BAC204 Advanced management accounting | Wealthwise Insurance

Customers: They can provide support to the sustainability agenda of the business through the purchase of the green products or services thereby promoting the brand (Yun, Scupelli, Aziz & Loftness, 2013).

Employees: Irrespective of the levels that the employees belong to, they remain critical to the advancing sustainability of a business. This is because  they need to implement initiatives and also contribute their ideas based on the specific areas of expertise (Toland & Guidera  2017).

Communities: These are also key influence on determining the success of sustainability (Vallaster & Lindgreen, 2013). For companies having significant local footprint, the perception of community seems critical. It is necessary for maintaining a social license for operating within a community that not only reduces the cost and friction and also lead to the collaboration of the projects with local stakeholders.

It is suggested that the chief  executive officer (CEO) can encourage the staffs by equiping them with knowledge. This is crucial because the staffs needs to understand why actions are important and the steps to be followed for implemeting them(Kataria, Kataria & Garg, 2013). People might act hesitant in determinig things that seems unfamiliar therefore trying out newer actions in a safer environment seems reassuring. The staffs also possess other quirks while undertaking sustainable decision making as they are effected by stories and positive messages. However, CEO can follow the steps mentioned below for encouraging the staff behavior that supports sustainability.

1. The CEO can define the long term purpose of Wealthwise Insurance
2. She should define the economic case of the sustainability
3. She should create competence and knowledge related to sustainability
4. She should determine every employee as sustainability champion
5. She should ensure the creation of sustainable practice with the employee
6. She should encourage healthy competition amongst the employee
7. She should make the sustainable aspect visible inside and outside the company
8. She should put forward a higher purpose for the creation of transformational change

Besides, the CEO should also encourage the staff behavior by leveraging the leader and making it easy and enjoyable for the staffs (Sharma & Kirkman, 2015). They should not only encourage participation but also consider rewarding behaviors. Rewards acts as a strategy for motivating the people and are quite effective in influencing the employee behavior when they continue. A visible change in behavior is noticed when it is dropped off. In fact rewards acts as the extrinsic motivation and results in creating a lasting impact.

Balancing Performance Management System for Achieving Company Goals

Balancing the process and internal measures with the financial measures provides a complete picture of the performance management system. Thus, the performance management system is balanced by using a balance scorecard approach (Valmohammadi & Ahmadi, 2015). This helps in supporting the achievement of the company goals. The CEO should adopt the balanced scorecard approach for balancing the performance measurement system for supporting the achievement of the goals of the company. The approach enables the CEO in getting a quick and comprehensive view of organizational performance by including both the result and the process measures. Hoque (2014) compared balanced scorecard to indicators and dials in the airplane cockpit. For accomplishing the difficult task of flying the airplane, pilots requires detailed information regarding the altitude, fuel and airspeed that summarizes the predicted and the current environment. On a similar note, the complexity of managing an organization requires the manager to view performance simultaneously in several areas. A balanced scorecard approach helps in providing valuable information.

The approach has four perspectives that include (Zhang, Howell & Stolarski, 2013):

Financial Perspective: This perspective enables the CEO to focuses on the market share and profit. The financial measures for the public sector include the result-oriented measures of the government. The chief executive officer needs to pay proper attention for providing financial data on the time specified.

 Customer Perspective: The chief executive of the organization should be aware whether the organization is able to satisfy the needs of the customers. Modern studies related to management considered business activities related to client as a vital strategy of the company. The base lies in the satisfaction of the customers since the unsatisfied customers prefer the products of the competitors thereby causing business decay.

Innovation and Learning Perspective: The CEO should also focus on the ability of the organization in improving; innovating and learning ties directly to the organizational value. The chief executive officer should undertake initiative in creating and improving the value.

Internal Business Perspective: As per this perspective, chief executive officer should focus on the critical internal operations that help them in satisfying the needs of the customer. Activities related to the internal process aims at forming a tree of the business process for optimizing and monitoring the performance of the company. The internal process perspectives act as one the sophisticated activity for various companies.

The philosophy related to the balanced scorecard is not only necessary at the organizational level but also plays a vital role in performance appraisal of the employees. This helps in getting a complete overview of the work performance of the employees instead of partial view.

Conclusion:

On a concluding note, it can be said that if the chief executive officer effectively follows the steps then she might be able to encourage the staffs in behaving in a sustainable manner. The report also ensures that the performance measurement system is balanced by following a balanced scorecard approach. Through balanced measures at organizational level and by sharing the outcome with the teams, supervisors, and the employees, the managers provides information necessary for aligning the performance plan of the employees and the organizational goals. Thus, by balancing measures related to the performance plans of the employees, the performance pictures become presentable and complete.

References:

Hoque, Z. (2014). 20 years of studies on the balanced scorecard: trends, accomplishments, gaps and opportunities for future research. The British accounting review, 46(1), 33-59. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2013.10.003

Kataria, A., Kataria, A., & Garg, R. (2013). Effective Internal Communication: A Way Towards Sustainability. International Journal of Business Insights & Transformation, 6(2).

Sharma, P. N., & Kirkman, B. L. (2015). Leveraging leaders: A literature review and future lines of inquiry for empowering leadership research. Group & Organization Management, 40(2), 193-237. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059601115574906

Toland, L., & Guidera, J. (2017). Sustainability.

Vallaster, C., & Lindgreen, A. (2013). The role of social interactions in building internal corporate brands: Implications for sustainability. Journal of World Business, 48(3), 297-310. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jwb.2012.07.014

Valmohammadi, C., & Ahmadi, M. (2015). The impact of knowledge management practices on organizational performance: A balanced scorecard approach. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 28(1), 131-159. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEIM-09-2013-0066

Yun, R., Scupelli, P., Aziz, A., & Loftness, V. (2013, April). Sustainability in the workplace: nine intervention techniques for behavior change. In International Conference on Persuasive Technology (pp. 253-265). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37157-8_30

Zhang, J. W., Howell, R. T., & Stolarski, M. (2013). Comparing three methods to measure a balanced time perspective: The relationship between a balanced time perspective and subjective well-being. Journal of Happiness studies, 14(1), 169-184. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-012-9322-x