Tag Archives: Employee Performance Management

Leveling the playing field and other tales of meritocracy

Posted on by
Reply

The Human Capitalist (known more properly as Jason Corsello of the Yankee Group) shares his views on Performance and Talent Management. Hint: he likes it. To wit:

The solutions are not the “end-all-be-all” and will not solve all of the issues in the performance review process.  They are though a huge enabler to level the playing field, eliminate (or at least minimize) the emotional factors involved during the difficult review process, and have the ability to build in the necessary flexible required to accommodate the changing demands of an increasingly dynamic workforce. 

Leadership development is not (only) HR’s job

Posted on by
1

Or so says this HBS article (via Be Excellent).

Instead, they argue it’s the job of every operating manager and senior management up to and including the board should play a part:

In this worldview, it is part of the line manager’s job to recognize his subordinates’ developmental needs, to help them cultivate new skills, and to provide them opportunities for professional development and personal growth. Managers must do this even if it means nudging their rising stars into new functional areas or business units. They must mentor emerging leaders, from their own and other departments, passing on important knowledge and providing helpful evaluations and feedback. The operating managers’ own evaluations, development plans, and promotions, in turn, depend on how successfully they nurture their subordinates.

Further, boards can play a vital role in shepherding up-and-comers. Because they are detached from  day to day operations, they can more clearly see the company’s leadership needs and bench strength.

This feels about right to me, but if it’s the case, what then is the role of HR? To me, it’s twofold: guidance and enablement.

Guidance in that HR experts will always be needed to help assess an individual’s ability and potential inside the organization. If the board adds value because they are outside the company, HR can add value by being the insider.  As far as enablement, by providing and owning strategic platforms like performance management, HR can ensure they are the fundamental enabler of leadership development and succession planning.

Thoughts?

 

 

Why smart employees should love, nay, DEMAND performance management

Posted on by
2

With all this talk of the downsides of performance management going on in the blogosphere, I thought I might take a look at this from the employee perspective. Hey wait, I AM an employee! Thusly: Some reasons why I, Max Goldman, like performance management and wouldn’t want to work for a company that didn’t do it - a brief list:

1. What the heck is my job again?
Being just one piece of a bigger entity like a company is not an easy thing. It’s sometimes hard to know what part I need to play to add the most value. I want to add as much value as possible because I want to advance my own career, make more money and do something important with my life. Our performance management system lets me understand what I can be doing to support the company’s larger goals, know what’s expected of me and find opportunities to do bigger and better things.

2. Why is THAT guy driving a free Touareg?
At our company meeting this past January, four VW Touaregs were given out to top performers -people who add a lot of value to the company and our customers. Two went to salespeople. They bring in the bucks, so fine. But two went to regular employees. Why are they driving brand new, free cars (or getting watches, vacations, bonuses – you get my drift)? If I know why, I can work at those qualities and results and get myself a brand new ride next year. But what are those qualities, what is the measure of success? Without performance management, it’s anecdotal, arbitrary and simply unfair.

3. What is this company doing, anyway?
I now know what it is I’m meant to be doing (see #1), but what is everyone else doing? Why does any of this matter? What is this company striving at? What are the strategies and tactics that will make us all (and me, particularly) successful? Our performance management system lets me understand that. How what I’m doing aligns to what my boss and his boss are working on. Why what I’m doing matters. And I want it to matter.

4.  What’s wrong with me?
I admit it – I’m not perfect. I’m close, dammit, but I’m just not there – yet! What can I do to get better? What areas do I need to work on to perform at the next level? Without performance management maybe I’ll figure it out and maybe I won’t. With performance management, my development needs are outlined and I can know where I need… (ahem) work. Even better, I can get my boss to agree so when I nail those things, he has no choice but to admit it.

5.  What’s great about me?
Like I said, I’m pretty close to perfect – now tell me about it! It makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track. Performance management forces my peers and my boss to tell me what I’m good at so I can lord it over everyone and do my special victory dance. Ok, no dancing, but you get the idea. People, myself included, like to know what we’ve done well so we can keep doing it.

6. Pay me more money. And a bonus, too.
What’s that, I achieved every goal we set out? Nice. Pay me. When I know what I’m being measured on, I can work against those goals. When I achieve them, there is no choice but to recognize my performance. If the company doesn’t, I can take my clear track record of success elsewhere.

What do you all think? What are the reasons you like (or dislike) the results of your performance management system or process?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Destroying your career in one easy step

Posted on by
1

I was forwarded this soon-to-be infamous email exchange between a spurned hiring lawyer and an uppity law school graduate today. It’s remarkable how little emotional intelligence is displayed on both sides. Sometimes it takes a little effort and common sense to be polite, but it’s usually worth it – and especially so when you’re a want-to-be member of a small professional community.

It reminds me of all the times I’ve encountered such things in my own professional career. I once had a boss who was so generally offensive for lack of emotional intelligence that her staff was a constantly shifting grouping of people who rotated into her department hesitantly and out of her group as quickly as possible. Vendors would refuse the company’s business once they understood who they’d be required to work with. But this company had no formal performance management or 360 process that would have enabled the feedback that may have had a chance to fix things. The result was a largely ineffective group.

