HRMN 400 - Onboarding and Performance
HRMN 400 – Week 5 Citations
(Jones, 2016)
(Performance Management vs Performance Appraisal ( Differences), 2018)
(HR Basics: Performance Management, 2017)
(Heathfield, 2020)
(Setting Employee Goals, 2014)
(Heathfield, How to Provide Feedback That Helps Employees Improve, 2019)
(Lucas, 2019)
(Leonard, 2018)
(Heathfield, Performance Development Planning (PDP), 2020)
(Ott, 2017)
(Mayhew, n.d.)
(Heathfield, Performance Improvement Strategies, 2019)
(Heathfield, How to Manage an Employee Whose Performance Is a Challenge?, 2019)
(Heathfield, Use Performance Management, 2018)
(Smith, 2018)
(Heathfield, Performance Improvement Plan, 2019)
(Jones, THE LOOK AND FEEL OF NEXT GENERATION PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT, 2016)
(Jones, WHY NEXT GENERATION PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT IS THE WAY OF THE FUTURE, 2016)
(Bacal, n.d.)
(Heathfield, Help Your Employees Develop Their Strengths—Not Their Weaknesses, 2019)
(Heathfield, Coaching Tips for HR Professionals, 2019)
(Heathfield, Steps to Create a Career Development Plan, 2019)
(Heathfield, How to Develop a Balanced Scorecard as a Performance Management Tool, 2019)
(Heathfield, How Great Managers Motivate Their Employees, 2020)
(Williams)
(Petty, 2019)
Bibliography Bacal, R. (n.d.). Performance Enhancement. Retrieved February 7, 2021, from The Performance
Management and Appraisal Resource Center: http://performance- appraisals.org/Bacalsappraisalarticles/articles/diagper.htm
Heathfield, S. M. (2018, April 19). Use Performance Management. Retrieved February 7, 2021, from Balance Careers: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/use-performance- management-1918853
Heathfield, S. M. (2019, September 5). Coaching Tips for HR Professionals. Retrieved February 4, 2021, from Balance Careers: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/tips-for-effective- coaching-1917836
Heathfield, S. M. (2019, May 14). Help Your Employees Develop Their Strengths—Not Their Weaknesses. Retrieved February 7, 2021, from Balance Careers: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/help-develop-employee-strengths-not-weaknesses- 1918672
Heathfield, S. M. (2019, June 25). How to Develop a Balanced Scorecard as a Performance Management Tool. Retrieved February 6, 2021, from Balance Careers: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/balanced-scorecards-as-performance-management- tools-4164627
Heathfield, S. M. (2019, January 26). How to Manage an Employee Whose Performance Is a Challenge? Retrieved February 7, 2021, from Balance Careers: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/managing-employee-performance-challenge- 1917609
Heathfield, S. M. (2019, November 19). How to Provide Feedback That Helps Employees Improve. Retrieved February 7, 2021, from Balance Careers: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/provide-feedback-that-has-an-impact-1916642
Heathfield, S. M. (2019, November 19). Performance Improvement Plan. Retrieved February 7, 2021, from Balance Careers: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/performance- improvement-plan-contents-and-sample-form-1918850
Heathfield, S. M. (2019, May 13). Performance Improvement Strategies. Retrieved February 7, 2021, from Balance Career: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/performance- improvement-strategies-1918714
Heathfield, S. M. (2019, November 3). Steps to Create a Career Development Plan. Retrieved February 4, 2021, from Balance Careers: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/steps-to- create-a-career-development-plan-1917798
Heathfield, S. M. (2020, March 2). How Great Managers Motivate Their Employees. Retrieved February 5, 2021, from Balance Careers: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/how-great- managers-motivate-their-employees-1918772
Heathfield, S. M. (2020, June 30). Performance Development Planning (PDP). Retrieved February 6, 2021, from Balance Careers: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/performance-development-planning-1916761
Heathfield, S. M. (2020, October 1). Tips to Create Successful Performance Appraisal Goals. Retrieved February 7, 2021, from Balance Careers: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/create-successful-performance-appraisal-goals- 1918840
HR Basics: Performance Management (2017). [Motion Picture]. YouTube. Retrieved February 6, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyOZ_4rWWiY&feature=youtu.be
Jones, D. (2016, October 29). How Ongoing Performance Management Benefits the Employee and the Business. Retrieved February 6, 2021, from SHRM Blog: https://blog.shrm.org/blog/how-ongoing-performance-management-benefits-the- employee-and-the-business
Jones, D. (2016, May 24). THE LOOK AND FEEL OF NEXT GENERATION PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT. Retrieved February 7, 2021, from SHRM'S EXECUTIVE NETWORK BLOG: https://blog.shrm.org/executive/blogpost/The-Look-and-Feel-of-Next- Generation-Performance-Management
Jones, D. (2016, March 1). WHY NEXT GENERATION PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT IS THE WAY OF THE FUTURE. Retrieved February 8, 2021, from SHRM'S EXECUTIVE NETWORK BLOG: https://blog.shrm.org/executive/blogpost/1346767/240466/Why- Next-Generation-Performance-Management-Is-the-Way-of-the-Future
Leonard, K. (2018, August 20). What Is Performance Feedback? Retrieved February 7, 2021, from Chron: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/performance-feedback-1882.html
Lucas, S. (2019, September 3). How to Provide Constructive Feedback to Develop Employee Skills. Retrieved February 7, 2021, from Balance Careers: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/constructive-feedback-to-help-employees-grow- 4120943
Mayhew, R. (n.d.). Handling And Documenting Employee Performance Issues. Retrieved February 6, 2021, from Chron: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/handling-documenting- employee-performance-issues-10775.html
Ott, B. (2017, October 12). 3 Reasons Why Performance Development Wins in the Workplace. Retrieved February 4, 2021, from Gallup: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/231620/why-performance-development-wins- workplace.aspx?version=print
Performance Management vs Performance Appraisal ( Differences) (2018). [Motion Picture]. YouTube. Retrieved February 6, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVYZI8A29P4
Petty, A. (2019, June 25). 10 Tips to Help You Conduct Difficult Workplace Discussions. Retrieved February 6, 2021, from Balance Careers: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/having-difficult-workplace-discussions-2275815
Setting Employee Goals (2014). [Motion Picture]. YouTube. Retrieved February 7, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2OPEUjBYdw&feature=youtu.be
Smith, R. (2018, January 10). Communication: The Feedback Sandwich. Retrieved February 7, 2021, from SHRM Blog: https://blog.shrm.org/blog/communication-the-feedback- sandwich
Williams, L. (n.d.). Module 10: Motivating Employees: Goal-Setting Theory. In Introduction to Business. Lumen Learning. Retrieved February 7, 2021, from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wmintrobusiness/chapter/goals/
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By Dominique Jones (/Author/1047) On October 29, 2016 0 Comments (/Blog/How-Ongoing-Performance-Management-Benefits-The-Employee-And-The- Business#Comments)
How Ongoing Performance Management Benefits the Employee and the Business
In previous installments of our four-part series on performance management, we examined why
organizations should manage employee performance on an ongoing basis
(http://blog.hrps.org/blogpost/1346767/240466/Why-Next-Generation-Performance-Management-Is-
the-Way-of-the-Future), what it’s like on a day-to-day basis (http://blog.hrps.org/blogpost/The-Look-
and-Feel-of-Next-Generation-Performance-Management), and how to train managers to provide
effective feedback and coaching (http://blog.hrps.org/blogpost/Investing-in-Employee-Engagement-
and-Satisfaction) to employees.
To wrap-up our series, we’ll look at how to use information gathered during the year to help
managers and employees during the annual performance appraisal process.
Don’t Be So Quick to Ditch the Annual Review
There has been a lot of buzz surrounding the idea of getting rid of the often-hated year-end review.
The idea is that ongoing performance management can replace the annual review.
Not so fast.
We know the annual review as a standalone, separate, or one-time event where managers and
employees discuss performance or career goals does little to support employee engagement.
Many organizations want to adopt ongoing performance management approaches throughout the
entire year, but still want a summary assessment of performance. The review should simply be a
summary of the performance during that period, where feedback, goal, and development discussions
have happened all year long. When approached this way, ongoing performance management
actually enhances the annual review and make it more relevant in today’s business climate.
1 (https://blog.shrm.org/flag/flag/blog_likes/7370? destination=node/7370&token=d32236495c314a2f7ec36ed5158cef12&ha
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As mentioned in a previous blog in this series, the look and feel of ongoing performance
management may vary depending on the unique needs of your business. Getting the conversations
started about performance is only the first step. The next step is to train and encourage staff to take
careful notes on feedback given and received, and how to capture information related to employee
performance or learning and development opportunities.
Documenting the Discussion
Nobody likes surprises when it comes to how their performance is evaluated—nor should there be
any. A study by TriNet and Wakefield Research (http://www.humanresourcesonline.net/1-5-employees-
rather-call-sick-face-performance-reviews/) found that 62 percent of people surveyed felt blindsided
by annual performance reviews and 59 percent felt that managers were unprepared to give
feedback. Having a record of performance conversations is important because it ensures that the
year-end review is a comprehensive look at an employee’s year, not just what can be remembered
over the last few weeks or months.
Managers and employees can benefit from reviewing the information gathered during one-on-one
meetings before the annual performance review takes place. Here are some tips to help employees
and managers get ready for the year-end assessment.
How Employees Can Prepare for the Annual Review
Gather progress on goals and development plans
Match up tasks and responsibilities against job-specific competencies
Review performance journal notes
Prepare a list of accomplishments
Do a self-evaluation
Identify career growth intentions
Identify possible goals for the upcoming year that align with the organization’s goals
How Managers Can Prepare for the Annual Review
Collect feedback from an employee’s peers and internal clients
Review the employee’s performance, demonstrations of competencies, and goal achievements
Think about goals for the coming year that align with the organization’s overall objectives
Consider the employee career growth potential (and then discuss career growth with the
employee and offer guidance on to develop an action a plan)
As long as employees and managers take careful notes throughout the year, collecting this
information will be simple.
How Technology Can Help
Ongoing performance management doesn’t have to create more work than your existing annual
review process, and in fact can be streamlined with the right technology.
A 2015 report by the Aberdeen Group found that companies with “best in class” talent management
programs are 26 percent more likely to be using performance management software
(http://blog.capterra.com/the-top-11-hr-technology-statistics-for-2016/). Performance management
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software can go a long way in helping organizations make ongoing performance management a
natural fit for their businesses by focusing on engaging and aligning employees to achieve strategic
outcomes, not just automating paper processes.
With features that help create and support personal and organizational goals, foster a culture of
continuous coaching and feedback, and help staff build professional development plans that create a
clear path for growth, performance management technology can enable employees and managers to
have meaningful, ongoing performance and career-related discussions, and gather key business
insights to analyze and measure progress.
Sorting Through the Data
As the annual performance meeting nears, information about employee performance can be
collected and analyzed. This analysis is important for HR, as it provides the opportunity to think ahead
and anticipate potential opportunities or challenges.
The development and investment in “people analytics” has grown from 2015 to 2016, according
toDeloitte’s 2016 Global Human Capital Trends (http://dupress.com/articles/people-analytics-in-hr-
analytics-teams/) report. The survey found that 77 percent of companies believe that people analytics
is important, with 38 percent say they are adequate at conducting multi-year workforce planning,
compared to just eight percent in 2015.
Some useful metrics for HR professionals to consider include:
High-performer growth rate
Average employee performance rate increase
Performance appraisal completion rate
Critical competency scores
Percentage of employees tracking goals
Percentage of goals obtained
HR needs to measure the metrics that matter to its business, and examine the results to see where
the performance management process can be improved.
The Big Picture
Ongoing performance management helps ensure employees and managers discuss learning and
development, build relationships, and improve engagement. Combined with annual performance
reviews, ongoing performance management helps gather key HR metrics, giving clear insight into
employee performance as well as informing decisions about compensation, promotions, and learning
and development plans.
Technology is undoubtedly a big help when adopting ongoing performance management, but the
basis will always be improving communication and building relationships. Ensure your people are
successful, and they’ll help your business succeed too.
Originally posted on blog.hrps.org on October 18, 2016. Reposted with permission.
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(/author/1047) WRITTEN BY Dominique.Jones (/author/1047)
Dominique Jones is chief people officer at Halogen Software.
Dominique has over 20 years experience in the talent management industry and has held
progressively more responsible senior HR roles both in Europe and in North America. Dominique has
extensive industry experience, having worked in the retail, manufacturing, financial services,
consulting and professional services sectors.
The industry diversity in Dominique's career has led to extensive practical experience in
organizational change, aggressive growth initiatives, talent and performance management, and
international HR management.
Prior to joining Halogen, Dominique was most recently a regional vice president at Right
Management, a global talent management consulting firm. Before that, she held senior HR roles with
AMEC, MBNA Canada and MBNA Europe, JCB Transmissions, Safeway, and Marks and Spencer, as
well as established her own HR consulting business.
Dominique holds an M.A. Honours degree from St. Andrews University in Scotland, as well as the
Institute of Personnel and Development (IPD) certification from the United Kingdom.
The SHRM Blog does not accept solicitation for guest posts.
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Tips to Create Successful Performance Appraisal Goals What a Manager Can Do to Improve Performance Appraisal Goals
• • • Table of Contents
• Tips for Goals in a Performance Appraisal • 3 Key Ways to Improve Employee Performance • Final Thoughts on Successful Goal Setting
BY SUSAN M. HEATHFIELD Updated October 01, 2020
Many people think that the goal-setting portion of the performance appraisal system interferes with the effectiveness of the overall process, which is why they often don't work. However, the goal-setting process, in and of itself, is not really the problem.
The problem is that people set too many goals, and then, they micromanage the "how- to-do" of the employee accomplishing the goals. What should happen, in contrast, is, each employee should have broad, thoughtful goals that zero in on the most important requirements the organization needs to acquire from their contribution.
Tips for Goals in a Performance Appraisal
Use the following tips to make sure you are setting your employees up for success with goals that focus on the contribution your organization most needs from them.
Giving Add On Goals Following the Appraisal Meeting
Giving an employee a goal after an appraisal meeting is something that should be done sparingly. The employee should already have agreed upon a time period's goals in the meeting and exchange.
Too Many Goals and Micromanaging
You will want to avoid over-managing the employee as they work to achieve their goals.
If an employee has more than four to six goals, the organization’s expectations are too high and maybe a sign the manager is micromanaging the steps involved in accomplishing the broader goals.
For example, the first three goals are to first, increase the quality of the parts produced by 10% as measured by the quality indicators by the end of the next appraisal time period. The second is to use the quality indicator known as thickness to increase the quality of the parts. The third is to use the quality indicator weight to ensure all parts are created equal. Note that the first goal is appropriate. The second and third are micromanaging the employee's work.
The Lack of Clear Direction and Discouragement
With too many goals that the employee can't see reaching, you will find that discouragement and distrust for the company's direction will set in. The employee will also feel that they are missing out on the needed clear direction, which is recognized regularly as one of the worst characteristics of managers who are identified as bad bosses.
No Differentiation in Importance
If an employee is told that all of those goals are important and he must achieve them all, he will have no sense of his real priorities. This leads to the feeling that he is not actually performing effectively in his role.
