Performance Measurement

Smart tips for HR professionals

by

Developing employees is a critical skill set for all HR professionals. But how do you know which system is the best to develop your employees?

There are many different performance management systems. Like any other complex organizational issue, there is never one right answer to an HR problem. Most of the time the right solution is dependent on many organizational factors. The best an HR professional can do is to learn and analyze many systems, and then make a judgement call on what is the best intervention for their organization at that moment in time.

You may want to start looking at what is happening in performance management trends. It seems that many HR professionals and organizations are rethinking their annual performance review systems.

Jason Averbrook in his new book called, the Ultimate Guide to a Digital Workforce Experience – Leap for a Purpose, shares this thought with us: “Employees don’t want feedback, they want attention.”

The once-a-year performance review does not give the employee enough attention. Averbrook goes on to say that 60 percent of companies are beginning to reshape their performance review systems.

Click here to read more about Jason Averbrook’s ideas. 

For decades, organizations have been using the traditional annual reviews that rate and rank employees. These annual rating and ranking systems seem to be of less value as time moves on and as organizational needs and employees’ values change.  Traditional performance review systems focus on the employee’s past behavior, and not their current behaviour. Today’s organizational deliverables are changing rapidly; looking back over the last year of an employee’s behaviour adds minimal productive value to the HR equation and therefore adds little to the employees’ or organization’s performance.

If the annual employee performance review systems are no longer viable, HR departments must begin to implement new modern day performance measurement systems that meet the needs of the employees and the needs of the rapidly changing business world.  Here is a list of the some of the recent trends in performance management:

  • Frequent real-time feedback instead of one-shot annual reviews
  • Decoupling performance reviews from administrative practices such as annual merit pay or bonuses
  • Dropping the ranking systems: think of what an employee can do, not what they have done

Employees want more frequent and focused attention to help them develop and perform. HR needs to investigate these new trends in performance management, and then begin to implement new methods to keep improving performance results.

Discussion Questions

Research and identify three large organizations that are moving away from the annual performance review system, then discuss what they are using to replace it.

Perilous Productivity

by
productivity chart sign on blackboard
woaiss/Shutterstock

In our strategic HR planning discussions, we focus heavily on the cost-benefit relationships of Human Resources operations to the organization. Using the human capital approach, the value that employees as a commodity bring into any organization is linked directly to the output that is produced for the organization. We assess employee value by ensuring that human productivity is constantly measured, evaluated and monitored as part of a best practice approach to human resources management.

It all makes sense from a pure HR planning perspective. When we move from theoretical planning to actual implementation, however, the human element of the human resources equation pops up again to remind us that we are always dealing with people, not just products.

In a recent research article the authors explore the negative impact of the incessant need modern organizations have to monitor employee productivity.

Click here to read the article.

As noted in this article, it seems that the Human Resources function has been trapped into measuring and promoting policies that contribute to increased employee anxiety. Increased employee anxiety leads to lower productivity and more employee dis-engagement. Are we, as HR professionals, responsible for contributing to the ‘mirage’ of successful productivity by avoiding the real implications of constant workplace pressure on our fellow human beings? In an effort to measure what people do, are we also contributing to the mechanism of who gets blamed when the results of what is measured go wrong?

Human Resources champions have fought long and hard for a seat at the corporate table. We argue that Human Resources has the strategic edge to brings the business numbers and the people numbers together so that decision-making produces organizational benefit. While our Human Resources champions do not want to give up that seat or that fight, we must be reminded of why we wanted to contribute to organizational success in the first place.

We represent the Humans in any organization. Human Resources must champion human achievement and organizational success, but not at the cost of worsening the human condition in the workplace.

Discussion Questions:

  1. What types of employee productivity measures do you think contribute to increased employee anxiety?
  2. Why would organizations (like the example of Volkswagen mentioned in the article) knowingly engage in the ‘misrepresentation’ of productivity data?
  3. In your opinion, does an ‘accountability culture’ breed a trust environment in the workplace? Why or why not?

Does Someone Always Have To Be The Loser?

by

 

Road sign with arrows - Winners, Losers
Source: Andy Dean Photography/Shutterstock

During the course of your studies, you may have experienced a class where your grades were bell-curved or ranked in comparison with everyone else in the class.  The rationale for imposing this kind of grade rating system usually comes with an explanation related to institutional policy or some complicated methodology based on academic requirements.  As a result, bell curving or forced ranking systems are not used as a common approach for evaluating student performance.  Nevertheless, they do exist and continue to be used with varying degrees of success.

Does this type of forced ranking system translate into effective performance management for employees from a training and development perspective?  Based on a recent article from The Globe & Mail’s Leadership Lab series, the answer would seem to be a resounding “No.”

Click Here to Read the Article.

As noted in this article, forced employee ranking ensures that someone must be left standing on the bottom rung of the performance ladder in comparison to everyone else.  This happens even though the individual employee’s performance may be the same as his or her colleagues’.  How can this possibly act as a positive motivator for performance improvement and increased employee engagement?

One of the common remarks about forced ranking systems is that they provide an un-naturally skewed picture of the data or the group that is being evaluated.  If the data is skewed, then it would seem that a response to that data would also be skewed.

Again, from an employee learning perspective, it is imperative that any training and development programs are built from a basis of actual employee needs, and not from a system that forces individual performance evaluation into a larger group ranking.

Discussion questions:

  1. As a Human Resources professional, identify three benefits of forced employee ranking systems. When would this type of system be useful?
  2. How would you respond to your performance being managed by a bell-curve/forced employee ranking approach in your current (or previous) workplace?
  3. Do you believe that a forced employee ranking approach improves employee performance and provides positive motivation? Why or why not?