**4. Methodology**

#### **4.1 Data collection**

Between 2004/5 and 2011 the study conducted two sets of surveys on 4 SMEs in the UK. This was done as a result of the researcher being informed by the SMEs' management and staff that they were having major performance difficulties. The latter involved how to deal with customers' complaints on low quality goods, how to be provide affordable housing in line with strict government specifications, how to provide healthier eating choices, how to provide affordable and supportive care to the elderly and decent alternative education for the youths. All of these

#### *Beyond HRM's Performance Management: Towards Strategic Workforce Resilience DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96703*

constraints increased the obviousness of the companies' underperformance and the urgency to research what was going on. To find out how staff and management addressed these performance problems, a longitudinal study that started in 2004 went on to 2011 because of the interesting data that was emerging from each firm. The data was collected using the interview method with middle and top management and staff. In total, 85 respondents were involved (see **Table 1** for a breakdown). Each interview set lasted for nearly 1 hour per respondent. In the first set, the opening questions were "What challenges has your organisation recently faced?" and "What did your department do to solve the challenges?" In the second set, the questions started with "How did you individually and collectively address the challenges?" and "Did the challenges have any effects on the way you performed your job?" and "What types of impacts on your performance are there?" Each respondent was free to elucidate their answers and talking more about what their experiences were and how they felt. These experiences and emotions were taken as staff 's and management's perceptions of what they did to solve their respective performance problems in line with Peter et al. [1] (i.e. those related to regulations' compliance, goods and service improvement and good quality education provision for example). The fact that each of the 4 SMEs were dealing with similar staff and management performance issues necessitated their inclusion within the state timeframe in order to ascertain both their successes and continuous difficulties in line with Watson [53]. Respondents' age groups ranged from 18 to over 60 and they were all guaranteed anonymity and data reporting confidentiality.

The chapter's selected methodology is Interpretivism, which is defined as conversational agents' ability to interpret a set of meanings from their research contexts via a range of language forms. Adopting such a paradigm allows the researcher to also interpret (i.e. make sense of) participants' meaning making processes in a way that facilitates not only the development of new theory or model but also surfaces any potentially couched meanings in the collected data. This process is part of qualitative research, which features lived experiences, the emotions and perceptions of the conversational agents [54, 55]. Conducting the longitudinal study allowed for a continuous flow of conversations between the research and the respondents [56] and a wealth of experiences in terms of how to address the performance difficulties in the 4 firms. After considering 'third way' and other forms of narration, this chapter adopted the conversational agents' perspective to the meaning making of performance. This approach warranted the types of conversational questions asked during the data collection sets, the extended timeline and the nature of the conversations collected (**Table 2**).


#### **Table 1.**

*Employee and management respondents in the 4 SMEs.*


**Table 2.**

*A comparison of HPO and HPWS models and the 4 SMEs practical solutions.*

#### **4.2 Data analysis**

There were three stages of data analysis to try and exhaust respondents' experiences and perceptions of their performance as much as possible. Firstly, following Lincoln and Guba's [57] 'thick descriptions' (or conversations), the subjective meanings of how the respondents lived their performance experiences were presented in line with Roelvink and Zolkos [58]. Such representation was highlighted by pursuing a theme-based interpretation of the collected interview excerpts in the research tradition adhering to Alvesson and Skoldberg's [59] and Sarpong and Maclean [60]. Six key thematic patterns identified were surfaced, namely 1) new work structures; 2) new disciplinary mechanisms; 3) communication and competency gap; 4) role disruption leading to fragmented performance; 5) performing under duress and 6) the development of performance and resilience capability. Each of these findings is examined in greater detail in the next section in line with the chapter's model development objective. This is because such a development had been missing in previous scholarship and debates on performance.

### **5. Findings**

The study's findings are presented in this section using the three-stage procedure identified previously. The first of these is the thematic presentation.