Micromanaging the How-To of Achieving the Goal
Employees need to have the end in mind but manage their own route with feedback and coaching along the way. It empowers employees to contribute to the strategic framework of the organization while bringing forth their engagement and commitment to achieving all of the expectations.
3 Key Ways to Improve Employee Performance
Use these methods to improve performance appraisal goals. They are simple, yet powerful, as they encourage positive goal completion.
Set around four to six goals.
The employee has signed up for an unachievable agenda. Always encourage and enable time so the employee can work on personally desired developmental goals in addition to the business goals. You’ll end up with an effective, successful, contributing employee who is meeting his or her needs at work, too.
Take a serious look at the detail involved in the employee’s goals.
If the detail is too specific or additional goals tell the employee how to accomplish the goal as in the above example, you may be micromanaging. This will bring about discouragement as the employee feels constrained.
Trust the employee to figure out how to attain the goal.
Be available for discussion, feedback, and coaching. If you're uncomfortable with that, establish a critical path with the employee, which is a series of points at which the employee will provide feedback about progress to you.
Final Thoughts on Successful Performance Goal Setting
If you can, always provide these components of goals for effective goal-setting as you work with your employees. Employees who know their goals, receive regular feedback on their progress, and are rewarded and recognized for goal-achievement are likely to succeed and stay in your organization.
Managers who empower employees to accomplish their agreed-upon goals are successful managers. Managers who know how to stay out of the way and cheer their employees on are even more successful.
Certainly, this is the desired outcome of any goal-setting process, whether you call it performance appraisal, performance evaluation, or, the current preferred strategy, performance development planning.
How to Provide Feedback That Helps Employees Improve Your Feedback Has an Impact When Provided Respectfully and With Care
• • • Table of Contents
• Provide Feedback That Has an Impact • Here's How You Can Provide Feedback • Tips for the Most Effective Feedback
BY SUSAN M. HEATHFIELD Updated November 21, 2019
Provide Feedback That Has an Impact
Make your feedback have the impact it deserves by the manner and the approach you use when you want to provide employees with performance feedback. Your feedback can make a difference to people if you can avoid provoking a defensive response.
Especially to perceived negative or less than positive feedback, employees have a tendency to react defensively because people tend to take feedback personally and not professionally. This is a deterrent to your ability to help the employee improve their performance.
These guidelines will help you help employees develop their performance through your positive use of feedback.
Here's How You Can Best Provide Feedback
Effective employee feedback is specific, not general.
To provide specific feedback, for example, say, "The report that you turned in yesterday was well-written, understandable, and made your points about the budget very effectively." Don't say, "good report." This statement is too general for the employee to use the information to improve.
One of the purposes of effective, constructive feedback is to let the individual know the specific behavior that you'd like to see more of from him. General feedback like a pat on the back makes the employee feel good momentarily but doesn't do a good job of reinforcing the behavior.
Useful feedback always focuses on a specific behavior.
You want to specifically identify the behavior in need of improvement not on a person or their intentions. (When you participated in competing conversations during the staff meeting, while Mary had the floor, you distracted the other people in attendance. As a result, Mary's point was partially missed.)
The best feedback is sincerely and honestly provided to help.
Trust this statement. People will know if they are receiving feedback for any other reason. Most people have an internal radar that can easily detect insincerity. Keep this in mind when you offer feedback.
Successful feedback describes actions or behavior that the individual can do something about.
For example, you would never provide feedback If you can, provide any tools, training, time, or support that the person needs to successfully perform as you need them to perform.
When possible, feedback that is requested is more powerful.
Ask permission to provide feedback. Say, "I'd like to give you some feedback about the presentation, is that okay with you?" This gives the recipient some control over the
situation which is desirable. Perhaps the recipient might say, "How about tomorrow? I'd like to think about my performance overnight.
Provide feedback a recipient might use.
When you share information and specific observations, you are providing feedback that an employee might use.
It does not include advice unless you have permission or advice was requested. Ask the employee what he or she might do differently as a result of hearing the feedback. You are more likely to help the employee change his approach than if you tell the employee what to do or how to change.
Provide feedback close to the event.
Whether the feedback is positive or constructive, provide the information as closely tied to the event as possible. Effective feedback is well-timed so that the employee can easily connect the feedback with his actions. Having to remember a few days later is not ideal.
Effective feedback involves what or how something was done, not why.
Asking why is asking people about their personal motivation and that provokes defensiveness from the person receiving the feedback. Ask, What happened? How did that happen? How can you prevent that outcome in the future? How can I have done a better job of helping you? What do you need from me in the future?
Check to make sure the other person understood what you communicated by using a feedback loop.
A feedback loop such as asking the employee a question or observing their changed behavior enables you to know that the other party understood what you communicated. Set a time to get back together to discuss whether the feedback changed performance and whether any additional actions are needed.
Successful feedback is as consistent as possible.
If an employee's actions are great today, they're great tomorrow. If the policy violation merits disciplinary action, it should always merit disciplinary action—for this employee or any other likewise performing. Mixed messages produce no results.
Tips for Providing the Most Effective Feedback
When you provide feedback to an employee, keep these five tips in mind.
1. Feedback is communicated to a person or a team of people regarding the effect their behavior is having on another person, the organization, the customer, or the team.
2. Positive feedback involves telling someone about good performance. Make this feedback timely, specific, and frequent.
3. Constructive feedback alerts an individual to an area in which his or her performance could improve. Constructive feedback is not criticism. It is descriptive and should always be directed to the actions taken, not the person. For example, "Mary, your communication during your presentation was too in- depth for your audience's needs. They needed to hear just the basics, and you shared all the information you had." For effective feedback, you would not say, "Mary, that was a long, boring speech."
4. The main purpose of constructive feedback is to help people understand where they stand in relation to expected and/or productive job behavior.
5. Recognition for effective performance is a powerful motivator. Most people want to obtain more recognition, so recognition fosters more of the appreciated actions.
How to Provide Constructive Feedback to Develop Employee Skills These Tips Will Help You Help Your Employees Grow • • • BY SUZANNE LUCAS Updated September 03, 2019
Rajeev Behera, CEO of the performance management platform Reflektive, once commented, "Praise, by definition, is expressing the approval or admiration of something or someone. Feedback, on the other hand, is information about a person’s performance of a task used as a basis for improvement. In other words, both feedback and praise can be positive, but feedback is always designed to improve performance."
Feedback should be aligned with your employee's goals and skills, and designed to assist them with professional growth. There is much that is good about offering praise for those doing the work.
When praising your employees, keep in mind that it did not do anything to help their development or growth, it just lets them know you see and appreciate their work.
Develop Employee Goals
As you manage your workforce, over a short time you should notice the behaviors and job performance of your employees. As you notice these, you should begin to write down what you see so that you can begin to develop a growth plan for each of them.
After a time, you'll know your employees' performance goals—what sales targets they are supposed to reach, how many files they are supposed to process every day, or whatever your employees are working towards.
While you are observing, be sure to ask them what their personal career goals are, so you can address that during a feedback session as well.
These steps will help you to focus your feedback. Behera recommends taking these goals and dividing them into achievable tasks and skills so that they don't stay vague. For instance, if your employee's goal is to “give better presentations” you'll want to break down what skills are needed.
The skills needed for presentations could be:
• Speaking confidently and clearly • Knowledge of the subject matter • Creating slides that convey data better than words can • Responding to questions from the meeting participants • Keeping the meeting focused by redirecting people back to the main topic
Next, you provide feedback for the employee on their presentation. Refer back to these skills. “You were confident with that data. You knew exactly what you were talking about and everyone at the meeting could tell you were prepared.”
Note that you're being specific, and focusing on the areas that your employee needs to improve upon.
Regular One-On-One Meetings
If you want to give positive feedback to your employees, you should take the time to do so. On-the-spot feedback is effective and necessary, but a quiet session where you can both talk is best.
A realistic goal for regular feedback sessions is once a month. This may not be achievable in some industries, so work to make them as often as you can. Regardless of the schedule you choose, you should try to meet with your employees often enough so that they benefit from the interaction.
If you hold all the information until the end of the year review, it won't mean much to the employee, and it won't help the employee improve any during the period. The end of the year review should be used to summarize all of the previous feedback sessions to show the employee the progress they have made.
Early and frequent feedback lets the employee know that they're on the right path and that they could employ the same strategies in other areas. You will probably forget (and so will the employee) most of the actions that deserved calling out if you only give feedback once or twice a year.
Avoid the Feedback Sandwich
Anyone who works in management or Human Resources has heard that you should sandwich "bad feedback" between two layers of "good feedback". So, for example, you say, “Jane, you did a great job on that presentation. However, you were late three out of five days last week, and I, uh, really like your email signature.”
This has no positive effects. It's only done because the manager felt compelled to provide feedback. This is usually seen when there are mandatory feedback sessions, managers don't have anything prepared, and they were taught to use the sandwich method.
Provide Developmental Feedback
Something else to keep in mind is that there is no such thing as negative, or bad, feedback. A feedback session should identify issues but have positive ideas or goals as a result. If Jane was late three out of five days last week, give feedback to her. "Jane, I noticed you were late last week three days. Is everything ok, or anything I can do to help you make it here on time?"
"It was car trouble, but it's fixed now? Sounds great, I'm glad you got it fixed."
There was nothing negative about this, and Jane had an actual problem.
Now if Jane had woke up late those three days, perhaps a feedback session with some goals and steps designed will ensure she is on time. "Jane, what do you think about checking your alarm every night to make sure it's set, laying your clothes out the night before, and ensuring you leave at a time that allows you to make it through traffic to get here for work?"
Again, this is not "bad feedback", it is simply feedback.
Good Feedback Is Important
Managing isn't just about achieving the numbers and keeping executives happy. It isn't about the praise and thankfulness you offer employees when they do a good job.
Management is also about developing, motivating, and coaching employees. Feedback used properly will make your department a great place to work, and give your employees a chance to grow. As you nurture your employees, you will see improvements in your productivity. Everyone can benefit from specific and positive feedback.
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What Is Performance Feedback? Small Business | Managing Employees | Feedback By Kimberlee Leonard Updated August 20, 2018
Business leaders want employees to succeed. Employees are an integral component of the overall business' success. Plus when employees succeed, they have a more positive demeanor and everyone enjoys being at the office more when people are happy. Performance feedback is critical to helping employees understand expectations, make adjustments and get the coaching necessary to improve and succeed. On the other side of the equation is feedback managers may receive in the process as well that helps them more effectively lead the organization.
Define Performance Feedback Performance feedback is a communications process. It should be ongoing meaning as adjustments are made based on the information exchanged between manager and team member.
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There should be regular follow up dialogue to determine success. Feedback is designed to note where things are going right and where they are going wrong. This means that leaders may need to be patient as new habits get developed and the learning curves for new skills are overcome.
Performance feedback is useless unless business leaders have standards for performance, meaning they should have expectations of reasonable achievement. For example, a car dealership may set the standard as 10 sales per month. An accounting office might set the standard of meeting with three clients per day. Without these standards, a manager is unable to take a baseline level of productivity and make adjustments.
When it comes to adjustments, leaders need to get the feedback from the team member before they can provide new goals and tasks for improvement. The employee unable to meet 10 car sales per month might be struggling because he is not getting scheduled for the prime sales periods. In most cases, the only way a manager can provide effective feedback is to be among the team. A sports coach can't provide productive feedback without seeing a player do his job. The feedback from the team member is as important as the feedback the manager provides. In fact, it is how the manager is able to fully understand the situation and make the right adjustment rather than just guess and what might solve a problem.
How Feedback Improves Performance Every athlete uses performance feedback to improve performance. This area of study has expanded how athletes use coaches, camera recordings, bio-feedback and other tools to get the right feedback. A tennis player and his coach might use a tracker implanted in his racket to get swing speeds while hitting a ball. This information is then used with statistics of accuracy and the coaches experience in seeing the small details in a swing that affect performance. The ultimate goal is to improve accuracy and consistency to win more matches.
The feedback definition in management is not very different. The goal of performance feedback is to improve skills and generate more revenues. When a team member gets feedback on how his word choices may negatively affect customers with new ideas on how to convey the same message, he is put in a position to make more customers happy. Ironically, the change will probably reduce consistent conflict he experiences with customers improving his overall job satisfaction.
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It's hard to change something if you are unaware of what you are doing wrong. This is most true with behavioral adjustments but holds true for detail-oriented tasks and processes as well. Someone who is taking too long to complete a client intake form might not realize a very simple trick on his keyboard that toggles him from screen to screen saving him minutes per intake form. The old adage, "You don't know what you don't know," is resolved with performance feedback. People learn what gaps they have and are able to adjust saving time, money and often frustration.
Examples of Feedback Performance feedback can cover any area of business operations. Think about the job duties of any one employee and you will be able to determine the performance feedback metrics for that person.
Quality of Work: This is a fundamental responsibility that employees need to get right. If someone's job is to complete a client's tax return and it is riddled with errors, this is a problem for the company and the client. If this s a regular problem, it needs to be addressed. Feedback would include rating the quality of work, perhaps on a scale of one to five and noting the good and the bad to include regular mistakes.
Work Habits: This is an area of performance feedback that doesn't always seem like it affects performance but it does. Being on time, dependable and organized seems like arbitrary performance items. But if someone isn't at work, they are unable to help customers and other employees get burdened with additional duties. A person who isn't organized might spend an extra 10 minutes looking for a report thus arrive late to a meeting creating a negative tone from the start.
Service Habits: These habits affect how the outside views the competence of your company and a desire to want to work with you. If an employee is not returning phone calls, rude or passes the buck to others, customers will have a negative experience and it will also strain employee relationships. Feedback in this area would include creating systems to make time for service issues and training on communication skills.
Team Skills: Some people work better in groups than others. There are those who get huge levels of anxiety leaving the safety of their cubicles. Helping your team understand how to work with each other, to help each other and support each other is critical to preventing miscommunication or production slow-downs. If someone with a strong personality is constantly criticizing the person who is very introverted, your feedback may revolve around communication skills and inclusion ideas. By bringing the two parties together with less anxiety, productivity can improve for both.
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When a manager sees a problematic area in any part of the organization, it behooves him to start the conversation and get employee input to develop a performance feedback action plan.
Feedback Best Practices How feedback improves performance depends on how it is given. When feedback is overly critical, employees might tune out the feedback because they are focused on the negative. No one likes to be criticized. Feedback given in an overly friendly way might not result in change because the employee might not perceive it as important. As with any other system in your business, create a process for performance feedback.
Standards: Determine what is normal for the performance item in question. Set expectations so employees know the standards of performance. Sales numbers are easy to define metrics but other performance items are not as easily defined. Take the time to look at the activities involved with any performance item and establish realistic parameters. This could be accomplished by looking at other employees and getting their input or by doing the task yourself to determine what is reasonable.
Constructive Language: Use constructive language when providing performance feedback. This goes back to the point that people don't like to be criticized and will often block out any information coming with that criticism. An easy way to be constructive is to include the well- executed activities while addressing the poorly executed ones.
Consistency: Be consistent with all employees. If employees feel they are being singled out, it feels like an attack and personal. At the same time, if you only do performance feedback when things are going poorly in the organization, you are not fulfilling the purpose of on-going conversations and missing opportunities to fix things before the problem becomes exaggerated. Hold regular performance feedback sessions with all employees and be open to new ideas and thoughts being brought up in good times and bad.
