Share this post

Tuesday April 8, 2008 

Topic: Employee Performance

Reference: “Changing the Game: 4 Ways to Unlock Your Employees’ Performance Potential”. SuccessFactors. HR Insider Series, 2007.

I am always looking for ways to increase employee performance. You try developing and using a good HR system. It is important to have individual performance goals tied to the overall organization objectives. The concept of smart goals (specific measurable achievable reasonable and time specific) has been around for some time. It is critical to have an ongoing dialogue about expectations and outcomes. It is also extremely important to create a culture of higher expectations that ties the reward structure to those expectations.

Tuesday April 8, 2008 

Topic: Employee Performance

Reference: “Changing the Game: 4 Ways to Unlock Your Employees’ Performance Potential”. SuccessFactors. HR Insider Series, 2007.

I am always looking for ways to increase employee performance. You try developing and using a good HR system. It is important to have individual performance goals tied to the overall organization objectives. The concept of smart goals (specific measurable achievable reasonable and time specific) has been around for some time. It is critical to have an ongoing dialogue about expectations and outcomes. It is also extremely important to create a culture of higher expectations that ties the reward structure to those expectations. Despite your best efforts many people are not motivated beyond meeting the checklist requirements of their performance goals, lack initiative, and spend significant time trying to game the system rather than improve on it. As a result, even if you follow this portion of the HR script you still may not have the workplace dynamic that your leadership wants. As a result, I am constantly questioning the assumptions of the HR profile, the methodology for improving the workforce, and the strategy to effectuate a better workplace dynamic. In the referenced article the commentator provides aspects of the familiar with a few new twists. Specifically, they recommend making sure that employee’ daily efforts contribute to your company’s business objectives. “In fact, leading industry analysts estimate nearly 95% of workers are unaware of their company’s top objectives. And that’s often because an effective process to communicate and track progress against these objectives does not exist.” They also advocate keeping employees energized and engaged by providing richer feedback, coaching, and more relevant review. “Ultimately, quality feedback is what keeps your employee’s head in the game and can be used to inspire and fire them up.” Again these things are repeatedly mentioned but seldom seem to make a huge difference in reality. The commentator also mentions implementing a pay for performance culture. This is shorthand to me for developing a high performers’ recognition and payment plan. “Improve ongoing job satisfaction, productivity and retention by recognizing and rewarding exceptional effort”. I take this to be the most critical issue in the whole HR arsenal. Timely rewards to your best people can make a huge difference. The dark side is giving rewards to the wrong people; the same can undermine everything else that you do.  The commentator also suggests automating the entire performance management process so that it is easy, visible, paper free, and saves time. I agree that automation can help the hassle profile of performance management, but it is not necessarily a game changer. If it did, everyone would have an automated system. As a result, the proper assessment of rewards seems to me the critical element of the HR strategy. Let me know your thoughts about managing performance.