Employee performance management – time for a new era Part 4 – Building manager and HR capability

Understanding what managers must deliver

In the previous articles in this series, I have recommended a root and branch revision to much of the current thinking on employee performance management.

Part 2 of the series made the case for revising the obsession with annual reviews and employee ‘scoring’ in favour of a move to continuous coaching. Part 3 proposed a de-coupling of the increasingly hard-wired approach to bonus computation and the adoption of a new understanding of the spectrum of employee reward.

The previous articles have all encouraged the development of new frameworks based around supporting organization agility in an increasingly knowledge-based workplace. The articles to date have focussed around the new ‘frameworks’ that will create a fundamentally different approach to employee performance management. Now we must address the equally important human dimension in how we manage people.

Two pieces in the jigsaw are necessary:

1)     How will managers need to change their employee management mindset

2)     How should HR ensure that managers espouse the correct employee management principles?

Changing our management mindset

Its often said that employees ‘join’ companies – but ‘leave’ managers!

A Gallup poll of over 1 million US employees concluded that the No. 1 reason people quit their jobs was a bad boss or immediate supervisor. As we implement our new employee performance management and reward framework, it will be crucial that all supervisors and managers understand a different way of managing employee performance. For some, this will be a natural extension of their existing approach to getting the best from their employees and some of the proposed changes of the previous articles will actually enable them to enact all aspects of their natural management style. For others, it will be a challenging period that may be counter cultural to their whole approach to management.

So, what will need to change in the day to day life of the supervisor and manager?

-         Time management. Many supervisors and managers will argue that their existing working day is already overburdened with activities. Most can barely find time for a 20-minute employee review session, perhaps twice a year. How then can they be expected to carve out time on a daily basis for employee feedback and coaching on a one on one or team basis? These managers will need to be encouraged to evaluate how time is spent within their normal working day, and be given guidance on the relative proportion of their time that should be spent on ‘doing’ as opposed to ‘directing’ as opposed to ‘coaching.’.

-         Attitudes to employee value. Following from the above point, many supervisors and managers do not seem to trust the capability of their people. In fact, the recent Covid19 experiences should reinforce what many already know – people are generally capable of doing a lot more than we give them credit for and can work very successfully with minimum supervision.  Good managers know that the stronger their team, the easier their own job becomes, and consequently they work to develop team capabilities and recognise and reward appropriate behaviours. Supervisors and managers will need their own coaching and development in skills such as delegation of responsibility, employee development, and in concepts such as self-managed teams. 

One general concept that should be added to the employee performance management assessment of all supervisors and managers is some form of evaluation on the strength of their team. It should be a fundamental success factor for all those managing staff, that a component of their own success or failure will be whether they have built a strongly performing team. In my experience, this vital factor is rarely evaluated and commented on.

The real impact of HR in the new era

The proposed new approach to employee performance management has direct implications for the role and priorities of the HR function.  In order to build the right management culture that will deliver on the new employee performance management approach (and ultimately drive enhanced employee outputs), HR will need to take a far more proactive role in ensuring that supervisory and management positions are filled with people with management capability not just job-specific skills. Arguably, this has been one of the biggest weaknesses of HR functions historically.

HR will need to develop new assessment frameworks for individuals being recruited or promoted into supervisory and management roles. Whether that is through in-house or eternal assessment centres, it should be made clear that a pre-requisite of promotion through the organizational hierarchy is possessing the necessary people management capabilities. To cope with this challenge, organization may wish to consider dual progression streams – where those with technical subject expertise, but limited management skills, can still be offered progression pathways.

Additionally. HR will need to take more active involvement – and be given organizational authority – to identify existing supervisors and mangers who are not exhibiting desired employee performance management capabilities, and re-channel those people to different roles.

In conclusion

The recent unprecedented experience of the global shutdown, gives us a once in a generation chance to rethink many aspects of our working lives. What is the future of work design and how will it shape a potentially different set of values in both the workplace and wider society. These articles are an exhortation to tackle one of the most important components of work – how we look at making our employees become ‘the best that they can be.’ A new approach to employee performance management ( or perhaps we should call it employee performance development), offers a new era where we channel employee skills through employee engagement to deliver organisational results.

It requires us to look at a trio of elements:

-         Employee coaching and development

-         Employee rewards

-         Management and HR skills and focus

Let’s grasp this opportunity!

For more dialogue, please feel free to contact the author at [email protected]