It can be hard to give feedback, especially negative feedback. But with practice and paying attention to language and tone, you will positively impact your organization. If performance feedback is presented in a way that an athlete seeks to improve rather than a grade a teacher is giving, both managers and team leaders have the right mindset going in.
Accepting Performance Feedback Taking feedback as a leader is as important as giving it. It was discussed earlier that you are able to get insights from employees as to why performance might not be successful. You can also derive important procedural problems from employees who are doing the work every day.
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Sometimes leadership isn't able to see the tree in the middle of the forest. This is why performance feedback involves a two-way line of communication.
Being open to feedback is also important in understanding how your leadership style affects your team. There are many leadership styles ranging from authoritarian to affiliative. No one is 100% of any one leadership style and when a leader can adapt based on the situation or the team member, he gets better results from happier employees. If an employee says that he fears going over the data numbers in team meetings because he isn't a top performer, you might choose to find ways to recognize employees for different things in group settings. Acknowledging the employee's difficulty and feelings validate the employee as an important part of the team and show your willingness to see their strengths.
Feedback Integration in Operations Feedback performance does absolutely nothing if you are not going to integrate changes based on feedback and evaluation. You may find yourself providing the same performance feedback and tweaks to several people; this is a training issue on you as a manager. While you can correct this through performance feedback one team member at a time, you could improve your own productivity by better training people so they don't make the same mistakes across the board.
There are other times where you may change something in how your business operates based on performance feedback. If you find that employees are not reaching customers earlier in the morning, you could change office hours to start later thus giving employees more time to reach customers. Instead of changing office hours, you may re-arrange daily activities to give employees the opportunity to succeed.
Takeaways of Performance Feedback Managers and team members might be reluctant to start a new program that takes a lot of time away from actually doing work. Implementing performance feedback doesn't need to be a huge time commitment. Set a time weekly to monitor and talk to employees. Prepare standard forms to simplify the recording process and let employees know what to expect. These are evaluations determining employment status but a method for everyone to improve.
How you explain and approach performance evaluations will determine how your employees respond. You will find most people want to do a good job and are eager to improve with feedback. When done right. performance feedback eventually relies less on documenting information and simple conversations that happen throughout a workday or week. Employees will also be more likely to approach you with problems they are experiencing hoping you have a solution.
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Leadership skills are not tangible. While many leaders are born with a specific leadership ability, anybody can learn to improve their leadership skills. Through self-awareness and training, you can boost the impact you have on your team, which often has a tangible effect on performance.
Understand Leadership Styles Pared down to the basics, you can be a boss or you can be a leader. Even a nice boss gives people directives and orders, and expects compliance in completing tasks. In more authoritarian scenarios, this leadership style can become a fear-based style, in which employees are constantly concerned about losing their job for one or two mistakes.
A leader needs the same work done but looks to help employees find their internal motivation to achieve it. Where a boss views his employees as subordinates, a leader views his employees as part of a team and seeks to empower them so that they exceed minimal expectations.
Leaders who inspire and empower have a greater ability to influence the team's actions. Inspiring and empowering build loyalty and trust, which are positive qualities that create a strong, productive corporate culture. When everything is based on performance results without developing loyalty and trust, team performance is often negatively affected.
Monitor Your Team Leaders can't sit in an office and read reports all day, if they want to truly understand how to take the team to the next level. Reports are only one way to monitor progress. A leader who is engaged with his team is able to discover all sorts of insights. Insights could include a fulfillment issue that's stalling deliveries or it could be that an employee is experiencing a personal issue that's causing a dip in performance. Speak with your team and start to get a pulse on what the team's
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normal mood is; what the team is like when everyone is excited; and what the team is like when the mood drops.
Adjust Leadership as Needed As a business leader, you don't need to box yourself into one leadership style. There may be instances in which being more boss-like is advantageous. For example, sales numbers are key factors for your business success, so it is imperative that you address these numbers in a very black-and-white system. Address the sales representative needs to meet their goals without exception.
At the same time, holding a team huddle every morning before the sales team hits the phones can help inspire the team. Take a moment to review the team's successes, and ask the team what they are struggling with. In a five-minute huddle, your team will feel a positive sense of energy, and the whole team then becomes a resource that helps find solutions to co-worker's struggles.
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Performance Development Planning (PDP) You Can Manage Employee Performance by Setting Appropriate Goals • • • Table of Contents
• Personal Developmental Goals • Make the PDP Meeting Successful • During the PDP Meeting • Following the PDP Meeting
BY SUSAN M. HEATHFIELD Updated June 30, 2020
If you are looking for the process that provides the heart of your performance management system, you've found it. The Performance Development Planning (PDP) process enables you and the people who report to you to identify their personal and business goals that are most significant to your organization's success.
The process enables each staff person to understand their true value-add to the organization. They do so when they understand how their job and the requested outcomes from their contribution "fit" inside your department or work unit's overall goals. They will also understand how their expected performance contributes to the strategic success of their total organization.
Personal Developmental Goals
In the process, staff members also set personal developmental goals that will increase their ability to contribute to the success of your organization. The accomplishment of these goals also provides a foundation for their career success whether in your organization or elsewhere, so they ought to be motivated and excited about achieving these goals.
Your system of Performance Management, with the PDP process for goal setting and communication with employees, will ensure that you are developing a superior workforce. The effort to build a superior workforce and make great hires through this process is essential.
McKinsey says, "A recent study of more than 600,000 researchers, entertainers, politicians, and athletes found that high performers are 400 percent more productive than average ones. Studies of businesses not only show similar results but also reveal that the gap rises with a job’s complexity. In highly complex occupations—the information- and interaction-intensive work of managers, software developers, and the like—high performers are an astounding 800 percent more productive."1
PDP meetings are held at least quarterly to review the staff person's progress on the overall goals and objectives. Your staff person's progress on the action plans that result from the PDP goals is reviewed at your weekly one-on-one meeting. This weekly meeting allows you to offer assistance and to identify any help or tools the staff person needs to succeed.
Make the Performance Development Planning Meeting Successful
Proper planning will help you make the PDP meeting more successful. When you properly approach the performance and contribution discussion, you have a better chance to create a high performing team member.
• Schedule the Performance Development Planning meeting and define pre-work with the staff member.
• The staff member reviews personal performance for the quarter, writes business and personal developmental goal ideas on the PDP form and gathers needed documentation, including 360-degree feedback results, when available.
• The manager prepares for the PDP meeting by clearly defining the most important outcomes needed for the staff person's job within the framework of the organization's strategic plan.
• The manager writes business and personal developmental goal ideas on the PDP form in preparation for the discussion.
• The manager gathers data including work records and reports and input from others familiar with the staff person’s work.
• Both the manager and the employee examine how the employee is performing against all criteria, and think about areas for potential development.
• The manager develops a plan for the PDP meeting which includes answers to all questions about the performance development planning process with examples, documentation, and so on.
• Recognize that this process takes place quarterly and that the most time and work are invested in the first PDP meeting. The rest of the quarterly PDP goals, maybe for years, update the initial goals.
So, while seemingly time-consuming on the front end, the PDP process, with a formal, effective foundation of solid personal and business goals, is less time consuming as quarters pass.
The PDP continues to create business and employee success and value during its lifetime. With quarterly updates (or even more frequently if you believe an employee will benefit from more coaching, the PDP process contributes to the future.
During the Performance Development Planning (PDP) Meeting
• Establish a comfortable, private setting and chat a few minutes to establish rapport with the staff person.
• Discuss and agree upon the objective of the meeting: to create a performance development plan.
• The staff member is given the opportunity to discuss the achievements and progress accomplished during the quarter.
• The staff member identifies ways in which they would like to further develop their professional performance, including training, assignments, new challenges and so on.
So, while seemingly time-consuming on the front end, the PDP process, with a formal, effective foundation of solid personal and business goals, is less time consuming as quarters pass.
• The manager discusses the employee's performance for the quarter and suggests ways in which the staff member might further develop his performance.
• The manager provides input to the employee's selected areas of personal and professional development and improvement.
• Discuss areas of agreement and disagreement, and reach consensus. • Examine job responsibilities for the coming quarter and, in general. • Agree upon standards for performance for the key job responsibilities for the
quarter. • Discuss how the goals support the accomplishment of the
organization's business plan and the department's objectives. • Set goals together for the quarter. • Agree upon measurement for each goal. • Assuming performance is satisfactory for the quarter, agree on a personal and
professional development plan with the staff person, which helps him or her grow professionally in ways important to him and your organization.
• If performance is less than satisfactory, develop a written Performance Improvement Plan (PIP), and schedule more frequent feedback meetings. Remind the employee of the consequences connected with continued poor performance.
• The manager and the employee discuss the employee's feedback and constructive suggestions for the manager and the department.
• Discuss anything else the manager or employee would like to discuss, hopefully, maintaining the positive and constructive environment established thus far, during the meeting.
• Mutually sign the Performance Development Planning document to indicate the discussion has taken place.
• End the meeting in a positive and supportive manner. The manager expresses confidence that the employee can accomplish the plan and that the manager is available for support and assistance.
• Set a time-frame for a formal follow-up meeting, generally quarterly. Set the actual date for the follow-up meeting.
Following the Performance Development Planning Meeting
• If a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) was necessary, follow up at the designated times.
• Follow up with performance feedback and discussions regularly throughout the quarter. (An employee should never be surprised about the content of feedback at the quarterly performance development meeting.)
• The manager needs to keep commitments relative to the agreed upon personal and professional development plan, including time needed away from the job, payment for courses, agreed-upon assignments and so on.
• The supervisor needs to act upon the feedback from departmental members and let staff members know what has changed, based on their feedback.
• Forward appropriate documentation to the Human Resources office and retain a copy of the plan for easy access and referral.
The Bottom Line
When your organization develops the discipline and commitment necessary to carry out regular performance development planning, your organization will win. This systematic method for cascading goals and commitment throughout your organization will ensure your success. Can you think of a better way to communicate and measure your key strategic objectives to ensure progress and success?
ARTICLE SOURCES 1. McKinsey & Company. "Attracting and retaining the right talent." Accessed June 28,
2020.
2/3/2021 3 Reasons Why Performance Development Wins in the Workplace
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/231620/why-performance-development-wins-workplace.aspx?version=print 1/7
OCTOBER 12, 2017
3 Reasons Why Performance Development Wins in the Workplace BY BRYANT OT T
Forget for a moment the statement, "Performance management is broken." Equal parts fatalistic and fashionable, that phrase seems to imply that a fix is the next inevitable step.
But you know that's not the case -- not when the underlying causes of flawed performance management strategies are so chronic.
You can feel these seismic shifts in the global workforce -- generational forces, technological changes, remote-working trends, matrixed team makeup, etc. -- close to home in your own organization. They're the types of disruptive developments that leave leaders still tethered to traditional performance management strategies struggling to equip, inspire and improve the performance of their employees and teams.
But because the workforce evolves, so too does your workplace. The key is to determine what this evolution means for your workplace culture. What do your employees want? What do they need?
Gallup research finds that employees want to work for a purpose, not just a paycheck. They work not just because it's their job, but because their career is an integral part of their life.
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Employees used to expect to work for a boss. Now, they're looking for a coach. Because they don't just want to be satisfied with their role or their job. Your employees want personal and professional development, immediately and for the future.
But they need help to accomplish any of this.
Unfortunately, Gallup research finds that the shifts in the global workforce have created a significant schism between how organizations manage employee performance and what employees say is imperative to their individual development.
How do we know? We asked. Employees told us what they need from their manager is:
job clarity and priorities ongoing feedback and communication opportunities to learn and grow accountability
So it is disheartening that:
30% of employees strongly agree that their manager involves them in goal setting 27% strongly agree the feedback they receive helps them do their work better 22% strongly agree their performance is managed in a way that motivates them 19% strongly agree that they talked to their manager about steps to reach their goals
And what about the team?
Though efforts to improve performance start with the individual, you must align performance development approaches with team and organizational goals. Doing this will then help you effectively reach and exceed those objectives by boosting the effect of individual development across the workforce.
Why Performance Development Wins in the Workplace
Moving your organization to a culture of performance development is not easy.
Gallup's studies of high-performing teams prove that effective performance development efforts require managers' unwavering commitment to a strengths-based, engagement-focused approach to development.
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If your managers understand how their people are innately talented and what they naturally do best at work as well as employees' performance needs and barriers to success, then your managers can consistently lead their teams to high performance.
Start Leading High-Performance Teams Today. Learn how Gallup's new management development course can help you get the most out of your employees and teams.
Download Course Overview
No longer the outmoded boss, your strengths-based, engagement-focused managers can become the coaches who create real, meaningful change for individuals, their teams and the entire organization.
These managers can create cultural change by using an approach that's simple but profound, if only because the best managers Gallup studied use it to lead their teams to greater performance.
A performance development approach works because it effectively establishes expectations.
Don Clifton once wrote, "Nothing happens until someone expects something of you in ways you can achieve."
It's alarming, then, that Gallup's research finds only one in two employees clearly know what is expected of them when they go to work every day.
When managers can establish expectations the right way -- expectations that are clear, collaborative and aligned -- they create trusted relationships with their employees and properly align them with their roles.
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With these foundational elements in place, manager and employee can agree to performance metrics that matter to the individual's interests and to the goals of the larger team and organization as a whole.
A performance development approach works because it gives employees continual coaching.
Traditional performance management puts off until tomorrow what can benefit employees and the team today.
Only one in five employees strongly agree that they have talked to their manager in the past six months about steps to reach their goals. Similarly small percentages strongly agree that their manager provides meaningful feedback and that the feedback they receive helps them do better work.
Those last two findings are a nasty sort of managerial malpractice, considering that employees who strongly agree with these statements are 3.5 and 2.9 times more likely to be engaged, respectively.
When managers move from intermittent reviews to providing frequent, focused and future-oriented feedback, they address current performance successes and opportunities while continuing to forge authentic, development-focused relationships that pay dividends down the road for individuals, the team and the organization.
A performance development approach works because it creates individualized accountability.
The authors of the paper Re-Engineering Performance Management wrote it best:
"Astonishingly, less than one-half of employees surveyed by Gallup (40%) strongly agree that their manager holds them accountable for their performance goals."
Perhaps as predictable as that statement is shocking to those experts, employees who strongly agree with it are 2.5 times more likely to be engaged in their work.
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Performance development efforts essentially begin and end with holding both employee and manager accountable. All of the other efforts, strategies and actions matter only if you hold both parties responsible.
The best performance reviews are achievement-oriented, fair and accurate, and developmental. Managers who give these types of reviews inspire individuals who receive them to be their best. What more effective way is there to lead employees and their teams to high performance?
Forget the Quick Fix; Focus on Developing Your People
If one thing is certain, workplace challenges will evolve. There will always be something else, foreign and flummoxing and testing your ability to get the best from your employees and teams.
Workplaces that will win in the near and long term don't cut corners. Winning workplaces reimagine traditional team leaders as performance coaches. They require those coaches to account for their own strengths, their employees' and the collective
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strengths of their teams. And these workplaces demand coaches lead by focusing on the basic, individual, teamwork and growth needs of an engaged workplace.
