources ?.
For the selection of the key processes, a weighting matrix is proposed as shown in Table 2.2 where the members of the EEM will assign to each of the relevant processes a rating of (1 to 5) in each of the following dimensions:
- Impact on the customer (related to customer satisfaction)
- Impact on the fulfillment of the company's mission (if the results of the process have a direct impact on the fulfillment of the organization's mission)
- Susceptibility to change (if It is a process to which you can make improvements, changes, reengineering, in order to reinforce the mission of the company and its impact on the customer)
After weighting each expert, the mean of the scores is calculated as shown in Table 2.2.
The processes selected as keys will be those that meet the condition:
TP ≥ Average of the scores given by the experts
Where:
TP: sum of scores by process
Mean of the scores = TP / Number of processes
The consensus of the criteria issued by the members of the EEM will be analyzed in the same way.
Once the diagnosis of the current state has been made, the analysis of the position with respect to the competition, based on the weighting given by the EEM.
This will allow the entity to establish priorities in its management), through which the indicators used will be given an order of importance when it comes to implementing strategies and action plans.
Definition of the process under study
To define the process under study, the Kendal method is explained below:
It consists of the compilation or collection of weighted information from a group of experts. The method unifies the criteria of several specialists with knowledge of the subject, so that each member of the panel (must work with at least 7 experts) has weighted according to the order of importance, that each one understands at their own discretion. The selection of the expert will take into account the experience, the level of information that can be provided and the technical level that it has. This method has a mathematical and statistical procedure that enables the reliability of the experts' criteria to be validated using the Kendall (W) coefficient.
Below are the steps to follow to carry out the method:
Bring the voting results of each expert to the table.
Sum of all values per row.
Calculation of the coefficient (T).
The control of the characteristics whose value is less than the coefficient (T) is performed.
Calculation of , is done per row and one by one.
Calculation of 2, the sum is found at the end of the column.
Later is the Kendall coefficient (W).
If it is met, there is agreement and the study is valid.
K - Number of characteristics.
m - Number of experts.
If W <0.5 repeats the study, if there are a number of experts greater than 7, those who introduce the most variation in the study should be eliminated, always respecting m ≥ 7. (Santos 2007)
Analysis of customer complaints. Quality level perceived by the client
There is a measurement tool for customer complaints and their perception of the quality of the service offered by the hotel. We refer to the Corporate Likert survey, which is the most important instrument for evaluating customer satisfaction.:
This survey is introduced to a quality system, where the customer's perception of each of the processes and items can be determined through a scoring scale where very satisfactory equals 5 points, satisfactory 4 points, unsatisfactory 3 points, very unsatisfactory 2 points, this survey does not measure the scale neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.
The surveys measure the following aspects in the different processes:
At the reception the attention of the staff, speed, information, communication facilities telephone, fax and Internet.
In the rooms the cleanliness, comfort / tranquility and attention of the staff
In the gastronomy and cuisine threads the variety, quality, attention of the staff and setting.
The animation is evaluated in the daytime, nighttime and the mini club.
With respect to the staff, friendliness, willingness to satisfy them, command of the language and personal appearance are measured.
Regarding the general indicators, cleanliness, gardens, security, surroundings and value for money are measured.
The results of these surveys are analyzed in the councils as well as the complaints and negative comments from clients where corrective actions are taken.
Third Stage: Analysis and design of the job. Profiles of competence
According to Cuesta (2005) Work organization, as the company's work system, encompasses the different work processes while considering occupational health and safety and ergonomic requirements, with the aim of optimizing living work. The design or redesign of work processes, conceived as a dialectical spiral of
Business improvement or continuous improvement for the sake of the required quality is decisive in the effectiveness of HRM.
Analysis and design of workstation. Profiles of competences.
