HRMN 400 – Performance Management – Due Friday 2/12
Please see the discussion questions below. All questions must be answered independently (discussion 1 – question 1, question 2 / discussion 2 – question 1) using the attached week 5 course resources and APA in-text/reference page. Must include an in-text citation for all 3 sets of questions. Answers must be thorough (1 page per question = 3 pages), include slide 3 activity, and must cite course resources.
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HRMN 400 – Performance Management – Due Friday 2/12
a. Explain the difference between performance management and performance appraisals and discuss the components of a performance management process. How does performance management provide strategic value to the organization? Share an example of an employee performance goal that is aligned with an organizational performance need.
b. Explain how performance feedback can be delivered to motivate employees and enhance performance. Discuss some strategies for managing poor performance and how and when you would use development plans to improve performance issues.
Be sure to provide the references for the sources of the information you used including the material provided in the classroom.
Discussion Two: Focus on Analytics
“With the additional responsibilities of being a strategic business partner, the modern HR function now faces greater pressure to make sound and impactful decisions. As a result, data-driven decisions have become an integral part of effective strategic HRM. To achieve strategic objectives and competitive advantage, a growing number of organizations collect, analyze, and interpret data via HR information systems and HR analytics. More specifically, technological advances have made it easier to capture and store HR data in HR information systems and using HR analytics, these data can be used to improve HR systems, policies, and practices and, as a result, the performance and viability of the organization. HR analysts test hypotheses to determine the best ways to manage people within the organization—or in other words, to arrive at data-driven decisions that bring the organization one step closer to meeting strategic objectives” (Bauer et al, 2018, p. 42).
Bauer, T., Erdogan, B., Caughlin, D., & Truxillo, D. (2018). Human Resource Management: People, Data, and Analytics. SAGE Publications.
a. With this in mind, study the data collection in the attached spreadsheet. Then study the slides showing how to correlate one variable with another. Lastly, complete the activity on slide 3. Attached your spreadsheet with your explanation of the results.
2
>Sheet
1
Employee ID
Job Satisfaction
Customer Satisfaction
1
3
.00
3.
9
1
2
3.00
5
.
4
3
3
3.
6
7
3.9
8
4
3.67
5.
23
5
3.
33
4.57
6 3.67
4.62
7
4.00
4.07
8 3.00
2.69
9 3.67
7.00
10
2.67
3.
49
11
3.67
5.96
12
3.33
3.84
13
4.33
6.83
14
2.33
2.58
15
4.00
5.
50
16
3.00
6.12
17
4.33 7.00
18
4.67
6.
42
19
2.67
4.53
20
3.33
3.17
21
3.67
4.
48
22
3.33
5.72
23 4.33
6.11
24
4.00 6.11
25
4.00
4.
26
26 3.33
5.18
27
3.00
3.76
28
4.67
4.
31
29
4.00 5.96
30
4.00 7.00
31 3.67
4.79
32
4.33
6.22
33 4.33
5.85
34
3.67
6.13
35
3.00
4.70
36
4.00
6.52
37
3.00
5.27
38
3.33
6.75
39
3.67
4.60
40
4.00
3.57
41
5.00
3.86
42 4.67
5.78
43
4.00
6.82
44
3.00
4.
45
45 4.00
6.01
46
3.33 7.00
47
4.67
6.68
48 2.33
4.23
49 3.00
4.06
50 4.67
6.84
In a blank cell, enter the equal symbol (=) followed by the CORREL function, followed by a beginning parenthesis.
Enter the range of cell values that corresponds to the array of numeric values that fall below the Job Satisfaction variable name, which in this case is B2:B51
Enter a comma (,)
Enter the range of cell values that corresponds to the array of numeric values that fall below the Customer Satisfactin Rating variable name, which in this case is C2:C52. Enter an ending parenthesis, and click ENTER.
Remember, correlation coefficients can range from -1.00 to 1.00, where -1.00 indicates a perfect negative (inverse) linear association, 1.00 indicates a perfect positive linear association, and .00 indicates no association.
In this case the correlation coefficient is 0.48
Regarding the sign, the correlation coefficient is a medium, positive, association. In other words, there is a correlation between job satisfaction and customer satisfaction.
< .10 (negligible)
.10 - .29 (small)
.30 - .49 (medium)
.50 - 1.00 (large)
Employee ID Years of experience Customer Satisfaction
1 3.00 3.91
2 3.33 5.43
3 2.67 3.98
4 2.67 5.23
5 3.33 4.57
6 3.67 4.62
7 3.00 4.07
8 2.00 2.69
9 3.67 7.00
10 3.67 3.49
11 4.00 5.96
12 3.00 3.84
13 3.67 6.83
14 3.00 2.58
15 4.67 5.50
16 2.00 6.12
17 4.67 7.00
18 4.67 6.42
19 3.33 4.53
20 3.33 3.17
21 3.33 4.48
22 3.33 5.72
23 3.67 6.11
24 3.67 6.11
25 4.33 4.26
Now you try it!
Put these numbers into an Excel spreadsheet, calculate the correlation (if any) and explain what the results mean.
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
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
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
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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,
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.
2/3/2021 3 Reasons Why Performance Development Wins in the Workplace
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.
2/3/2021 3 Reasons Why Performance Development Wins in the Workplace
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.
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.
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
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
Context, Deliberative, Developer, Discipline, Empathy, Fairness, Focus, Futuristic, Harmony, Ideation, Includer,
Individualization, Input, Intellection , Learner, Maximizer, Positivity, Relator, Responsibility, Restorative, Self-Assurance,
Significance, Strategic, and Woo. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. These materials
are provided for noncommercial, personal use only. Reproduction prohibited without the express permission of
Gallup, Inc.
2/3/2021 Handling And Documenting Employee Performance Issues
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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2/3/2021 Handling And Documenting Employee Performance Issues
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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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
2/3/2021 Handling And Documenting Employee Performance Issues
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.
REFERENCES RESOURCES WRITER BIO
RELATED ARTICLES
Advantages in
Using
Behavior
Modification
in the
Workplace
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.
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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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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
2/3/2021 Why Next Generation Performance Management Is the Way of the Future | SHRM Executive Network Blog
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
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
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.
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?
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 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:
• 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.
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
Klaus Vedfelt/ Taxi/ Getty Images
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
Martin Barraud/Caiaimage/Getty Images
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
Ariel Skelley/Blend Images/Getty Images
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!
Tom Werner/Getty Images
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
Glow Images, Inc/Glow/Getty Images
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
Cultura RM Exclusive/Marcel Weber/Cultura Exclusive/Getty Images
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.
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
Cavan Images/Iconica/Getty Images
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
Cultura/Lilly Bloom/Riser/Getty Images
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
kristian sekulic/E+/Getty Images
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.
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:
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:
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
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
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
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