1 Performance Management and Rewards – Individual Assignment (10 marks) A major US electronics manufacturing services (EMS) company recently had to implement a corporate-wide business transformation process throughout the organization including overseas subsidiaries. This organizational development initiative is to enable the organization to transform its current capabilities in order to be more competitive in the industry. As companies move upstream with technology, they have also initiated various outsourcing activities to EMS companies. Besides mass production, EMS companies undertake services in design work (Original Design Manufacturer) and technical support activities especially after-sales on behalf of their clients’ products. In order to perform such higher value added activities, there needs to be change in the structure including the setup of a design center to cater to producing more creative design works for their clients. Singapore, being an Asia regional headquarters, was responsible for ensuring that the efforts were successfully implemented in all the Asian sites. The internal Organizational Development (OD) teams were activated for this massive business transformation project. With the business transformation exercise, reorganization of the various functions took place whereby new positions with specialized competencies were required as a result. New positions of Design Engineer, Technical Support Engineer were added to the typical jobs in an EMS company. Design and Service Centers were added as new departments to provide better focus on these specialist competencies to complement the company’s business. Design Engineer helped their customers to build new design as a Original Design manufacturer and customers will buy the design and plan for mass production by them, thus extending a suite of services to be provided by the EMS company, To provide value-added services like Technical Support, the Technical Support Engineer seeks to provide responsive problem solving and troubleshooting to help end users with their technical issues for electronic products like walkie talkies. Besides these new positions, the company also wanted to focus more aggressively on acquiring new business by setting up a new department consisting of Business Development Managers and Directors who were titled Business Unit Managers (BUMs). These BUMs were responsible to actively seek new clientele for mass production businesses as well as partial development businesses in design and value-added services of technical support services. With this reorganization and creation of new positions, the management felt that there should be some follow-up actions from Human Resource Department in order to maintain internal equity within the organization through the salary structure. By adopting the Pay Model, explain the whole process of ensuring the internal pay structure is aligned fairly and efficiently within an organization across different functions. Support your answer with explanation on one appropriate job evaluation method for: a) at least one management position like Operations Manager, b) either one specialist position like Design Engineer/Technical Support Engineer or one sales position like Business Unit Manager(BUM) and c) one administrative position like Assistant Manager, Purchasing. The whole process of design of the internal pay structure should encompass the following considerations: • The strategic perspectives, objectives and the design of the internal reward management structure. • Vision and mission of the organization should be stated as business strategy is derived from it. 2 • Rationale of the business and reward strategy • Demonstrate the techniques linking job analysis (job descriptions and person specifications) to eventual job evaluation method. • Illustrate only one appropriate job evaluation method and provide reasons for the choice of the method. • Examine at least three positions – 1) Operations Manager, 2) either Design Engineer/Technical Support Engineer or BUMs and 3) Assistant Manager, Purchasing within the organization structure. • Determine the final job structure(s) as appropriate according to your assessment. • The end structure showing evidence of your understanding of job analysis-job description-job evaluation process. • Sample Job Descriptions of Operations Manager, Design Engineer/Technical Support Engineer, BUM, and Assistant Manager, Purchasing are provided for your reference. • The intent of this individual assignment is to assess the student’s competency in applying the holistic approach to the creation of an internal pay structure within a company. The specific technicalities of the specialist jobs will not be seriously scrutinized. • The whole process should be documented with a maximum of 2,500 words using single line spacing in Times New Roman, font 12. Appendices are to be excluded from the word count. • Although the weightage of this individual assignment is 10%, it will be marked over a 50-mark scheme. Deadline for submission: June 4, 2017 – soft copy of the assignment to be submitted to Brightspace D2L, SIMGE by 2359hrs and hard copy direct to lecturer in class on the next day by 7pm. 3 SAMPLE JOB DESCRIPTIONS Management Position: Operations Manager Manpower Requisition Number: Work Location: Singapore Job Summary Overall responsible for all the different teams in one single manufacturing site. Drive continuous improvements in all operational metrics while maximizing profitability within the business unit. Job Duties & Responsibilities – Drive the different teams to exceed customer expectations through a high customer standard. – Provide exceptional support to customers, team members and shareholders. – Train the different customer based teams on the importance of operational metrics for tracking of high performance – Drive continuous improvement through trend reporting analysis and metrics management. – Streamline and ensure that standard operating procedures and policies are efficient. – Provide and implement best practices to optimize running operations. – Demonstrate a strong customer centric service by setting a high responsive time to customer complaints – Hold regular operations meetings with all customer-based team leaders to ensure good practices are shared and communicated by one team to all the other teams too. – Review all internal and external business plans, process changes, and personnel changes related to different customer based teams. - Remove bad plans and unreasonable demands through necessary influence. – Establish clear measurable goals and objectives to determine individual team results (i.e. operational metrics, results against project timelines, operational competencies, and personal development goals). - Provide ongoing updates to the management team on the overall operations progress according to customer base. Person Specifications – Bachelor’s degree or equivalent tertiary qualification is preferred. – At least 5 years’ experience of supervisory experiences. - Past experiences in managing and leading teams are highly advantageous. Source: Job Street 4 Specialist Positions: Design Engineer (Hardware-Electrical) Requisition Number: Work Location: Singapore Job Summary A Design Engineer will have to specialize in their engineering development towards a specific industry. Process-experienced and able to use at least one CAD package and possess an understanding of multiple others within their discipline. At this level they will start working closely with other functions, understanding the interaction and dependency between them. They will be able to drive other project team members, within their discipline, to solve problems and overcome hurdles that may affect project timelines. Must have previous experience in rollout of New Product Introduction (NPI) into a manufacturing environment. Job Duties & Responsibilities Design Engineer (Electrical) – Should be able to develop system architecture and perform complex circuit design independently from beginning to end. Be able to direct PCB layout, represent electrical design in a cross functional review and work with the appropriate engineers to transfer the final product into manufacturing. Should be familiar with project management, driving processes, schedules and project milestones in order to ensure their design portions meet or beat project milestones. Person Specifications – Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from a recognized university. – Plus a minimum of 5 – 6 years of related experience and/or training. – With a minimum of 2 years’ experience in design engineering – Specific requirements as defined by the market sector – Or an equivalent combination of education, training or experience Source: LinkedIn 5 Specialist Positions: Technical Support Engineer Requisition Number: Work Location: Singapore Job Summary A Technical Support Engineer is accountable for all technical support and services for the assigned customer account(s) in the service center. Acts as a technical resource for customers, distributors and internal departments. Trains and develop a small team to support the customer products/services. Job Duties & Responsibilities - Fully accountable for all technical support and services for the assigned customer account(s) in the service center. - Setup, staff and trains the team to support the assigned products/services in the service center - Details the shift work schedules in the service center to ensure manning within retail hours. - Ensures that customer feedback is consolidated and deliberated in the conduct of monthly support service meetings - Develop an internal network to facilitate completion of repair orders - Analyze and troubleshoot customer issues via phone or email - Create manuals and standard operating procedures to train internal staff including technical support team members - Orchestrate product-related training to customers for purpose of maximizing sales - Conducts product application testing and troubleshooting on customers’ applications - Provide information concerning products, applications and problem diagnosis to business development team and customers - Develop, update and disseminate key sales product enhancement information via internet or company newsletters - Travel to customers and/or other affiliates for training seminars - Proactively identify areas to improve department efficiency and initiate projects to improve department operation - Operate the order entry system and ensure prompt updating by team members. Person Specifications - Diploma or Degree in Engineering preferred - At least 3 -5 years of relevant experience, preferably in a service center environment - Ability to organize and prioritize tasks, activities, and projects for timely completion - Good analytic, problem solving and customer service skills - Active listening skills with strong communication skills and customer-centric mind set - Ability to different work shift hours to oversee operations during retail hours. Source: Job Street 6 Specialist (Sales) Position: Business Unit Manager (BUM) Requisition Number: Work Location: Singapore Job Summary The Business Unit Manager is responsible for managing the overall relationship with a customer account or group of customer accounts. He/she is responsible for the full suite of services to be provided, ranging from contract management, account profitability, pricing and quotes, identifying customer needs and expectations, manage the product/service program by ensuring adequate support from internal departments. This includes coordination of new products/services across sites to ensure program successes. Job Duties & Responsibilities - Manage program by coordinating with internal departments like Sales, Program Management, Supply Chain Management and site Operations in ensuring customer projects run smoothly. - Requires developing new strategies, policies, practices, methods, programs or techniques and utilizing them to analyze and interpret difficult problems or situations and/or establishing new strategic direction that is site specific. - Has overall responsibility for planning, budgeting, cost management, methods and employees in a functional area. - Interactions normally involve controversial situations, customer negotiations, or influencing and persuading other senior level managers. - Acts as primary interface between the customer and the company for managing specific programs to achieve planned objectives. - Works with the site teams to plan and monitor activities to ensure that product/service deliveries meet quality requirement and schedule deadlines. Conducts regular program tracking meetings with the customer and internal customer based team members to ensure ongoing communication and up-to-date progress/status reporting. - Prepares customer surveys and self-assessments besides resolving customer problems/issues. - Participates in continuous improvements in operations and monitor efficiency of account strategies.. - Accountable for pricing/bid preparation process and contract development and management by monitoring inventory changes and monthly Operational Reviews and Quarterly Customer Reviews. - Works directly with sales and marketing to develop account sales strategies. Person Specifications - Bachelor degree with 10-15 years of relevant experience - In-depth knowledge of the operations within a electronics manufacturing environment - Substantial engineering knowledge to deal with internal engineering teams - Business savviness with thorough understanding of business risks and product pricing strategies - Excellent presentation skills & customer contact, negotiation and problem solving skills - Ability to multi-task in managing multiple projects and within tight deadlines. Source: Job Street 7 Administrative Position: Assistant Manager, Purchasing Requisition Number: Work Location: Singapore Job Summary An administrative position to ensure that the documentation for Purchasing/Procurement is well maintained to comply with the essential ISO & business requirements. Responsible for small value purchase items and common parts that are not critically important to the operations. Job Duties & Responsibilities - Assist the Purchasing Manager in ensuring that materials supply equals demand, optimizing overall cost of Purchasing, supporting the business development effort with current and potential customers, and development/implementation of purchasing strategies. - Execute Purchasing and Materials Planning functions according to the business objectives and policies and procedures. - Ensure all purchase orders (PO) are placed with pricing and terms and conditions that are negotiated and agreed upon by Purchasing Managers for international suppliers - Support the implementation of Purchasing strategies and projects. - Optimize overall cost effectiveness through the selection of suppliers and ensuring that Operations’ supply base contributes to the success of the Operations. - Solicit customer feedback to develop supply chain solution that improves the company’s performance and service levels. - Support Business Units/Customers business needs and influence them to leverage supply chain solutions. - May be assigned with other duties and responsibilities Person Specifications - Tertiary education preferred; for Diploma holders, a minimum of 8 years or more of relevant experiences can be considered. - Minimum of 3-5 years of relevant experiences in procurement or purchasing - Minimum of 2 years in supervisory role - Familiar with SAP Logistics modules is highly desirable - Strong integrity and able to work long hours due to liaison with global suppliers - Conversant in Mandarin due to frequent coordination with China sites Source: LinkedIn