Now What? Why Continuous Learning Improves Performance

It’s been six months since your latest performance review. You had walked out of your boss’s office with a development plan in hand, and you were ready to get started.

And then it got busy. And there was that emergency project. And you suddenly realize you’ve made zero progress on that plan. OK, well, no one’s really paying attention. You can say you worked on “improving communications” — just send a few more emails. It’s not like there are training classes or checklists for you to actually use as part of your development.

As a learning manager, that’s not the picture you want to see. You want employees not just thinking about development but also acting on their plans. You want managers to be involved year-round, not just at the annual performance review. You want a continuous learning culture.

But how do you get there?

The first step is easy: Know what you’re doing now. Do the development plans include clear actions? Or are the steps vague, with subjective measures of improvement? Do you offer a library of training materials or budget to reimburse employees if they seek outside training? You want to perform an audit of everything you’re currently doing at your company with learning, including getting some honest feedback from employees. Do you offer online training but no one uses it? Find out why.

Next, review the gaps in your program. Once you’ve done your audit, you can match the current state with the desired state to see the gaps. Maybe you’re not using an online Learning Management System (LMS) or there isn’t budget to send employees to outside training. Or maybe employees just don’t know what you offer. See where the gaps are and determine which areas are priorities for improvement.

Bring the learning and development together. Ideally, a development plan would have action items that match the learning activities your company offers. “Improving communications” would include the online module about giving feedback, a quarterly check on communication styles and perhaps written exercises so the employee can practice. Bringing the current state and ideal state together requires some work, but you can start small. Do an internal communications campaign to tell employees what resources are available to them. Informing the workforce is a good way to get people to use the programs. Next, revamp the review process, making the development plan more reflective of the learning programs you have in place. Then start looking at changing the resources. You can find technology that automatically creates development goals or has progress checks for managers.

A continuous learning culture doesn’t have to come with a big investment upfront. Knowing what is happening in your company and which areas you want to tweak can start making changes for you immediately. As you plan ahead, include these audits on a regular basis. You won’t get to the ideal state right away, but you’ll be marking progress so you know how you’re doing. Just like in your own development plan.

Feedback Lineup: Building a 360-review “A” Team

During 360-review season, you’re asked to select raters to help evaluate your performance. Just like picking players for a kickball team, you want raters who will make you look good.

But you don’t want to look good because the raters are all generic and wishy-washy. You want to look good because there’s something worthwhile in the feedback.

Think about the kickball team: If people are picking daisies in the outfield and constantly missing the ball, even if you score home runs, you could still lose the game. If everyone contributes to the best of their ability, then you’ve got a match.

Selecting 360 raters who are going to contribute to the best of their ability means selecting people who will be honest, fair and objective. They’ll also take the time to focus on the survey, not just click through it to get it over with.

These “A” team raters also aren’t going to give you a perfect review.

If you really want to improve your game, you need people who are going to tell you the good and the bad. What makes these raters helpful is that with the bad, you’ll get suggestions on how to improve. You won’t have poor ratings because someone’s had a bad day.

Here are some of the players you should look for:

·        A peer who’s known you for a long time

·        A mentor or indirect supervisor

·        One new and one long-term client or customer

·        A project teammate from another department

·        A remote employee you’ve worked with

·        Someone you’ve faced a work challenge with

All of these people have had a variety of experiences with you. A project could have gone perfectly or it could have been a mess. You could have played different roles on different teams. Clients see a different side of you than your co-workers do. Selecting these people will help you get a full picture of your past performance.

If you don’t get to choose your team of raters because a supervisor selects them, go ahead and make a list anyway. You can then tell your supervisor to add these people — and show that you’ve given thought to the process. 

Once you’ve built your “A” team, give the same courtesy to the 360 reviews you’re selected to give feedback on. Be honest, fair and objective, and take the time to really give quality answers. Both you and the rest of your co-workers will get more out of the process by being “A” team players for each other.

Take the Drama Out of Compensation — Strategies for Honest Communication with Employees About Pay

Negotiation strategies indicate that when both sides work together to share information, both parties come out better. When you hide information or believe the other party is hiding something, both sides come out with worse deals than if they had been honest. Yet, it’s in our nature to think we’re leaving something on the table.

 

Then again, just bothering to ask for a raise can get you nowhere (or a knee in the groin). “The Secret Life of an HR Lady”  shows just how painful that compensation conversation can be.

 

Compensation drama makes things more tumultuous in a company culture because people think they’re missing out. Or that decisions aren’t being made fairly. A lot of worry and gossip stems from people trying to fill in the blanks themselves. There will always be people who make compensation discussions dramatic, but you can reduce anxiety by being upfront.

 

Here’s how to communicate honestly with employees about pay:

·      Be upfront when there isn’t money. Employees get more frustrated when you hide the reality of your business than if you had let them know things were tight. It’s tough to hear that the business is going well but that people will have a fourth year of no raises. It’s a mixed message. Is the extra money going to pay off debt? To invest in a different rewards system? Employees can be on your side if you’re not hiding information.

·      Measure performance so you have data to support compensation decisions. If your company is truly implementing pay-for-performance, you are no longer distributing rewards evenly (aka the peanut butter approach). When someone doesn’t get a bonus or raise, you'll have the information to support the decision. You'll also need a plan for developmental steps so that performance can be improved. And if you want to reward a top performer, you'll have the documented justification to request the spend.

·      Deliver on your promises. When you have contracts or agreements that call for bonuses, commissions or raises, you're obligated to deliver. You can add language around performance deliverables or goals, but if you renege on the agreement, employees will find out. They’ll wonder what else you’ll renege on. There might be good reasons for having to back out, but be prepared to have a conversation about why you can’t deliver and about a plan to revisit the obligations in the future.

Employees will gossip; that’s why they call it water-cooler talk. You can still control messages but also share information. Your behavior influences how employees perceive your honesty. Don’t let compensation drama impact your company’s productivity and culture. Strive for transparency, document your decisions, and deliver on your promises.