It’s that dreaded season for many. It’s Performance. Review. Time. While performance management (btw, don’t we need a new name for that?) is much more comprehensive than just the appraisal, it doesn’t seem that way if it’s done poorly. We’ve all heard the stories about goals that were never set. Discussions that never happened. Leaders who want to do a great job, but don’t know where to start. And, for many, it’s the actual performance review that seems synonymous with performance management. In its worst state, a performance review is the once-a-year, top-down, one-way assessment that is quickly conducted by their managers in between their “real work”.
And, for the truly unlucky, there is a….wait-for-it…. big surprise that is revealed during the review. It might be the glaring omission of recognition for work done well, and goals accomplished. It could be the mention of negative comments from a peer that were never discussed before. It could be a rating that doesn’t seem accurate.
Receiving a performance review that doesn’t match up to what you believe about your own skills, efforts and development is not inspiring. Or fun. And, it’s not likely to engage employees for the long term.
Is that what we want to accomplish with performance management? Does it really have to be like that? Not if we reimagine it.
What if team members took an active role in performance management; by setting their own goals, working on development, and seeking feedback? What if they walked away from frequent performance discussions with genuine support and renewed motivation to do their best work? What if there were no surprises?
Is this too much to ask? I mean, really? I find myself thinking about this subject a lot (I know… weird). I believe this reimagined outcome is often what we are striving for as HR professionals and leaders, and I’m happy to say that many of my clients have done exceptional work in this area.
Some of the incredible organizations I had the pleasure of working with took deep dives into emphasizing People First in performance management. We always start with philosophy- what are they trying to accomplish? What is the meaning of PM? What goes wrong? We looked at different components such as the ratings (did the wording actually capture what each rating meant? Were they inclusive? Were they motivating?). We revised the training- emphasizing roles and intended outcomes, and support. We kept going back to the overall intent, making sure everything created (processes, forms, tools) aligned with it. These teams and leaders made huge positive changes in reimagining their performance management.
Interestingly, some companies have thrown out their annual performance reviews altogether because, well, they just don’t need them if they are doing all of the other things right.
If we truly believe that most employees want to do well and be successful in their jobs, we need to shift our focus toward building programs that create environments for motivation. And let’s give managers the tools they need to be able to help drive this process, and give feedback in a way that develops their teams to take on the stretch goals that are being asked of them. No one said it was easy. Let’s help them.
If leaders truly want engaged, productive and growth-focused employees, isn’t reimagining performance management a step in the right direction?
If you are interested in finding out more about how HLD can help you and your team reimagine PM, please contact us at jane@hintzlearning.com