The Human Side of Performance Management
September 28, 2005
Here’s a quote from a comment that was made on an earlier post:
Your company appears to care about things like "performance" and "alignment". These are terms I hear from the man who works on my car. How do people define performance? People, working people, not all the Phds, MBA, ODs, OEs, EIOs that might read this blog. What do REAL people think?
I think the author, BobbyZ, makes a great point here. Words like performance and alignment DO bring to mind the technical aspects of what we do. They focus on the systematic, high-level considerations with which the HR profession is concerned. But they move the conversation away from the foundation of what the whole thing is truly about: the people.
I want to say two things about this. First, the abstractions that we in the HR community use to talk about managing people are simply tools to help us focus on the organizational aspects of our jobs. How do we motivate people, make sure they are happy in their jobs, that they are compensated fairly, that they improve their skills and grow, and that they help the company accomplish its mission? With that said, it’s too often the case that these abstractions take the onus away from the human aspect of the job, where it really belongs.
Second, this is an issue that we at SuccessFactors and, presumably, others in our industry are constantly thinking about. Our solution is made for people. If it’s not clear, too impersonal, hard to use, innately de-motivational, or just simply a pain in the rear - it is worthless. If people are scared away becuase they believe that being reviewed or rated is a bad thing - we will have failed.
The application has to allow for the human aspects of working, the "softer," human side of things. This is something I am personally very interested in. I think our solution does a good job of this today and I know that, as a company, it’s something we are thinking about.
Who knows, maybe we need to move away from business terms like Workforce Performance Management and Human Capital Management. Maybe what we are really working on is "Human Nutureware" for the workplace?
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Here is a question for you and your readers and other contributors…
I hate doing weekly status reports. My status report is not much more than a weekly update on the goals that were given to me at the beginning of the week or month or year. The problem for me is keeping this up to date. Do you have any suggestions on how to make this process a little more fun or interesting or valuable such that I won’t view this as a weekly inconvenience?
The question about performance management, “What does the working person actually think?” made me stop and remember. As a young working stiff, articulating concepts like this did not enter my mind. However, remembering back, the thoughts were clear, if not spoken:
What’s my job?
Does it matter?
How am I doing?
Does anyone care?
Clear line of sight, effective feedback, support and encouragement, meaningful rewards. What could be better?