Performance Management And Ways to Improve it

20/ 11/ 2017

Author: Svitlana Nemyria, CEO SHL Ukraine, PhD, Certified coach at CCU, AMA, MDI, EBA HR Committee Board member for 2017. Dissatisfaction with traditional performance management processes is on the rise. In fact, 95% of managers are dissatisfied with their performance management system, causing many organizations to evaluate their approach. The question remaining is what can be done to fix it? CEB SHL Ukraine can help you get the most out of your performance management. CEBs SHL Ukraine Performance Management Solutions enable you to craft and implement a performance management approach that is both tailored to your unique needs, goals, and culture and grounded in insight, best practice, and benchmarking on world-class talent management. Through our research, we have found that the best companies improve performance management by tightening the link between performance management processes and organizational objectives. This is done by building ongoing performance feedback into everyday work. Managers and employees complain that they spend too much time on performance management documentation, forms, and administrative tasks that have little to no impact on actual performance. There is appetite for change, but the options are overwhelming and often expensive (e.g., making radical changes to the performance management system or technology). We have identified three shifts companies must make to significantly improve performance management: improving how performance goals are set, providing ongoing feedback, and streamlining the performance review process. Performance goals Goals direct energy and focus, improve performance, and work best when they are challenging and meaningful to the individual. Unfortunately, traditional annual performance management practices tend to undermine the very characteristics that make goals so powerful. We recommend evolving goal setting as follows: Each unit and employee sets their own goals by “linking up” to the organization’s objectives. Employees and managers collaborate to set three to five performance goals that clearly relate to the organization’s priorities. Goals are based on the time horizon for which the employee and manager have line of sight. Employees strive for meaningful and sufficiently challenging goals. Rewards make sense for the work. Ongoing feedback Managers and employees must be trained to check in more frequently to clarify expectations and provide feedback as part of ongoing work. This means moving beyond mere skill building to providing employees with the guidance and structure needed to practice and solidify feedback and coaching behaviors in the context of day-to-day work. Critical new habits include: Setting clear expectations at the outset of new work; Recognizing and praising high performance as work progresses; and Providing coaching that is forward looking and focused on the process (not the outcome) in the moment or as soon as possible after an event. Cultivating clear expectations, informal feedback, and forward-looking coaching throughout the organization will have a much higher impact on increasing performance than any formal performance management step. Ongoing feedback must be based on behavior observations and describing the effect of behavior on other people, and also include suggestions for improvement. It is important to remember the criteria for a successful feedback: Descriptive rather than evaluative It is well timed Specific rather than general It is clear It is solicited, rather than imposed Takes into account the needs of both receiver and giver Behavior that the receiver can do something about Effective feedback can change the performance curve of the entire organization in such a way that even though each individual employee does not become the best, the overall level of efficiency of the entire team increases. Performance review The question of whether to have performance ratings is complex and requires thoughtful analysis. The answer depends on the organization’s circumstances, needs, and readiness to remove ratings. Removing ratings never means abandoning discussion of employee performance and explanations of pay increase, bonus, promotion potential, and other rewards. However, focusing on the performance itself instead of on numerical ratings—and what number the employee is tracking to achieve—will drive more meaningful performance discussions. Organizations that choose to retain ratings can still make the evaluation process less burdensome and more valuable by taking the following steps: Reduce the number of ratings required. Avoid using goal attainment to provide “meets expectations” ratings; instead, set challenging but achievable goals, and evaluate the impact of results or contributions. Reduce or eliminate documentation required for performance that is meeting or exceeding expectations. Eliminate self-assessments, as they don’t actually help to improve performance, are time consuming, and can result in unnecessary conflict. Change the annual review conversation from a retrospection of the past year to a forward-looking career conversation. Develop a more rigorous process for documenting poor performance, and train managers how to use it; ensure poor performance is addressed as soon as it’s observed. We recommend replacing the formal performance management system’s rigid, burdensome administrative requirements with a more flexible approach that reinforces critical behaviors and aligns individual work to organizational objectives.

