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The department consisted and the accounting department not only sold the paper but also sold items pertaining to advertisement of the company, such as umbrellas, t-shirts, books etc. Everyone in the department had different daily tasks to perform. I was one of three people who worked in the front of the department. My daily tasks consisted of processing and applying checks to the right accounts, calculating daily cash reports, answering customer relations’ questions, by person and over the telephone. Our mission, within the department, was to satisfy the customer at, of course, a profit. As one will come to understand performance management in this class, the realization and knowledge is to understand that it is an essential part of the relationship between employer and employee. It is what makes a company run smoothly on the inside because without good healthy relationships within the company, it is very difficult to have good relationships outside the company on a customer service basis. I believe many PM principles were and are implemented in my former place of employment. Among the PM principles that I see practiced routinely on a day to day basis include pinpointing, delivering positive reinforcement, and performance feedback. However, the one PM principle that needs a little help in my department is that of delivering justifiable consequences to establish consistency. In the following two pages, I will explain why I believe these PM principles are practiced at the newspaper. As we (my collegiates) have learned in class, pinpointing the right pinpoint is a process of not only identifying the job mission but also the results that should occur from that mission. While I was employed, our mission within this department, was to make sure the daily cash report was calculated correctly and customers were clear as to the status of their accounts in question. In so many words, I was accountable for satisfying the customer, even thought he ultimate goal was to calculate correctly all financial activity occurring. Another PM concept that I saw delivered on a daily basis was positive reinforcement. Many times, in the front of the department, we handled customers’ complaints, usually over the telephone. Quite often we would get some irate customers and knowing how to handle these customers was half the battle. Since I work in a cubicle space, where other employees hear each other’s conversations over the phone, many times I was complimented by not only my boss, but the other bosses within the department, on the way I handled a particular customer. Compliments were given and noticed regularly. With these compliments came not only rewards like food parties on Fridays and slight but recognizable raises every so often, but also a great deal of satisfaction and pride within myself and other employees. The very least that I can say about this principle is that by my bosses practicing and applying this PM principle, it has increased my behavior to become more patient with not only customers, but also outside work in my personal life. A third concept of performance management that is enforced quite well in my former workplace was performance feedback. As Daniels (1989) states in his text Performance Management, feedback is essential to learning. Very often, when something went wrong like misapplication of checks or handling a situation with a customer, it was immediately pointed out to correct any future mistake. I believe that making mistakes is part of learning and if it is pointed out, one can only learn and remember from that past situation and what to do to prevent it from happening again. A final concept of performance management that the newspaper does address appropriately is that of shaping. Shaping is defined as a procedure that involves reinforcement of successive approximations leading to some behavioral objective or goal. This is quite effective in modifying and improving low performance and also in teaching new behaviors. For example, during my employment at the newspaper, low performance in customer relations was addressed immediately. This could deal with not calling the customer back within a certain amount of time or simply doing something without a one hundred percent effort. One of the last concepts of PM that I will address has to do with delivering consequences. Through my experience in working for the newspaper, I felt as if not enough consequences were given when it came to staff consistency in terms of one actually being at work. Through my own eyes, I saw many occurrences of people not showing up to work or always calling in. This made for hectic days for the rest of the department, especially if it was not foreseeable well in advance. Consequences were not delivered very often and people took advantage of that. A company must learn to deliver justifiable consequences in a timely manner to avoid conflicts later down the road. If individuals are not consequated for their wrong choice of actions the process will continue and relapse. Bibliography: Word Count: 867
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