Armed with managers empowered to truly coach and develop their teams, successful workplaces use a performance development approach to transform their culture into one in which each individual and team can engage in their roles and aim their efforts to accomplish the organization's goals.
Again, this isn't easy, but it's worth it -- worth it for your employees, teams, leaders and organization's future.
Gallup can help you transform your workplace through performance development:
Download our Leading High-Performance Teams course overview to learn how your managers can equip, inspire and improve employee and team performance Watch our webinar on making performance reviews more effective for your employees Download our position paper Re-Engineering Performance Management
RELEASE DATE: October 12, 2017 SOURCE: Gallup https://www.gallup.com/workplace/231620/why-performance-development-wins-workplace.aspx CONTACT: Gallup World Headquarters, 901 F Street, Washington, D.C., 20001, U.S.A +1 202.715.3030
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2/3/2021 Handling And Documenting Employee Performance Issues
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Handling And Documenting Employee Performance Issues Small Business | Managing Employees | Employee Performance By Ruth Mayhew
Supervisors must be comfortable handling employee performance and conduct issues in a way that protects the interests of the company and provides options for employee improvement. In addition, documenting employee performance issues is equally important. There must be a human resources paper trail that accurately and appropriately describes all employment actions in writing.
Expectations
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Employers establish their performance goals for new employees by providing a job description and communicating the company’s expectations. An employee handbook is one of the most effective ways to begin communicating company expectations because it typically contains of the guidelines and workplace policies pertaining to job performance and employee conduct. This is the first stage in what’s referred to as an employer’s performance management process. Performance management is a system employers use to measure how well employees are doing their jobs, whether they are meeting the company’s expectations and if their conduct and behavior is appropriate for the workplace. Performance management is also used to identify employee goals and training and development opportunities that can help employees achieve their professional goals.
Policy Another function of a performance management system is considered employee discipline, disciplinary review or corrective action. Employees whose performance falls short of company expectations may be subject to disciplinary review or a similar process, designed to help them improve in specific areas of job performance or workplace behavior. Many companies use progressive discipline policies which consist of a series of disciplinary action ranging from minor infractions to serious misconduct. Progressive discipline usually begins with a verbal warning and escalates to a stage that gives employees the final opportunity to improve performance or conduct before suspension or termination.
Leadership One of the key elements in performance management is effective leadership. Supervisors are responsible for managing their employees by providing appropriate guidance and feedback in as helpful a manner as possible. Employees who receive regular, constructive feedback are better able to improve their performance while they are still minor concerns. Lengthy intervals between employee feedback or total lack of employee feedback increases the possibility that poor performance will reach a level where neither the supervisor nor the employee can easily correct it.
Attention Preventing employee performance issues requires continuous feedback. Handling employee performance issues requires immediate leadership attention upon the first instance of a performance issue. Leadership training teaches supervisors how to recognize performance and conduct issues, as well as the type of disciplinary action appropriate for certain issues. Some performance or conduct issues are terminable offenses, meaning the employee can be
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terminated immediately. Examples of these types of offenses include gross misconduct, employee dishonesty or employee actions that otherwise threaten workplace safety, such as possession of drugs and weapons in the workplace. Supervisors should have access to disciplinary and corrective action forms so they can document performance issues as quickly as possible and address their concerns with the employee.
Documentation Without question, documenting employee performance issues is a must. Employee performance issues should be documented in as much detail as possible and filed within the employee’s official personnel file. Supervisors sometimes make the mistake of failing to document issues only to see the employee’s performance suffer even more until a point where termination may be the only option to preserve the employer’s business interests. All employment actions -- whether discipline, promotion, counseling or training -- should be fully documented to justify future employment decisions. Companies that do not have specific forms for documenting performance issues should still require supervisors to construct a written summary for every performance issue they handle. The summary should contain a description of the performance issue, the dates on which the issue occurred, when the supervisor and employee discussed the performance or conduct issue and what steps were taken to resolve the issue or correct the employee’s performance.
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Employee Discipline & Documentation Practices By Ruth Mayhew
Maintaining a company where employees feel appreciated,productive and satisfied with their jobs requires a collaborative effort between departmental managers and the human resources department. There must also be communication among the three groups--workers, human resources and leadership. Importantly, however, is the need for a written employee handbook and new-hire orientation that thoroughly explains the guidelines by which the company operates.
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Human Resources Responsibilities The key document for a human resources department is the employee handbook. The type of work environment generally determines what kind of handbook is suitable for your company. An employee handbook can be a set of fluid guidelines in a workplace that encourages a very casual, lenient and congenial approach to work. These are usually very small businesses where a formal set of rules is unnecessary. Another approach is an employee handbook that contains very strict guidelines, and in some cases, standard operating procedures.
Purpose of Disciplinary Process Regardless of the type of handbook you believe is suitable for your workplace, you must address the issue of employee discipline. An explanation of the employee disciplinary process is what employees need to ensure their work and behavior is consistent with the employer’s expectations. It is strongly recommended that all employers have a written disciplinary process that is distributed to employees upon their first day of employment. There may be times when disgruntled employees will challenge their employer’s commitment to fair employment practices if the company does not have written disciplinary procedures. Written disciplinary procedures protect the company and the employee.
Progressive Disciplinary Process The most common type of disciplinary process is called “progressive discipline.” A progressive disciplinary process usually provides for a warning for the first infraction. The second infraction may require a conference with the supervisor and written disciplinary form with suggestions for improvement. The third infraction may be a serious conversation about continued employment, documentation of the circumstances and the time allotted the employee for improvement. If the employee does not improve after the third infraction, then the company may end the employment relationship.
The number of warnings, reasons for disciplinary action and number of written documentation may vary from one employer to another; however, progressive discipline is the type that escalates from warning for a minor mistake to one that may jeopardize the employee’s tenure with the company.
There are, however, instances of misconduct that are terminable offenses, meaning the progressive disciplinary progress is not used. Misconduct such as drug possession and use, weapons, workplace threats and violence are some examples of terminable offenses.
Documentation of Disciplinary Action
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Just as your company should have a written employee handbook, you should also have formal disciplinary forms for each type of infraction or each level of discipline. Every interaction with your employees must be documented, including non-disciplinary actions. Employee discipline can become a serious issue if there exists no documentation to support the employer’s actions, particularly if the employee is eventually terminated for poor performance, absenteeism or any other type of misconduct.
The disciplinary form must be signed by the supervisor or manager as well as the employee. Some employees will refuse to sign the disciplinary form believing that if it is not signed, it means they do not agree with the disciplinary action. In cases like this, write “employee refused sign” on the employee’s signature line. Always provide a copy of the disciplinary form to the employee for her files, and maintain a copy of the disciplinary form in the employee’s official file in the human resources department.
Texas-Specific Employment Laws Before finalizing your employee handbook and disciplinary policy, be sure that your policies are consistent with state regulations governing employment. Texas is an "at will" state, meaning that the employment relationship can be ended at any time by the employer or the employee, provided the reason is nondiscriminatory. This statement will need to be in your employee handbook, along with other Texas-specific laws that apply to your company and its employees.
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Performance Improvement Strategies With Proper Coaching and Planning You Can Help Employees Succeed
• • • BY SUSAN M. HEATHFIELD Updated May 13, 2019
Do you have the responsibility for supervising the work of others? If so, you know that employees don't always do what you want them to do. On the one hand, they act as if they are competent professionals. On the other, they procrastinate, miss deadlines, and wait for instructions. They blame others when their work is unsuccessful. And worst of all, employees become defensive when you try to coach them to successful performance improvement through excellent, goal-accomplishing work.
So, what's a supervisor to do? Performance improvement is your answer. You must begin by finding out exactly why the employee is not meeting your expectations. Perhaps the employee is unclear about what you want him to do. He may lack the time, tools, talent, training, or temperament required to effectively perform the job.
He may disagree with your requirements or expectations. Regardless, you won't have a performing, engaged employee until you identify what is wrong with the employee's functioning.
Diagnosing Performance Improvement Opportunities and Problems
When an employee is failing at work, I ask the W. Edwards Deming question, “What about the work system is causing the person to fail?” Most frequently, if the employee knows what they are supposed to do, I find the answer is time, tools, training, temperament or talent.
Performance Improvement Questions
These are the key questions that you and the employee will want to answer to diagnose performance problems that result in the need for you to seek performance improvement. This checklist for employee performance improvement will help diagnose the performance issue.
• What about the work system is causing the person to fail? • Does the employee know exactly what you want him to do? Does he know the
goals and the outcomes expected? Does he share the picture you have for the end result?
• Does the employee have confidence in her competence to perform the tasks associated with the goal? In my experience, procrastination is often the result of an employee lacking confidence in her ability to produce the required outcome. Or procrastination can result from the employee being overwhelmed with the magnitude of the task.
• Is the employee practicing effective work management? As an example, does he break large tasks into small chunks of doable actions? Does he have a method for tracking project progress and to do lists?
• Have you established a critical path for the employee's work? This is the identification of the major milestones in a project at which you'd like feedback from the employee. Do you keep your commitment to attend the meetings at which this feedback is provided?
• Does the employee have the appropriate and needed people working with him or the team to accomplish the project? Are other members of the team keeping their commitments and if not, is there something the employee can do to help them?
• Does the employee understand how her work fits into the larger scheme of things in the company? Does she appreciate the value her work is adding to the company's success?
• Is the employee clear about what constitutes success in your company? Perhaps he thinks that what he is contributing is good work and that you are a picky, overly-managing supervisor.
• Does the employee feel valued and recognized for the work she is contributing? Does she feel fairly compensated for her contribution?
Understanding these issues in performance improvement enables a manager to help an employee succeed. When you follow these steps and answer these questions in a performance improvement model, the employee can be helped to succeed.
How to Manage an Employee Whose Performance Is a Challenge? You must take a stand and manage the employee's behavior
• • • BY SUSAN M. HEATHFIELD Updated January 26, 2019
Do you have an employee who has a sense of entitlement and feels that she is always burdened and overworked while other employees are "taken care of." For example, leave time must be approved and she frequently submits leave requests for the same dates as her coworker.
If you deny the time off, she argues that it is her vacation time and that she is allowed to use it whenever she wants.
A consistent response from her is, "It's the manager's responsibility to supply adequate coverage." The employee leaves early without asking permission, stating that she had the time coming to her. Recently, she left the office for a meeting, and when questioned after returning, her answer was that she told her coworkers, and the manager could have asked them where she went!
Here's how to handle this employee
The first thought that came to mind is that this employee is running the show—and may have been for a long time. To change the behavior, take a firm stand.
First, talk to her and try to find out what is going on. Was she overlooked for your position? How long has this behavior been going on? Attempt to identify the source of
her unhappiness. Talking with her, indicating that you care about her and are interested in her might solve the problem.
If that changes nothing, though, you need to tell her in no uncertain terms that her behavior is not acceptable and that you expect it to change. Plan with the employee exactly what must change.
You must be ready to hold her feet to the fire and use disciplinary action if necessary to change this person's behavior. It is not acceptable if you are the manager.
Link Behavior to Job Performance
It's easier to correct behavior if it is affecting her performance, so if you can link any of her inappropriate actions to her job performance, potential raises, performance evaluation, etc., all the better.
Her leave time is not up to her to take whenever she wants if it must be approved. Make sure your employee handbook says that managers must approve leave. When she leaves early or pursues other actions that are out of the ordinary, simply state that she must inform you, in advance, the same as all employees. If you are not informed, it is a reason for disciplinary action, which you will take.
Additionally, discuss with Human Resources whether your company should grant paid time off when the handbook's policy of approval in advance is not followed by the employee.
You need to take the same actions when she attends meetings and does not tell you. You must be informed. It is not up to you to have to track her down nor to ask her coworkers where she is or what she is doing.
This should be your policy for all staff if you haven't already. created one. You don't want to micromanage them, but you want to be informed if they change their hours or schedules. If this is already the policy and your staff, know, if you don't treat this
employee the same as you treat the others, you are potentially discriminating—and certainly losing the respect of your other employees.
Solutions for time out and off problems
Some professional organizations institute an I"n and Out" whiteboard where employees must note where they are at all times. This board keeps employees from feeling as if they have to report to mom or dad each time they pursue legitimate business. It also keeps the manager or coworkers from having to ask.
Regarding leave time, some organizations post time granted on an internal calendar and the employees are informed about the coverage necessary. If they apply for time off that is already allotted to another employee, they must either get coverage themselves or make a case for why they should have the time in addition to the employee for whom you have already approved time off.
Don't institute any systems or rules for the many if only one person is at fault. So, your best path to implementation of any new idea is to involve your team in creating something that they want or need.
Additionally, you need to establish the expectation that time that is requested that would affect coverage or another employee's time off, is usually time allotted for an unplanned event, such as a funeral.
You cannot disadvantage the employee whose time you have already approved. But, you can create the expectation that employees will respect each others' time off requests.
The ball's in your court on this one. What will fail is listening to her or arguing with her about what she says she is entitled to have. The minute she sucks you into a discussion about whether her actions are legitimate, she has you.
The truth is, they are not legitimate actions, and you need to take a firm stand. Or, nothing will change. Draw a line in the sand—now.
Use Performance Management Help People Succeed and Improve • • • BY SUSAN M. HEATHFIELD Updated April 19, 2018
Are you fed up with the return on investment you experience when you subject people to your current performance appraisal process? Are you changing your approach to performance evaluation and review? There is a better way to approach performance management and development. The performance management process can help you create a work environment that helps employees succeed.
You can improve productivity, motivation, and morale by handling performance management in new ways. In this interview with Robert Bacal, the author of Performance Management (McGraw-Hill Professional), we'll help you explore what to do differently.
Susan Heathfield: Robert, in your book about performance management, what do you recommend in lieu of the traditional annual appraisal in which a manager hands out a form to an employee with ratings and a review of the prior year?
Robert Bacal: I can give you several answers to this one. Let's start with basic principles. Performance management is about having everyone succeed and improve. For that to happen, the manager and the employee have to work together in a communication process to identify barriers to success (whether they are from the employee or the system of work) and to build plans to overcome those barriers.
So, in a sense, ANY method that does that will succeed. Ratings and yearly review lack the detail to make this happen unless the manager is excellent. My suggestion is to
focus 90 percent of performance management time on performance planning and communication throughout the year. And, move to specific, measurable objectives.
No system is perfect. What we need to do is find ways to make performance better, and sometimes that means the manager and the employee need to figure out the best method to use in their unique situation.
Heathfield: What is the focus of the discussion during a review or evaluation session, or as I would prefer to call it, a performance development meeting?
Bacal: I like this question a lot. The single most important compound question is: What things have made your job more difficult, and what do we need to do in the next year to help you become more productive?
The discussion needs to be forward-looking, and not be restricted to "deficits" of employees but also deficits in things like workflow, work communication, and so on.
Heathfield: How often do you recommend managers hold these sessions with the people who report to them?
Bacal: I recommend that managers have informal short talks once every few weeks - that's like five - ten minute how's it going talks. Hold quarterly discussions that are a bit more organized. Schedule a year-end review that is really just a review.
By the time the year-end review happens everything should have been discussed before. No surprises.
