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Speaker’s Corner – May

 

“Performance Management Best Practices versus Applied Realities”

Elaine Pulakos, Ph.D.

PDRI

 

Elaine Pulakos offered an irreverent and entertaining review of best practices and associated realities of performance management. While a fixture of human resource processes, performance management rarely achieves the impact it is designed to accomplish. The goals of performance management include:

  • Ensuring employees are clear on expectations for their role and what they can do to improve

  • Enhancing communication between employees and managers, fostering honest and timely feedback.

  • Driving the organization’s strategic objectives through a focus on critical competencies and individual results.

Dr. Pulakos outlined eight best practices and how to address challenges that arise when reality hits.

 

Best Practice

Addressing the Realities
  • Determine if the purpose of Performance Management is for decision-making about rewards or for development. Ideally, an organization would have two separate systems for these goals.
  • In reality it is not feasible to have two distinct systems. Rather, managers should hold separate discussions for development and to review performance and decisions. Ongoing feedback conversations are critical to reducing end-of-the-year surprises.
  • Set SMART objectives, focused on three to five objectives.
  • Because SMART goals are difficult and time-consuming to create it is critical to provide training for employees and managers on how to set goals. Provide a repository of well-written objectives from which associates can choose, creating efficiency and consistency across employees.
  • Create cascading goals to align individual and organizational objectives across the leadership levels, from CEO down to entry-level employees.
  • This can be hard to achieve when organizational strategies are too lofty and hard to translate to clear goals at lower levels of the organization. Make sure higher-level goals are clear and concrete. Consider creating cascading goals within divisions or departments to contain the iterations that need to be completed.
  • Managers conduct regular, ongoing performance conversations with employees to ensure no surprises at the performance review.
  • To ensure managers do not avoid these conversations, train them and provide support to ensure they have the skills to: observe employee behaviors, diagnose performance issues, provide actionable feedback and handle emotional reactions from employees. With executives role modeling these behaviors and ensuring managers provide clear, supportive feedback, the organization will create a feedback-rich culture.
  • Focus on concrete results to clarify objectives and ensure everyone is focused on contributing to the bottom line.
  • Because objective outcomes are difficult to define and measure for many roles, provide criteria and standards to help create consistency across subjective evaluations. Incorporate behavioral competencies that measure the “how” of results.
  • Provide well-defined performance standards to increase consistency across managers and communicate clear expectations.
  • Provide opportunities to increase calibration across raters to adopt common standards. This is particularly important where decisions will be made based on the performance data.
  • Focus on development and expectations going forward.
  • Again, training managers and employees and the focus and process for effective performance reviews help all associates gain comfort with developmental discussions.
  • Effective implementation of performance management systems requires support from the top.
  • Executive support is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for success. Engage managers to ensure they perceive value in the performance management process. When implementing changes, start small to achieve quick wins and generate support with key stakeholders throughout the organization.

 

An overarching recommendation is to remember that successful performance management systems are not based on creating complex, highly-sophisticated tools. Simplicity and practicality are critical to ensuring follow through by managers throughout the year, not just during review time. Additionally, organizations need to equip managers to drive the process and ensure employees have clear expectations about their role in the performance management process. A successful system will enhance leaders’ ability to drive results and reinforce behaviors the organization wants employees to exhibit.

 

Reported by: David Mahl