Ready For Some Truth About Performance Management?

A former colleague asked me recently if it was possible that HR has got it all wrong.    And that when it comes to performance management systems, it was in fact simply a bureaucratic nonsense...merely a tick box exercise and nothing else. 

"It changes...", she said "...nothing."

Now you may think that I'm going to run ahead with some cleverly worded justification for performance management systems.  After all, I like explaining things.  I work in HR.

And you would be wrong.

You see I am always going to listen to an opposing view and consider it on merit.  In addition, the person (above) is a well respected senior professional within a multi-billion pound logistics business.  Therefore anyone would do well to at the very least consider her point of view.

So I gently started engaging with her in a conversation designed purely to find out what exactly she believed Performance Management to be (or not to be).

That is the question.

How do you define it?  And also, what is your objective in actually using performance management systems?  What are you trying to achieve?

I continued with the obvious further questions - What exactly is it you're trying to achieve through performance management?  How will you know if your endeavours have helped or hindered your wider business plan and how will you accurately (and more importantly "meaningfully") measure the performance of your teams?

Of course research shows that there are plenty of reasons as to why businesses invest heavily in performance management systems and have done so for many years.  Reasons such as improving motivation, increasing development, linking reward to (or at least somewhere near to) performance, reducing underperformance etc.

But the world has changed hasn't it?  Social networking, increased connectivity, remote working, speed of data transfer and an ever increasing public need for CSR and stakeholder values have all brought about a working revolution.  So is the "annual appraisal" even relevant anymore?

Well, to start with...why annual?  Why would you only have a catch up once a year?  If you are looking to promote excellence in the workplace and deal with under performance, isn't it much better to stay on top of this instead of building it all up for a yearly "face to face"?

Everyone knows that linking performance to activity (or inactivity) within a short time of it happening will greatly increase the success of any change requirements.  That's basic psychology.  It works on toddlers learning to feed themselves as much as rocket scientists doing risk assessments on safety valve technology.

And what about measurements?  I have worked with a number of complex systems which require many hours of training in order to deliver the sessions effectively and then unpick the outputs over time.  Yet these are all snap shots which become very dated very quickly.

If you are going to go for a rating scale, the five point system is always popular but isn't a simple traffic light system just as good?  I mean be honest with yourself, what exactly is the difference between 2 and 3 or 3 and 4?

Ok, so it's 1.  Well done, you've surpassed my expectations.  But let's say that this year your employee gets a 3.  What do they think about that?  I did "Ok"?  There's room for improvement?  My Manager can't be bothered to think about the answer and so has sat on the fence with a middling 3?!

Another consideration is that ratings can hurt!  If you get a 1 or a 2 or maybe even a 3 you will undoubtedly feel that there is a sabre toothed tiger on the prowl and your natural "fight or flight" instinct will kick in.  It's a natural reaction and hardly the ideal situation for engendering high performance.

In my experience, employees generally and genuinely warm to someone (preferably their manager) taking an interest in their performance.  We like being measured and we like feedback.  That's a very human condition.

So, what's wrong then?

Well, my position is simply that many performance management systems operate as an idle process.  They sit in the water surrounded by organisational waves or get blown along and bob up and down aimlessly, filling everyone's days and keeping the HR team very busy.  They operate outwith the business strategy because the environmental forces within push them about and any corrective action and support is often too late because the process is, by design, a delayed reaction.

So, what's the solution?

I've often said that the only thing that HR does that adds any real value is talent management.  And when I've said this, many people instinctively think of recruitment.  Well that is important but it's not the only or necessarily most important part of managing your talent.  Nevertheless a HR function which is able to devote much of its activities towards talent management will undoubtedly and consistently add more value than one that does not.

Therefore if we focus more on a performance culture, then that changes the matter of transactional activity based "form filling" into behaviour-led, transformational, value adding development.  And this can be achieved through simple coaching.

One method of enabling greater individual performance, is by:

• INSPIRING your employees to follow the organisation's goals
• ADAPTING and setting short term goals for day to day changes
• ALIGNING your team by using some in-flight trimming through regular and constructive feedback
• GROWING yourself and your team through structured development and then inhaling and exhaling your organisational experiences

For many users of embedded performance review systems, this will sound like completely fresh thinking.  However this doesn't mean scrapping the performance review altogether, it just means modifying our approach to it.  There is a good article in the CIPD's People Management magazine about the impact on scrapping a review and it's worth a read.

According to a recent CEB report about organisations that had dropped their performance review systems, both engagement and performance had suffered by some 10% with 28% fewer high performers feeling satisfied with conversations with their line managers.

So ripping up the old forms and agreeing that the business is going to focus more on real time feedback through a coaching style will more likely improve your organisation's performance culture. 

Of course if you are taking your business through a big change, I mean if this is either all new to you (all) or you are looking to move significantly away from a currently embedded performance management system, you really ought to tread carefully.

So, without losing sight of your end game...I'd suggest you start your change piece gently at first.

Baby steps then...

HS