*Beyond HRM's Performance Management: Towards Strategic Workforce Resilience DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96703*

#### **5.1 New organisational arrangements**

At the start of the performance difficulty, it was clear from customers' complaints and apparent delays in meeting production targets especially in Bakkavor and Longhurst that management and staff realised that they were both dealing with a severe set of performance blockages. Whilst highlighting past incidents where Bakkavor staff had worked tirelessly to appease customer demands and Longhurst has had fruitful relationships with the various communities it provided accommodation to, each of the parties in each company started to identify a rift between the past and present situation not only in terms of performance but also the level and quality of partnership between each firm and their customer bases and the apparent lack of cordiality between management and staff's working relationship. Some of the discord was also echoed differently in other SME setting. For example, some people talked about 'There's got to be some structure…a set way' (Lagat staff)…' 'jobs are designed directly according to delivery plans' (Bakkavor Manager). Whilst some staff pointed to the fact that 'Customers are a priority' (Bakkavor staff), it was also not unheard of for others to note that customer complaints were also become more frequent. On the other hand, as Longhurst management emphasised team-working in 'Work[ing] as a team, supporting each other and meeting deadlines' (Longhurst manager), a severe toll on staff welfare started to take place as longer hours of work were becoming commonplace. Despite this, elsewhere 'people hark[ed] back to good times' (Eden manager) as part of their consolation for their current predicament. In each of the four firms, the overall performance problem highlighted reactions of two main types, which included, firstly those in management positions initiated the redesigning of the old work structures, whose implementation they think will enhance staff's competences. However, not addressing the shortage of human resources cut short the anticipated benefits. Secondly, managers started to demand more of staff's contributions as they initiated additional 'hard' performance reporting mechanisms which were designed to control what staff did and by when. Longhurst management's 'decrease[ing] of salaries and increase[ing] [work] hours' (Longhurst manager) did not help an already difficult situation.

#### **5.2 Counteracting disciplinary measures**

Employees started to adapt to the new structures as they tried to circumvent them. By so doing they initiated some resilience. A Bakkavor manager said in 2011 'we will have to start taking disciplinary action on employees who don't want to change because they don't see the need; these are minimum wage jobs and we are being asked too much'. Such a threat led to staff carrying out their newly designed self-initiated tasks without management's knowledge. Interestingly, another manager at Eden highlighted the enormity of the performance related disciplinary issues by stating in 2004/05 'there is a lot of work on disciplinary issues, staff training and quality support…'. The issue of discipline at Longhurst was depicted differently as a manager stated in 2011 'you need to be very disciplined; it is important to have the plan and revisit it.' Being disciplined was also seen as something that management should exude initially. However, at Bakkavor, management began imposing strict disciplinary measures on staff as part of their punishment for not sticking with the newly designed work structures. Staff, on the other hand, saw such a move as insensitive to overall people 'welfare' (Bakkavor staff).

#### **5.3 Communication falls apart**

To emphasise the criticality of performance, staff recounted management's introduction of what, to them, was an employment tribunal, which was designed to put additional pressure to evaluated their capability to perform the new roles and to check how their '…basic competences' matched their jobs (Longhurst Manager). In their perception, this was introduced the wrong way as it did not promote the 'communication of future plans' (Bakkavor employee in 2005). Even a Bakkavor manager noted that 'there's a massive communication gap between the interaction of senior and lower management' (Bakkavor manager in 2011). The apparent rush on management's part to be increasingly authoritarian via the introduction of what seemed to staff as draconian mechanisms led to an atmosphere where staff started to feel disenchanted with the measures and disconnected from what was being communicated. Such urgent attempts to regain the performance that had been lost via communication breakdown highlighted additional cracks in alternative, more informal methods of communication processes that management started deploying. In the latter, new language started to be used as a way to reset management-staff relationships. The new communication channels highlighted the growing wedge between both parties that led to communication fragmentation, which hampered managers' attempts to effectively implement the earlier structures meant to increase staff competences and performance. Bakkavor appeared to have suffered greatly from this maladaptation.