The analysis and design of jobs is an unavoidable step, if the hierarchization of the process is taken into account as Harrington (1998) put it, that is, from the macroprocess to the tasks. Precisely job analysis is the procedure for obtaining information about jobs, their content and the conditions and aspects that surround it. (Harper & Lynch, 1992). Requirements are determined, both knowledge, physical, personality and reliability, the working conditions of each position and the responsibility thereof, as well as the functions and tasks, work activities and the demands of workers to perform it in a manner efficient (Parra Ferié, 2001). As a result of this analysis and job description, a professional approach with a competency focus is obtained,which the author calls the Proficiency Profile.
The following elements are reflected in the content of this profile:
- General data of the position: Name of the position, work area, occupational category, direct subordination to and subordinates.
- Characterization of the position: mission and specific functions for each position.
- General requirements: level of education and years of experience required to carry out the position.
- Job conditions: environmental conditions, job position, risk factors to which the worker is exposed during work activity, necessary safety means in the job and physical requirements.
- Job competencies of the job: knowledge, abilities, aptitudes and attitudes that are required for the effective performance of the position, necessary for the occupant of a job for their successful performance based on their experience, under a systemic approach.
The most used techniques are direct observation, questionnaires, brainstorming, expert methods.
Scientific observation. It is a direct, attentive, rational, planned perception of the phenomena under study, in their natural and habitual conditions, with a view to finding an explanation.
Brainstorming. The essence of this method lies in free and spontaneous ideas, avoiding criticism and attacks. It is used for the rapid collection of ideas, without taking into account the quality of the ideas, nor their feasibility only their quantity, the validity is decided in a later step. It is important before applying this method: explain it well and define the roles of the participants, that all members.
Fourth Stage: Performance evaluation system. Definition of specific indicators by areas. Definition of evaluation criteria
2.4 Analysis of the current performance evaluation system.
The instrument that is currently used to measure monthly performance through which it can be seen that it evaluates the results of the work in a very broad way, lacks criteria that allow the direct evidence of performance to be determined and thereby really measure the result of the work, the monitoring and improvements in worker performance.
There is redundancy or reiteration between indicators when considering; for example, quantity of work, productivity and quality of work, since the first two are contained in the last.
The survey consists of a questionnaire of questions that is applied on a massive scale to selected subjects to obtain direct information, orally or in writing, on certain aspects, facts, phenomena, social opinions, etc.
The reliability and validity of the survey is investigated using the SPSS statistical package.
The cause-effect diagram is made to diagnose the fundamental causes that affect this process
Analysis of the reliability and validity of the selected survey
To carry out this analysis, 100% of the evaluators and workers are taken, the reliability is determined, for this, the Cronbach's Alpha tool is used, which must be in a range greater than or equal to 0.7 for the study carried out to be valid. The opposite is evaluated through the R-Square statistic that presents a behavior above 0.7 in terms of its ability to explain the percentage of variation of the dependent variable for each of the independent variables; everything that shows that the instrument is valid and reliable.
The results are processed in the SPSS version 11.5 software package.
Definition of evaluation criteria.
In the process of determining the specific indicators to be measured in the performance evaluation, the participation of experts is necessary, the brainstorming is used, and after having reviewed documents and information regarding the area under study (strategic planning, process, norms and procedures, analysis and job design, among others) decide by consensus to select the indicators that best fit the characteristics of the selected jobs. Using the Delphi method, the most important indicators are determined; then the Kendall coefficient method is applied, to prioritize the criteria of the group of experts with knowledge of the indicators submitted to the study,so that each member of the panel weighs according to the order of importance that each one understands according to their own criteria.
For the definition of the specific indicators, the delphi technique by rounds, applied by Cuban specialists, redesigned by A. Cuestas Santos. It is a technique that includes the following actions:
Development of the first round, where each collaborator (C) of the group was given a sheet of paper on which they had to respond without comments in the group. Question:
What are the specific indicators for performance evaluation X?