Author: Svitlana Nemyria, CEO SHL Ukraine, PhD, Certified coach at CCU, AMA, MDI, EBA HR Committee Board member for 2017.

Dissatisfaction with traditional performance management processes is on the rise. In fact, 95% of managers are dissatisfied with their performance management system, causing many organizations to evaluate their approach. The question remaining is what can be done to fix it? CEB SHL Ukraine can help you get the most out of your performance management.

CEB’s SHL Ukraine Performance Management Solutions enable you to craft and implement a performance management approach that is both tailored to your unique needs, goals, and culture and grounded in insight, best practice, and benchmarking on world-class talent management. Through our research, we have found that the best companies improve performance management by tightening the link between performance management processes and organizational objectives. This is done by building ongoing performance feedback into everyday work.

Managers and employees complain that they spend too much time on performance management documentation, forms, and administrative tasks that have little to no impact on actual performance. There is appetite for change, but the options are overwhelming and often expensive (e.g., making radical changes to the performance management system or technology).

We have identified three shifts companies must make to significantly improve performance management: improving how performance goals are set, providing ongoing feedback, and streamlining the performance review process.

Performance goals

Goals direct energy and focus, improve performance, and work best when they are challenging and meaningful to the individual. Unfortunately, traditional annual performance management practices tend to undermine the very characteristics that make goals so powerful.

We recommend evolving goal setting as follows:

Each unit and employee sets their own goals by “linking up” to the organization’s objectives.
Employees and managers collaborate to set three to five performance goals that clearly relate to the organization’s priorities.
Goals are based on the time horizon for which the employee and manager have line of sight.
Employees strive for meaningful and sufficiently challenging goals.
Rewards make sense for the work.

Ongoing feedback

Managers and employees must be trained to check in more frequently to clarify expectations and provide feedback as part of ongoing work. This means moving beyond mere skill building to providing employees with the guidance and structure needed to practice and solidify feedback and coaching behaviors in the context of day-to-day work. Critical new habits include:

Setting clear expectations at the outset of new work;
Recognizing and praising high performance as work progresses; and
Providing coaching that is forward looking and focused on the process (not the outcome) in the moment or as soon as possible after an event.

Cultivating clear expectations, informal feedback, and forward-looking coaching throughout the organization will have a much higher impact on increasing performance than any formal performance management step.

Ongoing feedback must be based on behavior observations and describing the effect of behavior on other people, and also include suggestions for improvement.

It is important to remember the criteria for a successful feedback:

Descriptive rather _than evaluative
It is well timed
Specific rather than general
It is clear
It is solicited, rather than imposed
Takes into account the needs of both receiver and giver
Behavior that the receiver can do something about

Effective feedback can change the performance curve of the entire organization in such a way that even though each individual employee does not become the best, the overall level of efficiency of the entire team increases.

Performance review

The question of whether to have performance ratings is complex and requires thoughtful analysis. The answer depends on the organization’s circumstances, needs, and readiness to remove ratings. Removing ratings never means abandoning discussion of employee performance and explanations of pay increase, bonus, promotion potential, and other rewards. However, focusing on the performance itself instead of on numerical ratings—and what number the employee is tracking to achieve—will drive more meaningful performance discussions. Organizations that choose to retain ratings can still make the evaluation process less burdensome and more valuable by taking the following steps:

Reduce the number of ratings required.
Avoid using goal attainment to provide “meets expectations” ratings; instead, set challenging but achievable goals, and evaluate the impact of results or contributions.
Reduce or eliminate documentation required for performance that is meeting or exceeding expectations.
Eliminate self-assessments, as they don’t actually help to improve performance, are time consuming, and can result in unnecessary conflict.
Change the annual review conversation from a retrospection of the past year to a forward-looking career conversation.
Develop a more rigorous process for documenting poor performance, and train managers how to use it; ensure poor performance is addressed as soon as it’s observed.

We recommend replacing the formal performance management system’s rigid, burdensome administrative requirements with a more flexible approach that reinforces critical behaviors and aligns individual work to organizational objectives.