## **5.4 Redefining staff 's performance**

The Training Officer at Lagat in 2011 stated that management began to feel that they were left out of what was going on. Interestingly, the imposition of jobs on staff opened up possibilities for staff to interpret how these were to be performed, often with limited resources availed to them by their higher-ups. Such fragmentation in the communication of performance led staff to (re)define a new set of activities and the types of attitudes they would require to be resilient in carrying them out successfully. The ability to improvise new techniques, to be tenacious in keeping their roles intact and to stick with the need to perform created a management-driven 'cultural divide' between the two parties. This led to the springing up of smaller 'groups', which saw the need to create their own identity as well if they were to help their firms survive. Such an occurrence was most pronounced at Bakkavor and Eden where managers were 'pulled into' a new 'them and us culture' of performance. Staff devised their own roles, which were in line with what they could competently do but were at loggerheads with what management had originally designed within the new structures. Redesigning the already redesigned structures enabled staff to heighten their performance capability and to show what types of attitudes and behaviours management had failed to spot as crucial. The modifications highlighted the need for interacting parties within the performance relationship to respect each other's dignity and competence as staff talked about 'confiding' to each other, other than those [i.e. work and performance structures] developed by managers, who no longer value 'our opinion' (Eden and Lagat staff).

#### **5.5 Performing under duress**

Despite such disagreements, management had developed a penchant to keep introducing new structures that they thought would highlight higher-order values of collaborative working, team-bonding exercises across departments in the hope that these would enhance greater efficiencies and thereby address their resource constraints. As counter measures, staff started conversations about the strictness of the mechanistic structures and discussed how they thought managers were treating them poorly. Staff started to each other outside of the structures and communication channels managers designed, which they felt were meant to 'constantly' monitor what they did via their supervisors and other team-leaders. To highlight

#### *Beyond HRM's Performance Management: Towards Strategic Workforce Resilience DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96703*

the seriousness of having to perform tasks under pressure, excerpts from Longhurst and Eden showed the urgency with which those with supervisory responsibilities felt they were obliged to meet the increasing nature of working to deadlines whilst adhering to performance and productivity targets. For example, whilst an Eden staff noted that 'the workload for them (managers) is colossal; managers don't know what a working week is like…but it's way beyond 35 hours; you see emails relating to work issues come at night and that's regular and very early in the morning, say at 6.30a.m.' and an Eden Manager stuck with the rhetoric of 'disciplinary procedures', a Longhurst manager identified 'to chart a new culture and new ways of working between….employees…in terms of how it works out, which way we want to go and how we want that way to be' whereas a Longhurst Manager noted how 'faced with the adversities, management appeared to rely increasingly on their power and 'disciplinary procedures…'.

### **5.6 Showing resilient performance creativity**

Staff began to adopt management qualities as they designed and implemented tasks without their managers' knowledge. Their independence highlighted their competence in performing the required roles under pressure. They showed creativity when they teamed up with emerging groups that showed a contributory penchant and 'supported each other through various measures such as 'dipping into other people's roles to support staff' whilst 'wanting to have responsibility on the way things are going' (Bakkavor manager) and 'networking', (Lagat staff). Their ability to show competence at a time of crucial performance pressures highlighted the apparent management incompetence that they had to surmount in the face of resource constraints. There became a clear 'shifting' of the 'cultural' and performance 'divide' between the two parties, from one group that saw structures as the answer to each of the organisations' performance difficulties to another that sought to identify the actions needed to help modify their behaviours and contribute through both formal and informal means. By attempting to address communication only through formalised channels cemented the hierarchy-driven structures which staff had realised to be crucial in fermenting the sub-groups that were antithetical to management's performance plans (e.g. the use of ICT and a barrage of e-mails to communicate performance standards). This only led to a 'new culture' where 'the CEO has only spoken once to the business' (Bakkavor manager) and an increase in 'turnover figures' (Lagat staff) and 'them-and-us' type of performance divide (Bakkavor staff).