The specialists who apply the method link all the indicators, and then reduce the list by eradicating repetitions or similarities. And they configure the
table 2.2
Table 2.2 Competency matrix (C) expressed by experts (E)
X: C related by expert
-: C unrelated by expert
3- Second round. Each expert is given a separate sheet of paper where the above matrix is shown. Question:
Do you agree that those are truly the indicators for that position? With which you do not agree, mark them with N.
Once the question has been answered and the answers of all the experts have been collected, the level of agreement is determined through the expression:
Cc = (1- Vn / Vt) * 100
Where, Cc: concordance coefficient expressed as a percentage.
Vn: number of experts against the prevailing criterion.
Vt: total number of experts.
The above processing involves Table 2.3
Empirically, if Cc ³ 60% results, the agreement is considered acceptable. Cs with Cc values <60% are eliminated due to low C concordance.
3. Third round. Question:
What weight or weight would you give each of the Cs, in order to order them according to their importance in the most successful performance?
to. Experts are advised that number 1 is the most important competence, 2 the next most important, up to n, which will be the least important.
b. Once the responses are collected, the weights are ordered according to the value of the sum by rows indicated by Rj. This variable will later allow the ordering according to the discrete value of mean Rj, and the level of agreement is subsequently calculated; which is consistent with the theoretical methodological budget.
c. Tables 2.3 and 2.4 result from the above. Table 4 shows the ranking according to the importance of the skills (C2, C1, C3, …… C4).
Table 2.4 Expert weightings.
Table 2. 5 Order of importance of the competences.
5. Fourth round. Tables 2. 3 and 2.4 are sent to the experts, showing them the order reached. Question:
Do you agree with the weightings and the order obtained? Ponder carefully. You can modify or maintain your weights.
Then the calculations are carried out in the same way as in the third round, until an adequate level of consensus is reached and the skills for that position are reached. In this line of statistical processing, the Kendall W coefficient of concordance (Cuesta, 1990, 1991) can be used, which exceeds the CC due to its mathematical statistical rigor.
Fifth stage: Implementation of the Performance Evaluation procedure
This stage is a challenge for the committee of experts, evaluators and workers since resistance to change is rooted in many people in the organization, therefore it is important to train evaluators and workers in the process under study.
So it is necessary to perform the following actions:
- A study material is prepared by the experts in Microsoft power Point for training waitresses, evaluators in the new procedure.
- A workshop is given on the new performance evaluation model.
- The new procedure with the workers and the union is analyzed and approved for its inclusion in the collective labor agreement.
- The results of the customer surveys are communicated by the quality management specialist, communicating to all those involved
- The implementation begins with the self-evaluation by the workers and then the final evaluation approved by the immediate boss and deputy director general.
- A claim for the monthly evaluation is proposed to the deputy director general.
- The correlation between customer satisfaction in the process that is studied as shown by the quality survey with the results of the performance evaluation is analyzed.
Stage 6: Proposal for performance improvements
The identification of opportunities for improvement is carried out taking into account the behavior of critical activities and the failures or risks that may be present in them.
Precisely the Failure Prevention technique allows this analysis.
This is a quality technique developed by the Japanese engineer Shigeo Shingo in 1960, which means "error proof". The main idea is to create a process where mistakes are impossible to make. Its purpose is to eliminate defects in a product, either preventing or correcting errors that arise as soon as possible.
The practice of failure prevention is carried out more frequently in the manufacturing community to enrich the quality of its products by preventing errors on the production line. However, performance evaluation shows that its application is also possible.
Action is taken at the execution stage of the process, to prevent errors from becoming defects, not as a result of feedback with a view to knowing customer satisfaction, hence its proactive or prophylactic nature. If the risk cannot be prevented, then it must at least be detected.
It is important to recognize that the control of failures in critical activities will have a direct impact on the results of the process, since the follow-up given to possible failures will allow the person in charge of each process to make timely decisions.
Failure prevention is itself an opportunity to improve the process. For this reason, an information gathering model is proposed, which makes it possible to identify Opportunities for Improvement, and which will be very useful for performance evaluation. As seen in the table
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