Heathfield: How do you establish a communication system to get top performance and value from each employee, in a workplace climate designed to stimulate greater productivity from both managers and employees?
Bacal: I'm afraid that's what I call a consulting question. That is, it's not possible to offer up a recipe that will fit everyone. The answer is it depends, and without doing a
diagnosis of an organization, one can't really suggest anything without ending up saying nothing.
In other words, each organization is different and requires different things since they are also starting from different points.
Heathfield: What is your general philosophy about employee performance management?
Bacal: Be forward-looking. No blame. Problem solve. Hold ongoing communication. No surprises. Forms are trivial and unimportant to the real purpose.
All barriers need to be considered, not just employee-based factors. Flexibility to negotiate evaluation methods on an individual manager-employee basis is important.
That later is part of my newer work which I hope to turn into a book called Value-Added Performance Management. It will outline the logic of flexible systems if I ever get around to writing it.
Heathfield: How would you go about instituting a change in the typical organization's current appraisal system?
Bacal: That's another "it depends." The standard answer and still a good one is that significant changes need to be top down. The CEO uses the new system with VPs. VPs use it with executive directors, and on downwards. And, the CEO holds VPs responsible for replicating the process with their reporting staff, and so on.
The other way, when there is no indication of senior management willingness (and that's common) is to build pockets of success in the middle and bottom of the organization. It doesn't result in a better overall company system immediately, but it's better than having a lousy system pervade the entire organization.
In other words, the strategy is: "We can't get this turned around because we lack the support to do so, so let's see what we can accomplish anywhere where we might find some support."
Heathfield: You share my personal philosophy in this last, Robert. People in organizations tell me frequently that they can't do something or change something because upper-level management doesn't support the change.
I consider this an excuse for inaction. Unless executives are actively working against your proposed changes, or forbidding them, you can always start to make changes in the areas at work over which you have some control.
So, thanks for sharing that. I wish more people believed this. Their workplaces would be better off with more action and fewer excuses. Plus, it would do wonders for their own morale and self-image.
------------------------------------------------------
Robert Bacal is a trainer, consultant, and author who speaks regularly at industry conferences and events. Robert provides access to over 1200 work-related articles online at his website. Contact Robert.
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By Ross Smith, FRSA (/Author/87) On January 10, 2018 0 Comments (/Blog/Communication-The-Feedback-Sandwich#Comments)
Communication: The Feedback Sandwich
For anyone not familiar, the “feedback sandwich (https://www.wikihow.com/Give-a-Feedback-
Sandwich)” is a description of a way to give employee feedback. It’s shorthand for the practice of
giving negative or constructive feedback by wrapping it with positive compliments (the bread that
contains the meat)
Some people are critical of this practice (https://www.thebalance.com/ban-the-feedback-sandwich-for-
employee-feedback-1918465), suggesting that it’s dubious, manufactures, and distracts from the true
meaning of the conversation – the criticism or negative feedback.
The problem we have is that it’s not in our DNA as humans to take time out to focus on the positive.
Early humans scanned the Serengeti for enemies trying to have us for dinner. We would not take time
out to comment on the beautiful song of the nearby bird. This is not to say we haven’t learned – and
that every one of has carries a kind message for our co-workers. However, in times of duress and
pressure, we revert to our human nature, which is to look for threats and risk – and we tend to jump
straight to addressing the threat, which is why I believe the feedback sandwich is a good practice.
That said, as with all good food, it’s best served over time. Parenting advice the world over
recommends “catch your children doing something good” – and comment on it or reward them,
unsolicited. The same is true for employees – when they do something right, say something. The
problem we have goes back to our time living in caves – we are scanning for threats – and so time
slips by, we miss the opportunity to comment on goodness, and when something goes wrong, we are
in urgent need of providing critical or negative feedback.
To the employee, this feels like the manager only sees the negative, which may not be true, the
manager saw the positive, but just didn’t take the time to call it out.
Which brings us back to the feedback sandwich as a recommended antidote. As Sam Levenson said
“In One Era and Out the Other”, “For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.”
0 (https://blog.shrm.org/flag/flag/blog_likes/8243? destination=node/8243&token=df3d086a0b0153c59619d0c2932b15e1&h
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Managers and HR professionals need to go out of their way to call out positive work because it’s not
a natural human tendency. If and when we forget, the feedback sandwich is a good practice
(http://www.rightattitudes.com/2008/02/20/sandwich-feedback-technique/) to make sure we stay
balanced and constructive feedback is taken with the right measure.
(/author/87) WRITTEN BY Ross.Smith (/author/87)
Ross Smith, FRSA Modern Workplace Engineering - Supportability Ross is a Fellow of the
Royal Society of the Arts and blogger. Author of The Practical Guide to Defect Prevention and holds
seven patents. He is currently a Ph.D. Scholar, part of University College Dublin's SmartLab program,
researching the impact of AI, robotics, and automation on worker displacement. He has worked at
Microsoft for over 28 years and is a member of the Leadership Council for the Anita Borg Institute, co-
chair for Grace Hopper Organizational Transformation track. He is a co-leader of ABI Local in Seattle,
and part of the gender partner LT and ”male ally” panel discussions at the IEEE Women in Technology
and National Center for Women in Technology (NCWIT) Summit and TechCrunch. Work with
iUrbanTeen and Native Americans at Microsoft. He is a member of the board of Spreeha, working to
break the cycle of poverty. Developed 42projects to promote cultural change, develop organizational
trust and improve the lives of the managed. To help develop the next generation’s interest in STEAM
(STEM+Arts), he works with Skype in the Classroom program and events like iUrbanTeen day at
Microsoft. He was invited to the White House for discussion on women in STEM. Keynote speaker for
the ARTBA’s Transovation 2014-2016. The work of his teams has been mentioned in Forbes, The
Economist, the Wall Street Journal, PSFK, the American Journal of Play, Harvard Business Review, and
the London School of Business. He has presented at SXSW, MIT Solve, Grace Hopper, Serious Play,
Games for Change, and several other large conferences. His academic research papers are
published on ResearchGate. He is a blogger for SHRM has worked on Skype Translator. He is an avid
reader and loves to travel.
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Performance Improvement Plan • • • Table of Contents
• Performance Improvement Plan Explained
• Case Study on Using a Performance Improvement Plan
• Performance Improvement Plan Process
• Performance Improvement Plan Form
• Conclusion BY SUSAN M. HEATHFIELD Updated November 19, 2019
A formal performance improvement plan (PIP) can resolve workplace productivity issues and help even the most unlikely employee succeed in your organization. Not all workers are efficient at delivering projects on time. Some lack focus or create extra work that delays completing assignments. To address their concerns, a supervisor may speak to an employee, hoping that this will fix the problem. However, although the employee tries to improve, they still have difficulty completing their tasks.
A well-designed PIP provides employees with the necessary directions for completing specific goals. It is an efficient tool for increasing worker productivity and resolving weaknesses in the workplace.
Performance Improvement Plan Explained
A PIP is designed to facilitate constructive discussion between a staff member and their supervisor and to clarify the exact work performance requiring improvement.
It is implemented, at the discretion of the manager, when it becomes necessary to help a staff member improve their performance. The manager, with input from the affected employee, develops an improvement plan; the purpose of the goals outlined is to help the employee to attain the desired level of performance.
The PIP differs from the performance development planning (PDP) process in the amount and quantity of detail. Assuming an employee is already participating in the company-wide PDP process, the format and the expectation of the PIP should enable the manager and staff member to communicate with a higher degree of clarity about specific expectations.
Case Study on Using a Performance Improvement Plan
The following example describes how a formal PIP can increase worker performance.
A newly promoted plant manager of a 150-person organization was failing miserably in completing key deliverables for an important project. Communication and performance improvement coaching had little impact, and there was no indication that the manager was capable of improving. The manager's supervisor, the vice president of manufacturing, grew increasingly concerned about the plant manager's performance.
in an attempt to resolve the problem, a formal PIP was developed for the plant manager citing 11 goals and their measures of success. A 90-day time frame was provided, as these goals were challenging and not short-term items to accomplish. The manager was given a strong, supportive environment in which the supervisor's expectations for success were a key factor.
To everyone's surprise, the manager met all of the goals. The manager was able to succeed because he was given specific direction about what was required to accomplish the 11 goals set out in the PIP.
Armed with this information, the manager gathered his entire team, four supervisors and several members of support staff, and shared the PIP with its 11 key goals. The manager requested their help in reaching the goals, so that the entire group could succeed.
Therefore, watching this process play out made believers of everyone involved in the power of a well-planned, measurable PIP characterized by positive reinforcement and expressed support and encouragement.
Performance Improvement Plan Process
In all cases, it is recommended that the manager's supervisor and human resources (HR) review the plan for objective feedback and approval. This will ensure employees experience consistent, fair treatment across all departments in the company.
Prior to beginning the PIP, the supervisor should review the following six items with the employee to ensure the plan is clearly understood:
1. State the exact performance that must be improved; be specific and cite examples.
2. State the level of the work performance expectation and that it must be performed on a consistent basis.
3. Identify and specify the support and resources that you will provide to assist the employee to succeed.
4. Communicate your plan for providing feedback to the employee. Specify meeting times, with whom and how often. Specify the measurements you will consider in evaluating the employee's progress.
5. Specify possible consequences if the performance standards you are establishing in the document are not met.
6. Provide sources of additional information such as an employee handbook, training sessions, and any other resources you believe will assist the employee in improving their performance.
During the PIP process, the manager monitors and provides feedback to the employee regarding their performance for meeting plan goals and may take additional disciplinary action, if warranted, through the organization's progressive discipline process.
Performance Improvement Plan Form
The following sample performance improvement plan form can be downloaded and customized for your specific use. The template is compatible with Google Docs and Word Online.
©TheBalance 2018
Download the Word Template Performance Improvement Plan Form Example (Text Version)
Employee Name:
Title:
Department:
Date:
Performance in need of improvement: (List the goals and activities the employee will initiate to improve performance. Include skill development and changes needed to meet work performance expectations.)
Target date for improvement:
Expected results: (List measurements where possible.)
Dates to review progress by the employee and supervisor:
Progress at review dates:
Employee Signature:_____________________________________________
Date:__________________________________________________________
Supervisor Signature:_____________________________________________
Date:__________________________________________________________
Conclusion
A formal PIP is best used for those employees who appear to have the greatest potential for improvement. To help ensure an employee's success, the PIP should be realistic, fair, and clearly specify the required goals and means for accomplishing them. It should also be vetted and approved by upper management and HR. If used properly, s PIP can transform a struggling employee into a top performer.
Disclaimer: Please note that the information provided, while authoritative, is not
guaranteed for accuracy and legality. This site is read by a worldwide audience
and employment laws and regulations vary from state to state and country to
country. Please seek legal assistance or assistance from state, federal, or international
governmental resources, to make certain your legal interpretation and decisions are
correct for your location. This information is for guidance, ideas, and assistance.
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SHRM'S EXECUTIVE NETWORK BLOG
May 24, 2016
THE LOOK AND FEEL OF NEXT GENERATION PERFORMANCE
MANAGEMENT By Dominique Jones
This is the second article of a four-part series for SHRM People + Strategy on next generation performance management. To �nd out why next generation performance management is the way of the future, read Part 1 of the series.
In the �rst article of our four-part series, we explained why adopting more agile performance management processes is critical for organizations that want to get the most out of their talent.
Monitoring and evaluating employee performance on an ongoing basis can help organizations overcome some of today’s biggest talent management challenges, including how to work with multiple generations and cultures, engage employees, and easily access the data you need to make informed talent- and business-related decisions quickly.
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But what does next generation performance management look like? How do you make it a part of your managers’ and employees’ everyday lives?
Painting a Picture of Ongoing Performance Management
There are many ways to incorporate ongoing performance management into your organization’s daily business rhythm. Let’s delve deeper into the two key components of ongoing performance management, speci�cally how it looks and feels.
Motivational. Creating an environment that promotes engagement, learning and development, and provides managers with the tools needed to coach, inspire and support employees.
Foundational. Implementing a system that allows you to connect all of your organization’s talent management programs, easily access data and give clear visibility into the progress being made on individual and organizational goals
Setting a Strong Performance Management Foundation
A 2014 Brandon Hall Group study found that companies who invest in ongoing performance management improve employee retention and customer satisfaction (http://www.brandonhall.com/blogs/change-the-channel-on-performance-management/), leading to better business outcomes. It’s clear that organizations will continue to reinvent how they manage employee performance. However, it’s not as simple as turning on a light switch.
To make it e�ective, you must have a culture and a framework that supports regular feedback from multiple sources, coaching, learning and development. An integrated talent management system provides the framework to develop the foundational and motivational aspects of talent management, and allows you to set the stage for the following activities:
Future-Driven Performance Management
Having a clear line of sight into past performance is important, but the focus of ongoing performance management should enable forward-thinking behavior in all areas of talent management. For example, looking at an employee’s job description and competencies can help managers and employees determine an optimal learning and development plan, rather than sign up for canned course delivered training.
When it comes to succession planning, HR can look at employee performance data to help create talent pools of high potential candidates and proactively communicate opportunities for on-the-job training, formal learning and continuous leadership coaching.
Setting up a system of multirater feedback, including insights from other managers, co-workers and partner stakeholders, can also help managers get a well-rounded view on an employee’s performance. Another option, project-based feedback, allows for performance assessments as a project moves along and follow-up after a project is completed.
Flexible Goal Management
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An integrated talent management system gives managers and employees a clear view of how the employee is progressing with their goals and how those goals line up with organizational objectives. Having clear, easily accessible goals gives managers and employees the chance to regularly discuss goal progression and assess and revise goals as needed—both of which are key tenants of employee engagement.
Check-Ins and Formal Meetings
When performance management shifts from the traditional, annual approach to one that is more agile and ongoing, one of the questions that comes up is how often managers and employees should get together. The truth is there is no set standard. It’s up to the discretion of managers and employees to decide whether they hold one-on-ones on a weekly, biweekly, monthly or quarterly basis. Some organizations also choose to have regular check-ins as well as a year-end review, which acts as an opportunity to summarize key highlights discussed during the year.
Regardless of how often managers and employees meet, the conversation should include progress on existing objectives, future plans and career aspirations. Regular check-ins also provide a great opportunity to build trust and engagement, and celebrate milestones and successes.
Three Ways to Motivate Employees
Once the foundation is set, the focus moves on to relationship- building. The rapport between managers and employees is vital to engaging and retaining talent. In fact, a 2015 Randstad US Employee Engagement Study found that 27 percent of employees would rather have a better boss than a $5,000 raise (https://www.randstadusa.com/about/news/randstad-us-employee-engagement- study-reveals-how-bosses-can-become-workplace-heroes/).
Ongoing performance management can help motivate and engage employees. Here are some ways to drive that engagement:
1. Create great leaders. A 2015 Gallup poll found that managers account for 70 percent of variance in employee engagement (http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/182792/managers-account-variance- employee-engagement.aspx). Good leaders are experts at creating the right environment for engagement, but great leaders aren’t born; they’re made. They need the tools and training to understand how to nurture and support their direct reports.
Providing managers with coaching tools, a structure for one-on-one meetings, and even suggesting questions to ask or issues to bring up during a meeting, can help managers and employees feel more comfortable discussing performance.
