Tag Archives: Employee Performance Management

Poll results: the I in engagement

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Employee-engagement(Note: click on the graph to see a larger version)
I’m closing the vizu.com powered poll that’s been running on the blog for the past few weeks and the results are pretty interesting.

The question asked was “What are the most important factors in employee engagement?” and I based the answers on a Towers Perrin Survey report from 2003 on the topic.

The poll attracted 47 responses, 59% of which indicated that “challenging work” was the most important factor in employee engagement. Close behind were “Senior manager’s interest in employees well being” with 55%, “clear vision from senior management about future success” with 53% and “Input on decision making” and “A collaborative work environment where people work well in teams” with 51% each.

The least important were “evidence the company is focused on customers” with only 25% and “company’s reputation as a good employer” with 36%.

Certainly there’s nothing scientific about this poll, but the split between issues that center around “me” and those that are about “the company” seems clear from these results. The answers that specifically related to my job, the level of attention paid to me, my likelihood of future success, and my input topped the heap.

From these results, it seems fair to conclude that engagement is largely defined by the extent to which people like their work and feel taken care of by those for whom they are working. Or, to put it another way, “What have you done for me lately”

Anybody get something different?

New poll coming soon.

Up, up and away

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UpupThe 2006 talent management survey, conducted by IHRIM and Knowledge Infusion, found that 77% of the HR professionals think that talent management will only increase in importance over the next three years.

Some of the factors, according to Jason Averbrook of Knowledge Infusion, are “the looming talent shortage, the increased focus on redeploying internal employees rather than recruiting and the realization that organizations must link training, knowledge and performance.”

The most interesting piece, I thought, was this quote from Averbrook: “Many organizations roll out a performance management system or workforce analytics system and simply just put it out there. They don’t do a good job of making sure that people know why these systems are implemented, show people the value of the systems, etc. So if organizations don’t market these systems to their employees, the employees will just think of them as another online tool and won’t actually use them to their full advantage.”

Employees can themselves get real benefits from performance management initiatives. And there’s far more to it than just making reviews easier. ( I refer you to a previous post on the topic.) But making those benefits clear to employees and explaining why usage of the system will help THEM is an important part of a successful deployment and not to be overlooked.

Managing motivation

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We’ve all experienced it. The loss of motivation at work. Sometimes it comes in waves. Sometimes in perpetuity. But why? What are the factors that influence motivation?

This is the question posed (and answered) by this article by David Sirota, recently reprinted in HBS’s Working Knowledge.  It’s often said that employees leave jobs because of their managers, but that’s just at the end of the line. Managers also have a tremendous impact on motivation levels. Regardless of whether organization wide policies are healthy or not, individual managers can, all by themselves, motivate or demotivate people.

But there’s lots that can be done to make sure things stay positive. According to the article, there are three separate and equally important spheres of influence for motivation – Equity (the need to be respected and compensated fairly), Achievement (to be proud of the job, one’s achievements and company) and Camaraderie (good relationships with coworkers).

The article goes on to outline 8 tactics for maintaining and enthusiastic workforce. They’re worth both reading and doing.

 

People tools for people people

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ConversationsHere’s an article at Baseline that talks about some of the ins and outs of talent management applications by showcasing some of the companies that have chosen to implement them. We’re mentioned in there, as are competitors Authoria and Vurv.

My most favorite bit includes a quote from (our customer) Gary Short of Kimberly-Clark:

Human-resources professionals caution, though, that it’s important not to use such systems to replace face-to-face meetings, which are vital for evaluating candidates or reviewing employees. “You want an efficient process,” says Gary Short, senior consultant for talent management at paper-goods maker Kimberly-Clark, “but you want an effective process.”

This hits on something I’ve been thinking about lately – the idea of “conversations.” Technology is an excellent enabler, but I’m moving towards the belief that the real point of any of these HR related applications is to support more and better conversations between people. Results come from conversations.

The technology serves, among other things, to provide the supporting data to enforce a process. But the value will remain in the conversations that take place as a RESULT of the technology. The better, more sophisticated and more usable the technology, the better and more sophisticated the conversations.

 

 

 

The fatal flaw of self-assessments

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SelfevalEveryone thinks they’re above average.

This tidbit found via the Damn Interesting blog where they deconstructed a report by some Cornell researchers on the topic. What they found was that the worst performers in a variety of tested categories often rated themselves on par with the best performers and in most cases far above average. Top performers are of no help either. Even they weren’t able to accurately assess themselves, rating themselves lower than their performance merited.

The reasoning for these behaviors is fascinating. Poor performers lack the skills to perform – which are the same skills required to evaluate their performance. They don’t understand that they don’t understand, and so believe their abilities compare positively to their peers.

On the other hand, Top performers incorrectly assume that their competence is shared among their peers – leading them to rank themselves lower than they deserve.

You can see what this looks like in the chart above. People that fall into the lower three quartiles believe they performed better than they actually did. The highest performers underestimate themselves.

There’s relevance here to self-assessments as the HR world understands them. When asked to evaluate themselves on a variety of competencies, it would seem that people can be expected to incorrectly rate themselves most of the time. Poor and average performers will overestimate their abilities, and top performers will underestimate them.

So what to do? I think that the importance of gap analysis makes itself evident here. It’s only through external feedback that people can understand the difference between what they believe to be true and others’ perceptions of the reality. There’s nothing clearer than a competency gap:

Competency-gaps

 When you can see what you think about yourself right next to what others think about you – there’s simply nothing more compelling to a change in perceptions and ultimately, in behavior.

 

What drives employee engagement?

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Ee.of.monthOur new poll for the next couple of weeks is on the topic of employee engagement. Specifically, what, in your opinion, are the most important drivers of engagement?

The responses are based on a 2003 report from Towers Perrin called “Understanding what drives employee engagement.” (PDF) Based on some statistical analysis, they arrived at 10 workplace attributes that they determined to be the most critical in driving employee engagement.

Of these 10, which are the most important in your organization?

Performance Reviews most pressing HR issue

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You may have noticed a poll in the left-hand column over the past couple of weeks. Though clearly not scientific in any way, the poll has provided some insight into what’s on the minds of our readers.

We asked, “What is your most pressing HR issue?” 

We had 50 people respond to the poll, and the results are interesting. Despite all the talk about succession and compensation, the core issue (28%) for our respondents was Performance Reviews followed followed closely by Goal Alignment (24%).

Poll1Results

To me, it indicates that Performance Management and Goal Alignment are still the biggest pain points for HR practitioners. They represent the heart of talent management initiatives, and Succession and Comp. are just further down in the hierarchy of HR needs.

I’d be curious to hear what you guys have to say about the results. Do you think they’re generally representative, or are they skewed for some reason?

Engagement is core to retention

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A management issues article points out that employee engagement is THE KEY concept in retention:

Rather than working on employee engagement in parallel with staff retention and talent management, a high quality strategic emphasis on employee engagement will as a matter of course positively influence both staff retention and talent management.

Make employee engagement your ‘hub’ not an after-thought.

Stop checking your BlackBerry when I’m talking to you!

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Via Gautam, I came to this Time article about “microinequities” and “microgestures” – fancy talk for the horribly frustrating, inconsiderate, rude and otherwise small but rage-inducing behaviors like using your BlackBerry in the middle of a conversation or saying someone’s name incorrectly or talking on your cell phone during a meeting, etc.

Besides the crass ignorance displayed by such actions, it turns out they may actually have a negative impact on workforce performance as they work to demotivate otherwise engaged employees.

And, of course, there’s a consultant who goes around advising companies on these issues.