Changing people’s behavior is one of the most difficult challenges there is, but without an infrastructure for providing feedback, it’s virtually impossible. Hank Paulson, the CEO of investment bank Goldman Sachs delivered a memorable quote that I picked up somewhere:

“One of the things we have done for years is 360-degree reviews.  It’s amazing when you go to a leader and say, “There are 30 people who reviewed you, and 30 of them trust you.  But all 30 say you don’t listen well.”  It has an impact.”

 

The global talent battlefield

Posted on by
Reply

As per The McKinsey Quarterly – #5 on the list of top trends to watch in 2006: 

The battlefield for talent will shift. Ongoing shifts in labor and talent will be far more profound than the widely observed migration of jobs to low-wage countries. The shift to knowledge-intensive industries highlights the importance and scarcity of well-trained talent. The increasing integration of global labor markets, however, is opening up vast new talent sources. The 33 million university-educated young professionals in developing countries is more than double the number in developed ones. For many companies and governments, global labor and talent strategies will become as important as global sourcing and manufacturing strategies.

The McKinsey Quarterly: Ten trends to watch in 2006.

 

 

Solid ROI from talent management

Posted on by
2

I came across this report from fidelity (PDF) while searching around. It provides the results of a survey on change in HR groups at large companies. Some interesting stats:

  • 66% of large HR departments reported “providing only basic or low-level operations, administration and transaction support, but nothing more.”
  • 33% reported “that they have now moved beyond basic administrative functionality and up the corporate value chain”
  • 72% of companies “not currently playing a strategic business role indicated that they are moving in that direction.”
  • 97% of respondents said they are “currently undertaking, or have recently completed, HR transformation initiatives designed to allow HR to shift its focus from routine maintenance to more valued added initiatives.”
  • 82% of companies said they were planning to implement a talent planning initiative such as succession, retention or career development planning.
  • 68% reported that talent planning initiatives provided a “solid return on investment.”

The article also has some change management best practices that make it worth a look.

 

Doling out raises no longer a single number proposition

Posted on by
Reply

An article from the WSJ (at AZcentral.com) on paying for performance. The article cites a few examples of companies struggling with the challenges of implementing pay for performance. It’s hard to be surprised by the fact that employees aren’t all thrilled with the idea of not getting the same increase as others in the company.

That said, companies have a choice.  In the words of Martyn Fisher, Director of Talent Management at National Starch and Chemical: "As much as we would regret our average performers leaving, we’d regret more an above-target performer leaving, and that is the tough choice we have to make."

 

HR as hospital strategic partner?

Posted on by
3

Via a google search I came across an interesting interview at a site called the Business of Healthcare. Specifically, I found a podcast with a gentleman named Steven Barney on the topic of Human Resources in healtchare. Mr. Barney is the SVP of HR for the SSM Healthcare system in the Midwest.

Though the interview starts with the interviewer stating that he always felt that “HR is just a barrier, a bureaucratic engine that is just a support function” the topic soon shifts to more valuable thinking from Mr. Barney. I’d recommend a listen if you have the time (it’s about 50 mins – a little long for my taste).

Healthcare is a very unique industry with a number of difficult people-related challenges. As Mr. Barney notes, 40 – 50% of all expenses in the hospital world are people – they are the main instrument for providing care. But, with a very diverse workforce with workers from across the educational spectrum and a “tradition of hierarchy” aligning the workforce behind common goals is no simple task. Nevertheless, he says, there are just simply too many moving pieces to allow credentials to get in the way. It’s necessary to bring everyone to the table in order to move forward.

Continue reading →

Tactics in the war on talent

Posted on by
Reply

SuccessFactors happens to be located directly across the street from Siebel headquarters in San Mateo, CA. As most of you know, Siebel was bought last year by Oracle and, as with any acqusition of that size, the future is unknown for many of Siebel’s employees.

So today, circling the Siebel buildings are these shark-like trucks – picture below – with a message from CRM competitor SalesForce.com: "Is there a U in your future?" and sporting the now familiar "No Software" moniker with a slight adjustment  to read "No Future."

In case you were wondering, this is what the war for talent looks like:

 

By way of disclaimer – SalesForce.com is a customer of ours and SuccessFactors is a customer of theirs. Yesterday we announced our participation in their AppExchange – more on this later. 

The opposite of strategic HR

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been following an interesting line of thinking going on at Talentism about the idea of "Strategic HR," but I haven’t yet pointed it out. Though I do agree that the topic is timely and in some ways worthwhile, I haven’t waded in because I have some reservations about holding forth on HR strategy when, as Jeff himself says "Strategy is almost always worthless. Not because the strategy is bad, but because there is usually a huge gap between the strategy and the execution."

As a relevant aside, on my first day at SuccessFactors my boss sat me down to talk about the spectrum between strategy and execution. He argues that one of the biggest challenges for any business – and indeed for any employee – is to choose where on the spectrum to land. Too strategic and nothing gets done. Too tactical and your actions have no rhyme or reason. The word ‘balance’ is wrong, because it implies that you’re seeking the midpoint of the spectrum. In fact, you are seeking the point on the spectrum that’s appropriate for your role, your company, your department and your industry. It’s always a little different.

Continue reading →