2. Set goals and create a culture of learning to drive engagement.
As I’ve mentioned, ongoing performance management includes regular conversations about goals and career development. Employees need to know how their work contributes to the success of the organization and the impact of learning or development plans on their career path.
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Having goals and the opportunity to develop skills is especially important to Millennials, who now make up a majority of the workforce. The University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler School found that 65 percent of Millennials cited opportunity for personal development as the most in�uential factor for staying in their current job (https://onlinemba.unc.edu/blog/geny-in- the-workplace/). Much like the success of ongoing performance management, a continuous e�ort to support employee learning and development is needed for organizations to �ourish. The key is to align the learning and development strategy to business outcomes, so employees know speci�cally why they are taking training, what is expected upon completion, and how success will be measured.
3. Build the manager-employee relationship through conversation.
While great coaching skills are essential for managers, performance discussions aren’t monologues. Employees need to take an active role in the conversation as well. Both managers and employees should prepare for performance conversations, document what was discussed and agree on follow-up activities.
The quality of the conversation is as important as the content. When an employee knows that he or she has a voice and is being supported, it fosters engagement and increases loyalty to the manager and the organization.
Ensuring Future Success
The look and feel of ongoing performance management may vary from organization to organization, but there are some similar traits. These include regular check-ins between managers and employees, continuous feedback and support, and a clear view of an employee’s past performance and future goals.
The next generation of performance management is about looking ahead and bringing employee development to the forefront—always anticipating what might come next based on readily available performance data to support strong organizational outcomes.
The Authors: Dominique Jones is the chief people o�cer at Halogen Software (http://www.halogensoftware.com/). She provides practical insights that help HR positively impact business performance.
Tags: performance management business strategy
2/3/2021 Why Next Generation Performance Management Is the Way of the Future | SHRM Executive Network Blog
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SHRM'S EXECUTIVE NETWORK BLOG
March 1, 2016
WHY NEXT GENERATION PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT IS THE
WAY OF THE FUTURE By Dominique Jones
This is the �rst in a four-part series for HR People + Strategy on next generation performance management. Throughout this series we will explore ongoing performance management in detail, as well as how to train managers on feedback and coaching and how to leverage information from regular one-on-ones during
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annual reviews.
+ + + + + +
Performance management is undergoing a profound change, with more businesses shifting from yearly appraisals to monitoring and evaluating employee performance on an ongoing basis— something we call "next generation performance management."
Yet some leaders, managers and employees are still asking why they need to change their organizational environment. After all, performance management has centered around annual performance appraisals for decades.
As the saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't �x it."
The Reality of Today's Workplace However, statistics show that the annual performance review process is broken, or at least unable to help organizations leverage their greatest asset—their talent—to stay competitive and pro�table in today's fast-paced work environment.
Maximizing the potential of your organization's talent has never been more di�cult. Here are three of the biggest challenges today's organizations face:
1. Dealing with multiple generations and cultures
There have never been so many generations working together. Baby Boomers, Generation Xers and Millennials all have di�erent needs and expectations about development, learning on the job, career progression and performance management.
2. Engaging employees
A 2015 Gallup Daily U.S. Employee Engagement poll found that only 32 percent of U.S. employees are engaged at work. Another poll revealed that 51 percent of employees polled were looking for another job. Together, these polls paint a bleak picture of employee engagement.
3. Insu�cient access to data to make talent decisions
Organizations need to be able to quickly access data on hiring, developing, promoting employees, as well as information on why workers leave the organization. Without easy access to this data, HR can't properly create succession plans or learning and development strategies to engage and retain key workers.
How Ongoing Performance Management Can Help While the challenges are signi�cant, they're not insurmountable. The solution is to shift from thinking of ongoing performance management as separate from your business strategy, to being an integral part of it.
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For example, the once-a-year appraisal uses a separate process and creates additional work for managers, employees and HR. If all that extra work is seen as having little impact on performance, your once-a-year appraisals can be seen as a negative, rather than a positive process.
This is where next generation performance management can help. When performance management is fully integrated into your business, it becomes part of a process that is adaptive, not prescriptive, allowing you to quickly align employee commitments to the to your business aspirations, easily assess the impact on business outcomes, and adjust as needed. Rather than a one-time procedure, ongoing performance management becomes more personal, collaborative, and a continuous cycle.
The Role of Technology While work environments have changed over the past few decades, people processes haven't kept up. Technology can be a great asset for enabling talent management as a regular part of your business rhythm. HR technology can put the control of everyday talent management processes in the hands of people who lead and actually do the work—managers and employees. Technology can help ease the administrative burden of performance management, while ensuring that mangers, employees and HR have access to important data on goals, learning and development, and succession planning. Technology is especially important in supporting the delivery of improved learning and development plans. In the past year, more organizations have started to see the possibilities that technology o�ers and are taking advantage. Deloitte's 2015 Human Capital Trends study found that employers recognize the importance of updated learning and development strategies. And when you combine ongoing performance management with the right talent management solution, learning plans can be easily identi�ed, created and tracked, and modi�ed at any point. Future-Proof Your Business To stay competitive and pro�table in today's marketplace, organizations must be agile. To maximize, engage, and develop the skills of a multi-generational workforce, businesses need to take advantage of ongoing performance management processes as well as technology to deliver individualized learning and development plans. As work environments continue to evolve and develop, organizations must seek ways to simplify but also to optimize how they manage their greatest asset—their people. Next generation performance management has the potential to do just that—to ensure the future success of your organization is fuelled by your greatest asset, your people.
The Authors:
2/3/2021 Why Next Generation Performance Management Is the Way of the Future | SHRM Executive Network Blog
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Dominique Jones is the Chief People O�cer at Halogen Software (http://www.halogensoftware.com/). She provides practical insights that help HR positively impact business performance.
Tags: performance management human resources planning
2/3/2021 Performance Enhancement?- Diagnosing Performance Problems - Free Article
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Performance Enhancement Diagnosing Performance Problems By Robert Bacal Summary: No amount of time spent on solving a performance problem will work if the manager and employee don't know what is causing the problem. Too often the root cause of barriers to performance is not identified correctly, and so performance continues to suffer. This article maps out a process for diagnosing performance problems.
One of the toughest tasks for any manager or supervisor is to determine the cause of a performance problem. Since decisions to remediate the problem will depend on the diagnosis, accurate assessment is crucial. In this article we will outline a model of factors influencing employee performance, so that you are less likely to ignore a possible source of performance deficit. In future issues of the Public Sector Manager, we will return to this topic in more detail.
The Nature of Performance Work performance is influenced by a number of factors. When performance is excellent, it is a result of a number of circumstances that work together to make this excellence possible. So, stellar performance requires that ALL relevant influences on behaviour are in place.
Sadly, poor performance can result from a SINGLE factor or influence that drastically reduces effectiveness. Frequently, a performance problem that is allowed to continue unchecked will expand as other influences turn from positive to negative.
A Seven Factor Model We can suggest seven factors that influence or determine the level of performance. These factors are multiplicative in nature. For those of you whose favorite subject in schools was NOT math, this means that performance will be as strong as the weakest link in the chain of performance determinants. If there is a deficit in any one of these factors, performance will suffer.
Factor 1: Aptitude Aptitude refers to a person's native ability to perform the task or tasks. Each of us has strengths and weaknesses that determine if we can learn or perform a task. Poor aptitude for a task could mean that the person could never learn how to do it, even with all the supports in the world. Assessing aptitude is very difficult.
Factor 2: Skill Level Even the simplest responsibilities require skills. Skills differ from aptitudes in that they can be learned, up to the limits imposed by aptitude. To assess whether a performance deficit is a result of lack of skill, ask the questions, "If his/her life depended on it, could the person do the task?" If the answer is no, then it could be a skill problem.
Factor 3: Understanding of Task A person must understand the nature of the task, and what is expected. If this clear communication is lacking, no amount of skill or motivation will bring about effective performance. Performance management is the common means for conveying understanding of the task. The best way to assess an employee's understanding is to ask questions within a coaching environment.
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Factor 4: Choice to Expend Effort This, and the next factor are motivational factors. If a person has the aptitude, skills and understanding of the task required, it may be that there are factors causing the person to "not make the effort". These may be personal or related to the work environment. Assessing whether there is a motivational problem is difficult, and can best be done by examining other indicator behaviours (absenteeism, lack of participation in meetings, or other factors that suggest a motivational problem.
Factor 5: Choice of Degree of EffortTo Expend Sometimes effort is not an on/off thing. An employee may be putting in a limited amount of effort and therefore producing inferior results.
Factor 6: Choice To Persist Performance requires that effort be initiated and sustained over time. This motivational factor may result in projects started but never completed. If an employee is not persisting in tasks, it can indicate boredom, fear of failure, or may relate to a lack of skills. Careful, diplomatic discussion is required to uncover if and why this may be occurring.
Factor 7: Outside Factors Performance can be reduced due to factors beyond the control of the individual. The organization itself may be setting barriers to performance, or uncooperative co-workers and managers may contribute. Discussion with the employee during performance management should include reference to factors outside the control of the employee that impede progress. If these outside factors are allowed to continue, unacknowledged, motivational levels will drop, complicating the issue and creating a chronic under-performer.
Conclusion: It is important that performance problems be addressed as soon as they occur, and the above factors be examined to determine whether they are contributing to the problem. By working with the employee in a cooperative way, it is possible to identify and remediate some of the underlying causes of work performance problems.
Help Your Employees Develop Their Strengths—Not Their Weaknesses Deliberately Assist Your Employees to Regularly Practice Their Strongest Skills • • • BY SUSAN M. HEATHFIELD Updated May 14, 2019
A management philosophy, that flies in the face of conventional thinking, compels you to help your employees develop their strengths by deliberate practice. This is a substitute for helping employees develop their weaknesses, a concept more traditional in management thinking. But does helping employees develop their weakest areas of performance ever make any sense? Not really.
This theory of helping employees develop strengths was proposed by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman in "First, Break All The Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently." The recommendations were made as a result of the Gallup organization's interviews with 80,000 managers who were rated as effective performers in their organizations. (Gallup also identified the twelve most important factors for employees to become or stay engaged at work.)
On top of trying to complete their daily work and achieving their annual goals, employees have a finite amount of time for development. Spend time on what matters. Develop employee strengths—not weaknesses, and in the process, train your management philosophy and company culture.
How HR Managers Can Hone Their Strengths
Using an average HR professional as an example, the majority are good with people and good at conveying the simple, common sense, applicable information. Many
HR people are not very good with mathematical story problems and other mathematical concepts—although exceptions exist. No matter what, some HR professionals will never be good at solving complex mathematical problems. Could they get better? Probably. But, why not spend their time honing their strengths?
Yet, the traditional approach to developing employees, one of the critical factors in employee motivation, has been to identify weaknesses, often during an annual performance appraisal meeting. The employee is then sent to training, given mentoring and coaching to help, or just told to "get better" at whatever his or her weak area is.
Now, if the area of weakness is critical to the employee's job success, developing the weaker area might make sense. But, it is more likely that the employee is just in the wrong job—a job that does not take advantage of their best strengths. Consider matching the employee's best skills to your company's needs in a different job.
In another example, think about an employee who has always been a good writer. Giving the employee the opportunity to write every day as a part of their job description will strengthen their writing skill. Writing is a perfect example of a skill that you can develop if you approach it with deliberate practice a number of times a week.
Once the employee started writing every single day, with hours of practice and a deliberate commitment to growth, they continued to develop the strength and became a better contributor to the business. This is an example of a mutual win—a win for the employee and a win for the employer. Imagine the difference and the frustration if the employer had asked the employee to spend her time trying to develop a skill she didn't already have in her tool bucket.
You have an equivalent example in your own life—or your reporting employees do. What skill should you deliberately develop daily for your own career development and your employer's needs?
Why Develop Employee Strengths With Deliberate Practice?
Experts and people who have studied the topic of helping employees develop their strengths as opposed to their weaknesses provide analysis about why this practice is important and worthy of your consideration.
"Deliberate practice involves two kinds of learning: improving the skills you already have and extending the reach and range of your skills. The enormous concentration required to undertake these twin tasks limits the amount of time you can spend doing them," said Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, the Conradi Eminent Scholar of Psychology at Florida State University, in Tallahassee.
Additionally, Stephen J. Dubner at the "Freakonomics" blog weighs in with these thoughts:
"A while ago, we wrote a 'New York Times Magazine' column about talent—what it is, how it’s acquired, etc. The gist of the column was that 'raw talent,' as it’s often called, is vastly overrated and that people who become very good at something, whether it’s sports, music, or medicine, generally do so through a great deal of 'deliberate practice,' a phrase used by the Florida State psychologist Anders Ericsson and his merry band of fellow scholars who study expert performers in many fields."
In the column cited in the quote above, Anders Ericsson concludes that:
"…the trait we commonly call talent is highly overrated. Or, put another way, expert performers—whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming—are nearly always made, not born. And yes, practice does make perfect. These may be the sort of clichés that parents are fond of whispering to their children. But these particular clichés just happen to be true.
"Ericsson's research suggests a third cliché as well: when it comes to choosing a life path, you should do what you love—because if you don't love it, you are unlikely to work hard enough to get very good. Most people naturally don't like to do things they aren't 'good' at. So they often give up, telling themselves they simply don't possess the talent
for math or skiing or the violin. But what they really lack is the desire to be good and to undertake the deliberate practice that would make them better."
So, it seems there is truth to the power of developing your strengths and deliberately practicing the areas you want to improve. You also have to love their plug for love your work, a concept that is discussed frequently by HR practitioners because of its power to impact your work life. Do you agree?
Coaching Tips for HR Professionals
• • • BY SUSAN M. HEATHFIELD Updated September 05, 2019
Executives, managers, and others interested in career growth and development are increasingly turning to a business coach for a personally tailored development experience. Coaching is a process of helping a leader or potential leader to develop the necessary skills to effectively manage a business workforce.
According to the International Coaching Federation (ICF), there are four groups of core competencies for effective coaches. A coach should work to establish a solid foundation with a client to ensure they understand the purpose of the coaching and establish trust with the client. The coach should be an active listener and know how to tailor different methods of learning, while managing and tracking progress.
Following the principles of these competency groups can help you can become a more effective coach.
Agreement and Guidelines
One of the first steps a coach should take with a client is to establish a written agreement. This agreement outlines the type of relationship you'll want to develop with the client, what each party is responsible for, and should list the methods the coach uses to help the client develop.
As you consider the agreement you are going to present to a client, you'll need to know the industry they work in, and any other pertinent information such as the number of employees or work force demographics. This will help you tailor an approach when you're developing actions.
If you offer your services as a coach to a wide variety of industry clients, make sure you have developed methods that are cross-industry effective. Many techniques are effective through a wide spectrum of work, but if you are not familiar with an industry it is better to let the client know, so you can both decide if there is a compatibility issue.
The Relationship
Beginning a relationship is always a challenge. As you begin your familiarization of the client, you'll need to make sure you are genuine in your efforts to learn and listen.
To be genuine, you'll need to make sure you are free from distractions and able to focus on your client. Participate in the conversation and be present. Focus on their needs, unique situation, and what they want to accomplish.
