By Hilary Terrell, Associate Product Marketing Manager

There’s nothing like a good, old-fashioned pat on the back. Or, in the world of Performance & Talent Management, there’s nothing like fair pay-for-performance. I recently completed my first review cycle at SuccessFactors and realized just what I’ve been missing.

I knew that coming to work here would be a (welcome) change in corporate culture, but I learned first-hand how valuable the concept of pay-for-performance truly is. Sure, I’m surrounded each day by materials that promote the values of paying for performance, aligning your workforce, and retaining your talent, and how our products are helping other organizations to do just that. But to truly experience a culture of pay-for-performance for the first time? Now that was educational.

Perhaps it’s the result of coming from a company that had no inkling of such a culture—seeing the stark contrast of night and day. For the past four years, I slogged away in an industry in New York City that people clamor to break into, but an industry in which the modest financial rewards come much farther down the line. For years, you try to make a name for yourself, all without getting much of the credit and for one of the lowest starting professional salaries there is (you might fall out of your chair if I told you…). But when you love the trade you’re learning, you convince yourself that it’s worth sticking through such a situation.

Until you learn that…this isn’t the way the rest of the world works!

Excuse me?!? Come again???

Up until this point my experience with yearly performance reviews was limited to filling out three questions on a Word document, including my “goals.” I’d discuss these items with my manager, having walked in eager at the chance of getting a promotion or raise and then…nothing. I didn’t know what my manager’s (or manager’s manager) goals were, or how mine fit into the larger picture. We didn’t discuss the previous year’s goals and whether they had been achieved. And I didn’t see my performance being rewarded in any tangible way, aside from increased workload and being told that I was doing a good job. Even more frustrating, I didn’t know if there was something I just wasn’t doing quite right that was preventing me from moving up the ladder. Since all of the feedback from my manager was positive, what were the missing pieces? And what was my team’s plan for the coming year? I would soon learn that there was nothing overtly performance-oriented about the slow crawl to the top—it was simply a case of too many qualified people vying for the same positions and a matter of whittling down the pool over time. Interesting. Did I want to stay in such a rat race?

I knew from friends in other industries that there were companies out there that valued their employees, and had heard of these wonderful things called “raises” and “bonuses”–and ones above the 1% range. But who got them, and how was it decided how much each person received? Was every person that met their goals rewarded? (what a concept!) I found out this and much more during my first review cycle at SuccessFactors.

Throughout my review process here, not only was it clear that I was being rewarded for a job well done, but it was clear exactly what I was being rewarded for. Specific goals had been set and achieved, numerous projects had been completed successfully, and we discussed all of this and more. I was able to wrap my head around the accomplishments of the past year—and what could be improved upon—and set my sights on the goals for the upcoming year. It wasn’t a mystery what my manager’s goals were for the coming year—quite the opposite, as we went through and made sure that our goals were aligned to one another. It was crystal clear what I needed to do over the next year, how I fit into the company’s larger goals, and what I would be evaluated on. What’s more, I knew that my work was being valued and I came out of my review motivated—really and truly motivated—to have a killer year.

It’s amazing what pay-for-performance—coupled with insightful goal alignment and meaningful face-to-face time in the process—can do for your employees’ productivity and motivation. It certainly made me a believer.

Post script…And it looks like I’m not the only in-house fan of our culture. Just after this post was written, SuccessFactors earned another well-deserved award for being one of the best places to work.