My Recent Performance Management Class with a View!

"Think about the best and worst performance management programs you’ve experienced…how have they added (or subtracted) value? " That's the question I asked my class of 20 high caliber HR professionals today during my Northern California Human Resource Association (NCHRA) class on Continuous Performance Management (CPM) , held in a beautiful location in downtown San Francisco.

Sentiment on the "good" side included statements like:

• "concise, with quarterly scheduled check in's"

• "allowed to set your goals"

• "the process recognized strength and growth areas"

• "included a true conversation with manager"

• "the annual review incorporated a self assessment as well as a 360 assessment"

On the "bad" side we had some all to familiar scenarios, including ....

• "received feedback that was never previously discussed impacting overall rating"

• "too long and complicated so no one would complete it"

• "the worst manual and paper system"

• "6 page reviews"

• "focused on rear view problems"

None of this is necessarily new but as we discussed in class, this isn't information anymore, this is a call to action. We know things need to change , but what are we doing about it?

Thinking about our personal experience perspectives on Performance management is an important part of beginning to solve the problem of time consuming ,ineffective and out of touch processes. In today's world HR has to be prepared to take on the role of Chief Designer , and that means tapping into our own experience, as well as the needs of the business and the voice of our employees to serve up performance management programs that people actually want to engage in. Value recognition starts in breaking down your own user experience and getting out of the mindset of "HR process" and into the mindset of employee experience, starting with yourself. As I shared with my class, if you find the process cringe-worthy, so do they. The process needs to actually elevate performance, be easy to do, and connected to other processes in the organization to have any level of stickiness.

This was a 6 hour course and I covered everything from trends, how to capture value, how to architect your performance program, technology options, implementation strategies and change management.

During out time together we explored how to identify the potential value that modernizing Performance Management actually could bring to the participants specific business. We did a ton of workshopping and I shared some of my steps on the path to diagnosing and driving value in your performance program , including:

Step 1: Understand Best Practices and Benchmark for your industry

Question that you are trying to answer: What are the best practices that we might want to implement in my organization?

Step 2: Define the Problem

Question that you are trying to answer: Where is my current program failing short and unable to deliver? What are we not doing well ?

Step 3: Identify your organization's goals for Performance Management

Question that you are trying to answer: Why do we do performance management and what purpose does it serve for my specific organization?

Step 4: Understand Your Economics

Question that you are trying to answer: What is the cost of our current program and is it effective? What are we missing out on by not changing ?

To help think through these steps we did a simple exercise which I am sharing above . If you want to learn more I would be happy to share more!

Cheers!

B