One key aspect to be aware of is to know that you only know what you know. If you do not know something the client is referring to, be able to admit it. Work with your client to develop an understanding.
One of the harder assessments you'll need to make will include uncovering the client's fears involving work. Fear of failure is common for everyone. This is not something you should try for during the first 15 minutes of a session. It may take a while to establish enough trust and respect for people to voice these types of concerns.
Communication
Active listening is a method of taking part in a conversation while paying attention to what another party is saying and becoming involved. Ask questions, offer relevant examples and opinions, and encourage more output from the client.
Your ability to relate to your client will determine the outcome of your coaching. Make sure your questions are clear and address the point being discussed. You'll need to be able to provide examples that are easily understood and have clear and concise steps to use.
You'll need to make sure the clients understand that for the coaching to be effective, they will need to use what they have learned at work. Sometimes, clients will want the coach to be the person that fixes it all for them.
It is essential for the client's development that they understand that they are the one that uses the information to improve themselves. The coach provides instruction, feedback, and an environment to learn in.
Tailored Learning
As you develop your relationship with your clients, you should try to assess the best way to help them. Everyone learns differently, some more visual than others, and some are kinaesthetic (learning by doing), and others learn best by reading and writing.
When you have determined how your client best learns, use the information you gathered during your relationship-building to tailor an approach for each client. After some time you'll be able to pick programs you have used in the past, tweak it, and use the re-tailored version for other clients.
If the client has trouble initiating a feedback session, for instance, you might need to assess their method. You could choose to role-play a feedback session with them as the employee.
Give them a briefing on the role-play. Make sure they know what you are doing, why it is being done, and the purpose for doing it. This way your client can buy-in to your method and learn better from it. Once you're finished with the role-play, conduct a feedback session to address any issues.
It is important to create goals with your clients. Similar to creating tailored learning, you should tailor the goals for each client. A process for monitoring their progress should be developed, and sessions held to ensure you are holding them accountable for the actions discussed.
Effective coaching is all about listening and creating an approach specific to each person. Honesty from both coach and client in communication will further ensure the coaching program is successful. Something else to remember—if you can make the learning fun, and teach them to have fun while managing people you'll make a lasting impression and create effective leaders at the same time.
Steps to Create a Career Development Plan A Career Path Is Crucial to Guide Employee Development • • • Table of Contents
• Career Development Is Critical • Creating a Career Development Plan • Carrying Out the Plan • Issues to Avoid in Career Development
BY SUSAN M. HEATHFIELD Updated November 03, 2019
Career Development Is Critical for Employee Engagement
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) identified 18 conditions that must be present in the workplace for employees to experience engagement. Then, employees rated their overall satisfaction with each of these factors in their own, current workplace.
Four of the lowest-rated seven conditions that must be present for employees to experience engagement were related to training, professional development, and career development. This shows that the growth and development needs of employees are not a typical priority in many workplaces. Yet, when employees identify the factors that they must have from work, career growth and development is one of the top five. Employers would do well to heed this advice if retaining and attracting excellent employees is critical to your business success.
A career development plan is a win for employers and employees. The plan focuses on the employees’ needs for growth and development and the assistance the organization can provide so that the employee has the opportunity to grow his or her career. In
addition to growing their careers, employees are also interested in developing themselves both personally and professionally.
Creating a Career Development Plan
You can create career development plans with your employees by taking a few simple steps. For career development planning to be effective, expand your view of development and that of your employees. An outside training class is not the only way to develop employees. The development that is provided in-house is often more effective and a source of greater employee satisfaction.
Prepare for a Career Development Planning Meeting
These are ideas about how you can help an employee create a career development plan.
• Tell the employee that you want to meet with him or her to discuss career development plans and hopes. Ask the employee to think in advance about his or her options for growth and development and how they see their career unfolding in your company. Encourage the employee to think about how they’d like to see their careers progress.
• Suggest that the employee think about and come prepared to discuss these questions: What professional job or career growth goals does the employee hope to achieve within three years? What would the employee like to accomplish this year? Offer opportunities for the employee to consider as options to accomplish these goals.
• Prepare recommendations on what the employee can do to ensure that he or she is making progress on his career path. Determine and discuss resources and support the organization can provide so that the employee can accomplish his or her professional job or career growth goals.
• Determine what professional and personal goals will help the employee improve or develop great performance in their current job. What additional support can this organization provide so that the employee can accomplish these goals?
Hold the Career Development Planning Meeting
• Hold a meeting with the employee to discuss these questions and formulate a plan with the employee's involvement. Be flexible because the employee may have other avenues that he or she wants to discuss. As a manager, your job is to know all of the options available to the employee such as job shadowing, mentoring, and coaching on particular skills.
• Make sure that you're up to speed and can talk knowledgeably about all of the training and development options that exist for your reporting staff members. Many employees don’t consider development in any other sense beyond taking a class, and it helps to share with them all of the additional available options for training.
• Create and fill out a form that details the employee's career development plan and turn it into Human Resources for review, additional input, and filing.
Carrying Out the Plan
Employee development is a great concept but it is not without issues. The best plans keep the responsibility for follow-through squarely on the shoulders of employees. Otherwise, if an employee does not complete their development opportunities, he or she may choose to place blame on management, which is counter-productive for all of the involved parties.
• Steer the employee in certain directions, but don't do the work for them. Make it the employee's responsibility to find a great class in listening if he or she's a poor communicator. If it turns out to be a poor choice, the employee is responsible. If the class doesn’t produce the desired results, the employee cannot place blame on anyone else. Both the Human Resources department and a manager can help the employee explore his or her options, but the employee is ultimately responsible for the choice and follow-through.
• If the employee finds what he or she thinks is a great development opportunity, the employee is responsible for selling the company on the idea. Working with
the experience of the HR staff to select excellent vendors and avoid low- quality development opportunities is the responsibility of the employee. HR has the experience the employee needs.
Issues to Avoid in Career Development Planning
Certain issues and statements exist that you would want to avoid as you and the employees who report to you create career development plans. A few types of issues can get in the way of an effective plan, such as:
• Guaranteeing or forming a contract with the employee by promising that the company will provide training or any other promised benefit. The best that you can do is to say that you will help however you can, but that the company growth, economic circumstances, priorities, and goals will have an impact on the employee’s desired developmental path, promotions, and career goals. Nothing is guaranteed.
• In states where laws are interpreted literally, you want to avoid statements that over-commit the employer. For example, at a small manufacturing company, HR put up a career opportunity bulletin board in the lunchroom. The company attorney advised them that the board implied that employees were promised careers and asked HR to call the board job opportunities board instead. Know your state and international governmental laws.
• The manager owning or having responsibility for carrying out the plan. The career development plan belongs to the employee. You can facilitate its pursuit, explore options with the employees, provide opportunities for the employee when possible, encourage the employee to have goals for growth and expansion of his or her career and skills, but you cannot do it for them. The employees must own their plan.
• Overcommitting your time or resources. As much as you are devoted to helping the employees who report to you grow, you have a limited amount of time available to help, in addition to the rest of your job. For example, unless you are
already aware of a great class or resource, researching options for the employee to develop skills is not your job.
Disclaimer: Please note that the information provided, while authoritative, is not guaranteed for accuracy and legality. The site is read by a world-wide audience and
employment laws and regulations vary from state to state and country to country.
Please seek legal assistance, or assistance from State, Federal, or International
governmental resources, to make certain your legal interpretation and decisions are
correct for your location. This information is for guidance, ideas, and assistance.
How to Develop a Balanced Scorecard as a Performance Management Tool You can personalize a balance scorecard to help you achieve your goals • • • BY SUSAN M. HEATHFIELD Updated June 25, 2019
When you become hyper-focused on one aspect of your job, you can damage the overall health of your business. Because of this, many business leaders choose to implement a “Balanced Scorecard” approach in their organization. What is a balanced scorecard and how can you use it to not only get your financials in order but as a performance management tool, too?
What Is a Balanced Scorecard?
The balanced scorecard is a report that looks at a variety of different areas. One template that is good for all users does not exist as the balanced scorecard is adjustable for every business and every need—it's even used as a people management tool.
The goal of a balanced scorecard is to help you focus on more than just one area of the business—usually, people are focused on the financials. If sales are going well then that’s all you need to focus on, right? Well, wrong. Managers always have more responsibilities than just the bottom line numbers.
The traditional balanced scorecard focuses on four areas:
• Financial • Customer
• Process • Organizational Capacity (or learning and growth)
While these categories come from the original creators of the balanced scorecard, namely, Dr. Robert Kaplan and Dr. David Norton, you’re not limited in its use to only their ideas, although they are good recommendations. What you need to do is to make sure that you’re focusing on the priorities that each manager needs to achieve to make their department better. In this way, you meld departments and interests and come together as a performing company.
The balanced scorecard was often used as a sort of dashboard of measurable factors relating to your business. It has now become part of a broader strategic way in which to view the organization. This broader outlook includes other less tangible factors as key strategic indicators.
Using a Balanced Scorecard as a Performance Management Tool
A positive outcome of using a balanced scorecard is that it makes performance in multiple areas readily observable. When you take all aspects of a job into consideration you can see what areas are strong and what areas are weak. When you look at only one aspect of performance you can see if there is an overall problem, but you don’t have the information you need to fix the situation.
For instance, Steve is the manager of the produce section of a grocery store. Traditionally, his manager looked at his profit and loss numbers and decided whether he was a good or a bad manager. But, see what happens when you add in the other three areas of his responsibility to the balanced scorecard.
Customer: What type of feedback are you receiving from customers? Have you gotten complaints about the quality of the produce? Or, has the department received praise for a quality product? What are the customers saying about the staff? Do they find them helpful or unhelpful?
It’s easy to determine who the customer is in a retail organization and sometimes not quite as obvious in an internal department, but everyone has a customer. You need to identify who that customer is for every group—both the internal and external customers.
This hypothetical produce manager should have specific metrics you look at to determine how the customer service is going. Good marks from customers and great financials are both positives. Bad marks and great financials could mean you have a serious problem waiting to happen.
For instance, if your manager has been boosting profits by selling substandard produce, customers will eventually go elsewhere. Looking at the customer feedback helps warn you.
Process: Processes are activities that are internal to the business. How is this manager doing with internal processes and procedures? Has he developed the procedures for his area of responsibility and do they align with the overall company processes?
When you are implementing processes and procedures across sites or across departments, they are measured in this category. Additionally, the processes measured can be specific to his department.
So, Steve, the example produce manager has processes for buying, rotating, and selling product. How much produce is thrown out? What are his processes for handling discarded produce to ensure your increased profit?
Again, if you’re just looking at profit and loss you may not know where you need to make improvements, but if you’re looking at profits and you find out that the produce isn’t being repackaged properly, this will give you insights.
Organizational Capacity—Learning and Growth: You need to hold every manager of people accountable for their people. A manager with sky-high turnover is not a good manager. A manager whose people are never prepared to move to a higher level is not a good manager.
When you’re talking about people, you can never focus completely on the present—you always need to prepare to move forward, and that requires training and development.
So, you need to hold the example produce manager accountable for his turnover as well as his pipeline for internal positions and external growth (speaking of his department). In a grocery store environment, you need people who are cross-trained and understand multiple departments, especially at the management level. They can only become capable of managing multiple departments if they do the work at the lower levels as well.
So, this, combined with the internal processes, part of the balanced scorecard helps managers know how they are doing with their people processes.
When you take a look at all four of these areas (and each area can have multiple goals), you have created a great performance management tool. You know about the person’s overall success and the factors that make up that success—or failure. The balanced scorecard allows you to correct problems before permanent damage is done.
Do You Have to Stick to the Traditional Balanced Scorecard?
Absolutely not. Make adjustments to your balanced scorecard to support what your business needs. You can even use the balanced scorecard approach to managing your own life.
Every aspect of your life and business are multi-faceted and the balanced scorecard allows you to look at all of the differences in one spot. It gives you an overview that can help you determine which way you want to go—for true success in work and life.
How Great Managers Motivate Their Employees The Manager's Actions Are Most Effective in Encouraging Motivation
BY SUSAN M. HEATHFIELD Updated March 02, 2020
Image by Lisa Fasol © The Balance 2019
The reality, when you talk about how to motivate employees, is that they're already motivated. As a manager, you're charged with figuring out how to tap into that motivation to accomplish work goals. Fortunately, you control the key environmental factors that are necessary to achieve this.
Environmental Factors Under the Manager's Control
The most significant factor under your control is your relationship with each employee. This is the most significant factor managers control. The second-most important factor is a work environment and organizational culture that fosters employee motivation and engagement.
Ideally, the work culture consists of an environment in which employees are trusted, treated like the adults they are, and not micromanaged. Employees are entrusted with the values, vision, mission, and strategic framework within which they're expected to do their jobs.
They receive frequent communication, are regarded with respect and treated with civility, and have input to every facet of the work they're hired to produce. They're also encouraged to speak up about what they believe when participating in solving a problem for a customer. And the organization trusts them with its most significant and critical financial information so they're not blindsided by business problems.
These are factors that help produce a work environment in which employees choose to be motivated to accomplish the requirements of their work. Nothing is more powerful than a group of contributing, motivated employees.
7 Ways Managers Can Motivate Employees—Today
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No workplace will ever give managers the perfect work environment and culture to support their efforts toward fostering employee motivation. But you can create an environment that motivates your employees and increases their level of satisfaction by taking seven key steps, such as providing them with opportunities to grow their knowledge and skills and giving them all the information they need to do their jobs effectively.
Management Matters Most in Motivation
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The most important emotion that employees bring to work is motivation, according to Jon Gordon, author of "Soup: A Recipe to Nourish Your Team and Culture." Although some managers want to zap emotion from the workplace altogether, Gordon argues that this is a mistake and shares his wisdom on how to plug into your employees' inherent motivation during challenging times by cultivating your relationships with them, creating a climate of trust, expecting only the best from your team, and more.
You Can Make Their Day: 10 Tips for the Leader about Motivation
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Increase workplace motivation and morale by understanding that as your employees' manager, you're their passport to a boom or bust day. Words matter, but there's much more you can do to help employees get a handle on motivation and high morale, including setting high standards and clear expectations,
focusing on their personal and professional development, and starting every day with a smile and a luminous attitude.
It's All About the Managers...Duh!
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David Maister, best-selling author, expert on the management of professional services firms, and former Harvard Business School professor, gives you a window into his insights on how managers can catalyze employee motivation. First and foremost, behave as if you're a part of the team by lending a hand with the work, making yourself available to anyone who has a personal or work- related problem, and actively helping your people to achieve their goals.
Leadership Inspires Motivation
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Expand your motivational toolkit with six leadership actions you can take to promote trust and feelings of security in the workplace while minimizing anxieties, hostilities, and cynicism. Start by communicating honestly and frequently with each employee in your group, really getting to know your employees (and letting them get to know you), and infusing your team with your own optimism and vision.
The Bottom Line for Motivating Employees: 10 Tips
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Make progress toward creating a work environment in which employees choose to be positive, enthusiastic, and motivated. Strategies for achieving this type of environment include treating employees with respect, recognizing their contributions to the team, providing unambiguous direction, responding quickly to complaints and requests for help or feedback, and asking them to tell you what motivates them if nothing else seems to work.
You Need to Know What Motivation Is—Really
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Understand that motivation is basically a person's own drive to achieve something, like winning an award or completing a project. As such, your employees don't need you to motivate them but rather to set the stage by empowering them to motivate themselves. If you get this, you'll be in a better position to structure the work environment to engage, excite, incentivize, and retain your employees.
How to Demonstrate Respect at Work
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The most common response to questions concerning what employees want from their workplace on a daily basis involves their need to be treated with dignity and respect. Investigate some of the ways you can show respect in the workplace— from watching your tone of voice and body language to delegating meaningful assignments to treating everyone with courtesy and kindness and encouraging the free expression of opinions and ideas.
Top 10 Ways to Show Appreciation
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Show your employees that you appreciate them for who they are in a variety of ways, in addition to valuing their contributions to the organization. Suggestions include asking them about their interests and activities outside the workplace, bringing in the occasional bag of bagels or donuts for the team to share, or taking them to lunch on a birthday or other special day.
Provide Motivational Employee Recognition
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Establish unequivocal, objective employee recognition criteria and communicate them to all employees to head off confusion, hurt feelings, and sapped morale.
This means spelling out exactly the deliverables or behaviors employees will be recognized for and how they'll be recognized. It also means recognizing every employee who meets the criteria.
2/3/2021 Reading: Goal-Setting Theory | Introduction to Business
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wmintrobusiness/chapter/goals/ 1/5
Reading: Goal-Setting Theory
2/3/2021 Reading: Goal-Setting Theory | Introduction to Business
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wmintrobusiness/chapter/goals/ 2/5
Athletes set goals during the training process. Through choice, effort, persistence, and cognition, they can prepare to compete.
Goal Setting
Research shows that people perform better when they are committed to achieving particular goals. Factors that help ensure commitment to goals include the following:
The importance of the expected outcomes
Self-efficacy, or belief that the goal can be achieved
Promises or engagements to others, which can strengthen commitment level
In a business setting, managers cannot constantly drive employees’ motivation or monitor their work from moment to moment. Instead, they rely on goal setting as an effective means of helping employees regulate their own performance and stay on track. Goal setting affects outcomes in the following important ways:
2/3/2021 Reading: Goal-Setting Theory | Introduction to Business
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wmintrobusiness/chapter/goals/ 3/5
Aim for the goal: goal-setting is closely tied to performance. Those who set realistic but challenging goals are likely to perform better than those who do not.
Choice: Goals narrow attention and direct efforts to goal-relevant activities, and away from goal-
irrelevant actions.
Effort: Goals can lead to more effort; for example, if one typically produces four widgets per
hour and has the goal of producing six, one may work more intensely to reach the goal than one
would otherwise.
Persistence: People are more likely to work through setbacks if they are pursuing a goal.
Cognition: Goals can lead individuals to develop and change their behavior.
Edwin Locke and his colleagues examined the behavioral effects of goal setting, and they found that 90 percent of laboratory and field studies involving specific and challenging goals led to higher performance, whereas those with easy or no goals showed minimal improvement. While some managers believe it is sufficient to urge employees to “do their best,” these researchers learned that people who are instructed to do their best generally do not. The reason is that if you want to elicit a specific behavior, you need to give a clear picture of what is expected. “Do your best” is too vague. A goal is important because it establishes a specified direction and measure of performance.
You’ll recall from the discussion of SMART objectives in the Management module that setting effective goals and identifying the best means of meeting them are important aspects of the controlling function of managers. It turns out that setting SMART goals is also a powerful way to motivate employees, especially when employees are able to participate in the goal-setting process. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time- constrained goals give both managers and employees clear direction and a way to measure performance.
Goals and Feedback
Managers need to track performance so employees can see how effective they have been in attaining their goals. Without proper feedback channels, employees find it impossible to adapt or adjust their behavior. Goal setting and feedback go hand-in-hand. Without feedback, goal setting is unlikely to work.
Providing feedback on short-term objectives helps to sustain an employee’s motivation and commitment. When giving feedback, managers should do the following:
2/3/2021 Reading: Goal-Setting Theory | Introduction to Business
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wmintrobusiness/chapter/goals/ 4/5
Create a positive context
Use constructive and positive language
Focus on behaviors and strategies
Tailor feedback to the needs of the individual worker
Make feedback a two-way communication process
Goal setting may have little effect if the employee can’t evaluate his own performance in relation to the goal. By giving accurate, constructive feedback, managers can help employees evaluate whether they need to work harder or change their approach.
Goal-setting theory is very useful in business, but it does have limitations. Using production targets to drive motivation may encourage workers to meet those targets by any means necessary—resulting in poor quality or, worse, unethical behavior. You’ll recall that this was the case in the recent Wells Fargo scandal, where employees created millions of fake bank accounts in order to hit sales targets. Another problem with goal setting is that a manager’s goals may not be aligned with the goals of the organization as whole, and conflict may ensue, or the employees may feel uncertain about which goals ought to be prioritized (first the manager’s, then the organization’s? Or vice versa?). Either way, performance can suffer. In addition, for complex or creative tasks, it is possible for goal setting to actually hamper achievement, because the individual can become too preoccupied with meeting goals and distracted from completing tasks. This is especially true is if reviews and pay increases are strongly tied to goal achievement.
2/3/2021 Reading: Goal-Setting Theory | Introduction to Business
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wmintrobusiness/chapter/goals/ 5/5
10 Tips to Help You Conduct Difficult Workplace Discussions • • • BY ART PETTY Updated June 25, 2019
Challenging conversations are the lifeblood of performance improvement and problem- solving for managers at all levels. Unfortunately, too many managers delay conducting these conversations out of fear of reprisal or because they believe the conversation will jeopardize their relationship with the other party. It is essential to gain control over those emotions, and the best way to develop confidence for delivering difficult conversations is to follow a structured process.
10 Tips for Improving Your Comfort With Difficult Conversations
1. Do the Planning Work: Your observation of the behaviors in question, and your ability to connect those behaviors to the business are essential. Know where you want the conversation to go. True feedback masters develop the discipline to write out and practice their planned conversation opener. Prior planning prevents lousy performance!
2. Timeliness Is Essential: If you have ever received an annual performance review that included criticism of something you allegedly did or did not do a few months ago, you know how worthless stale feedback is. It is your job as a manager to ensure that the feedback is behavioral, business- focused, and timely. My writing partner for my first book, Practical Lessons in Leadership, suggested that the value of constructive feedback declined by 50% every day you delayed giving it. If emotions are hot, let things cool a bit. While I just finished imploring you to
provide timely feedback—as close to the incident as possible—if things are heated, take a day to let them cool down a bit. Just do not let it linger for too long.
3. Choose the Setting: If your tough topic is potentially embarrassing or you anticipate an emotional response, avoid open-office settings or conference rooms with glass windows. Do not err on the other side by selecting a setting designed to intimidate. A neutral, private setting is best for more difficult conversations. If you are fearful of physical repercussions, consult with your H.R. representative who may decide to be present with you.
4. Prepare Your Attitude: It is essential to go into these discussions with a feeling of confidence and a demeanor that shows you are calm and committed to a positive outcome. Your tone of voice, body language, and eye-contact are all important. Remember, this conversation is important for your business, your team and the individual sitting across from you. Manage yourself to portray the right level of resolve with the right level of concern for the other party’s welfare.
5. Use the Opening Sentence You Prepared in the Planning Session: A good opener identifies the behavior, links it to the business’ impact, and indicates the need for change. Do not feel compelled to wrap it in praise. While some feedback practitioners appreciate “sandwiching” constructive feedback with positive, many believe this simply confuses the message. And, of course, you should be giving positive feedback—when earned—early and often.
6. Do Not Lose Control of the Conversation: More than a few well-intentioned managers have found themselves upside down in these conversations. If the participant responds to your opening statement with something such as, “Well, I would have done that if you were a better manager,” do not get defensive and let the conversation turn into an argument over your performance. A reasonable response might be, “John, this conversation is about the behavior I described and the impact it has on our business, not about my performance.”
7. Do Not Be Derailed by Waterworks: Both men and women will cry on occasion, and while uncomfortable, it is often the individual’s way of responding to stress. Be prepared with a tissue. Allow time for them to compose. If needed, take a brief break. You can be empathetic with the situation, just do not let the tears derail your focus on getting to the right resolution.
8. Promote a Dialog: The best feedback and behavior-focused conversations are discussions, not monologues. The other party will give you openings to create a discussion where appropriate. Probe to confirm understanding and ask for ideas on strengthening or changing the behavior in question. You know it is working when the receiving party offers ideas on his/her own improvements.
9. Remember to Work Towards Your Planned Direction for the Conversation: If the behavior is a skill or knowledge related one, come prepared with ideas for training. If it is coaching to bolster confidence or encourage the individual to take the next step, put on your coaching hat. If the topic is focused on unacceptable behavior, reiterate the business impact of the behavior and offer clear counseling on avoiding this in the future. When dealing with the most difficult topics of performance or behavior, there must be implications for non- compliance.
10. Build an Action Plan Together: Once you have gained clarity on the issue, work together to define the way forward. Agree on a plan of action and set a clear date to follow-up and discuss progress.
The Bottom-Line
Most managers are stalling on conducting what they perceive will be a difficult conversation. The other secret is that most people want feedback and want to improve. In poll after poll in my workshops, individuals overwhelmingly express that they wish their managers would give them more feedback—both constructive and positive. Instead of delaying these performance, career, and business enhancing discussions plan for success and use the process and tips above to help you strengthen your performance with this critical management tool.
- HRMN 400 – Week 5 Citations
- Bibliography
- How Ongoing Performance Management Benefits the Employee and the Business _ Blog.SHRM.org
- Tips to Create Successful Performance Appraisal Goals
- Tips to Create Successful Performance Appraisal Goals
- What a Manager Can Do to Improve Performance Appraisal Goals
- Tips for Goals in a Performance Appraisal
- Giving Add On Goals Following the Appraisal Meeting
- Too Many Goals and Micromanaging
- The Lack of Clear Direction and Discouragement
- No Differentiation in Importance
- Micromanaging the How-To of Achieving the Goal
- 3 Key Ways to Improve Employee Performance
- Set around four to six goals.
- Take a serious look at the detail involved in the employee’s goals.
- Trust the employee to figure out how to attain the goal.
- Final Thoughts on Successful Performance Goal Setting
- How to Provide Feedback That Helps Employees Improve
- How to Provide Feedback That Helps Employees Improve
- Your Feedback Has an Impact When Provided Respectfully and With Care
- Provide Feedback That Has an Impact
- Here's How You Can Best Provide Feedback
- Effective employee feedback is specific, not general.
- Useful feedback always focuses on a specific behavior.
- The best feedback is sincerely and honestly provided to help.
- Successful feedback describes actions or behavior that the individual can do something about.
- When possible, feedback that is requested is more powerful.
- Provide feedback a recipient might use.
- Provide feedback close to the event.
- Effective feedback involves what or how something was done, not why.
- Check to make sure the other person understood what you communicated by using a feedback loop.
- Successful feedback is as consistent as possible.
- Tips for Providing the Most Effective Feedback
- How to Provide Constructive Feedback to Develop Employee Skills
- How to Provide Constructive Feedback to Develop Employee Skills
- These Tips Will Help You Help Your Employees Grow
- Develop Employee Goals
- Regular One-On-One Meetings
- Avoid the Feedback Sandwich
- Provide Developmental Feedback
- Good Feedback Is Important
- What Is Performance Feedback_
- Performance Development Planning (PDP)
- Performance Development Planning (PDP)
- You Can Manage Employee Performance by Setting Appropriate Goals
- Personal Developmental Goals
- Make the Performance Development Planning Meeting Successful
- During the Performance Development Planning (PDP) Meeting
- Following the Performance Development Planning Meeting
- The Bottom Line
- ARTICLE SOURCES
- 3 Reasons Why Performance Development Wins in the Workplace
- Handling And Documenting Employee Performance Issues
- Performance Improvement Strategies
- Performance Improvement Strategies
- With Proper Coaching and Planning You Can Help Employees Succeed
- Diagnosing Performance Improvement Opportunities and Problems
- Performance Improvement Questions
- How to Manage an Employee Whose Performance Is a Challenge
- How to Manage an Employee Whose Performance Is a Challenge?
- You must take a stand and manage the employee's behavior
- Here's how to handle this employee
- Link Behavior to Job Performance
- Solutions for time out and off problems
- Use Performance Management
- Use Performance Management
- Help People Succeed and Improve
- Communication_ The Feedback Sandwich _ Blog.SHRM.org
- Performance Improvement Plan
- Performance Improvement Plan
- Performance Improvement Plan Explained
- Case Study on Using a Performance Improvement Plan
- Performance Improvement Plan Process
- Performance Improvement Plan Form
- Performance Improvement Plan Form Example (Text Version)
- Conclusion
- The Look and Feel of Next Generation Performance Management _ SHRM Executive Network Blog
- Why Next Generation Performance Management Is the Way of the Future _ SHRM Executive Network Blog
- Performance Enhancement_- Diagnosing Performance Problems - Free Article
- Help Your Employees Develop Their Strengths—Not Their Weaknesses
- Help Your Employees Develop Their Strengths—Not Their Weaknesses
- Deliberately Assist Your Employees to Regularly Practice Their Strongest Skills
- How HR Managers Can Hone Their Strengths
- Why Develop Employee Strengths With Deliberate Practice?
- Coaching Tips for HR Professionals
- Coaching Tips for HR Professionals
- Agreement and Guidelines
- The Relationship
- Communication
- Tailored Learning
- Steps to Create a Career Development Plan
- Steps to Create a Career Development Plan
- A Career Path Is Crucial to Guide Employee Development
- Career Development Is Critical for Employee Engagement
- Creating a Career Development Plan
- Prepare for a Career Development Planning Meeting
- Hold the Career Development Planning Meeting
- Carrying Out the Plan
- Issues to Avoid in Career Development Planning
- How to Develop a Balanced Scorecard as a Performance Management Tool
- How to Develop a Balanced Scorecard as a Performance Management Tool
- You can personalize a balance scorecard to help you achieve your goals
- What Is a Balanced Scorecard?
- Using a Balanced Scorecard as a Performance Management Tool
- Do You Have to Stick to the Traditional Balanced Scorecard?
- How Great Managers Motivate Their Employees
- How Great Managers Motivate Their Employees
- The Manager's Actions Are Most Effective in Encouraging Motivation
- Environmental Factors Under the Manager's Control
- 7 Ways Managers Can Motivate Employees—Today
- Management Matters Most in Motivation
- You Can Make Their Day: 10 Tips for the Leader about Motivation
- It's All About the Managers...Duh!
- Leadership Inspires Motivation
- The Bottom Line for Motivating Employees: 10 Tips
- You Need to Know What Motivation Is—Really
- How to Demonstrate Respect at Work
- Top 10 Ways to Show Appreciation
- Provide Motivational Employee Recognition
- Reading_ Goal-Setting Theory _ Introduction to Business
- 10 Tips to Help You Conduct Difficult Workplace Discussions
- 10 Tips to Help You Conduct Difficult Workplace Discussions
- 10 Tips for Improving Your Comfort With Difficult Conversations
- The Bottom-Line