Research Shows Crucial Skills Are Low Training Priorities

When it comes to employee training programs, most organizations are focusing on teaching communication skills.

That’s the scoop from a recent American Management Association survey, which examined the training programs at more than 700 organizations. When asked to identify the training content provided to individual contributors at their companies, executives and managers taking the survey indicated the top three types of content are: communication (65%); skills and competencies specific to the individual’s role (60%); and leadership development (53%). Project management (49%) and interpersonal skills (48%) rounded out the top five responses.

Perhaps more interesting are the skill sets that didn’t make it to the survey results’ upper echelon. They include collaboration at 43%, decision making at 40%, and critical thinking at just 38%. Creativity and innovative thinking barely cracked 30%.

We’d never criticize any organization for the way it spends its training dollars. These decisions depend upon a number of complex and fluid factors. From a big-picture perspective, however, it’s difficult to overlook the fact that the skill sets appearing lower on the AMA’s list are the very same ones so many of us claim to need desperately, as they go right to the heart of our competitiveness, innovation, employee engagement and retention levels, and profitability.

The business press, professional blogs and conference keynotes have all been filled lately with calls for employers to drive collaboration, critical thinking and creativity deep into their organizations—not just nurture them among leaders and executives—and to hold everyone more accountable for utilizing these skills in their day-to-day work. Of course, that can’t happen if we’re not formally teaching them to our employees. (Rachel Burstein recently offered an interesting take on just how imperative critical thinking and creativity have become in her August opinion piece on SFGate.com, “Critical Thinking, creativity: the skills workers really need.”)

Again, it makes sense that we devote greater attention and dollars to teaching employees certain types of skill sets. After all, some skills are more universal and are in greater demand. But it seems fairly obvious that until we see some hefty spikes in the percentages next to skills such as collaboration, critical and innovative thinking and decision making, we’re not going to achieve the levels of productivity and profitability we so urgently desire.

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@AMAnet  (American Management Association)

Negotiating vs. Dictating Performance Goals

Modernizing performance reviews (and performance management at large) is the subject of a recent LinkedIn post by Robert Bacal, CEO at Bacal & Associates.

In his post, Bacal offers 10 ideas to update how organizations manage performance and appraisals, including: individualize expectations even for employees doing the same job; put to bed the myth of objectivity; and realize that the purpose of reviews is improvement.

Sound advice, for sure. But Bacal’s wisest counsel was his plea for managers to negotiate goals and objectives during reviews, not dictate them. “Employees know far more about their jobs than their supervisors,” he writes, “in addition to wanting to be more involved in steering the direction of their jobs. No longer does it make sense for goals and objectives to be dictated by the manager. When employees are active in determining what they need to do to contribute to the company, you'll find higher levels of employee engagement and commitment.”

Some managers might have trouble swallowing the idea of “negotiating” goals and objectives—especially those tied to departmental and organizational targets. However, Bacal correctly points out that employees have a better, more intimate understanding of their roles and responsibilities than their managers. Smart managers put this knowledge to use in the process of managing performance effectively. If the word “negotiate” isn’t quite palatable, ask your managers to “collaborate” more with their teams regarding performance goals and objectives.

One item we take exception to is Bacal’s dismissal of ratings forms, which he flatly calls “terrible and demoralizing.” While that’s true of some ratings tools, not all are categorically terrible. Many organizations have found that modern performance management tools actually help them take a more disciplined approach to holding reviews and extracting real value from them.

For instance, with easy-to-use software in place, both managers and employees are more engaged in the review process, reviewers are more aware and respectful of timing and deadlines, reviews are completed faster, and the communication between reviewers and employees is often greatly improved.

In one of our latest case studies, Roseann Rush, Vice President of HR and Risk at PrimeSource, describes how modernizing her company’s review system improved results across the board, including raising its completion rate for reviews from 65% to 89% … slashing its annual review period by more than 50% … and making significant improvements to its documentation and communication processes. You can read about PrimeSource’s experience here.

Bottom line, for many employers, updating their tools and systems goes hand-in-hand with modernizing their approach to performance management. Doing both together can lead to long-lasting, meaningful change.

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@rbacal

For Feedback To Be Effective, Put First Things First

First things first.

This wise little maxim is the underlying theme of “Stop Teaching People How to Give Feedback,” a thought-provoking post written by Fistful of Talent guest blogger, Ben Olds. When Olds instructs us to nix the feedback lessons, he means temporarily of course. Just until we’ve put first things first.

The “first thing” in this case, according to Olds, is for us to recognize that simply teaching managers to give feedback “doesn’t work.” The reason? “Because this approach starts in the wrong spot! There are four traits that have to exist to have a strong feedback culture, and we typically need to foster each,” writes Olds. These four traits are: 1) the will to receive feedback; 2) the skill to receive feedback; 3) the skill to give feedback; and 4) the will to give feedback.

Olds’ position is that giving feedback is part of a larger continuum and we need to instill other necessary feedback proficiencies across our organizations before and after we train managers.

Olds’ points are eminently sensible but it’s not entirely true that teaching managers to give feedback effectively doesn’t work. Our employees want feedback and the vast majority say it improves their performance. Read the Harvard Business Review post, “Your Employees Want the Negative Feedback You Hate to Give,” which makes a strong case for the value of both positive and negative feedback. And even if 100 percent of employees don’t put feedback to use, many do.

Undoubtedly, we would be better off if we took Olds’ advice and created workplace environments in which all four of his traits could take root in the proper order. These environments would be true “feedback cultures,” nurturing continuous learning and improvement, inspirational performance reviews, and universal accountability.

But even in our less-than-perfect workplaces, managers who know how to give feedback effectively do make a difference.

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@FistfulOfTalent

Benjamin Olds (LinkedIn profile)

@HarvardBiz

HR Tech Wrap Up

Getting ready to pack up and head back to the office after several great days here at the HRTechnology Conference and Expo.

As always, attendees were treated to some truly thought-provoking presentations including a lively panel discussion moderated by David Gergen about how data and analytics will shape the workplace. And, as always, I met some extremely dedicated HR professionals who were interested in discussing my favorite topic, the state of performance management.

Being that we’re here in Sin City, however, I also happened to see some pretty crazy behavior when the nightlife got underway, the kind of behavior that made me look the other way. Thankfully, none of these shenanigans took place at the event itself! But now I fully understand why they created the slogan, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”

It struck me that I’m not usually in the business of looking the other way, and neither are the people I spoke with at the conference. We’re performance management and HR professionals. It’s our job to pay attention to behavior—to recognize and reward good behaviors in our employees … to offer counsel and feedback when we see the wrong behaviors … and to develop and instill the right behaviors throughout our workforces by modeling desired behavior ourselves.

Of course, I’m using the term “behavior” in a pretty large sense here and I’m mostly referring to performance-related behaviors, the kind that make individuals either effective or ineffective in their roles. Still, the whole behavior issue got me to thinking that this is one more reason performance reviews are more necessary and valuable than ever—provided they’re conducted well.

At one point during the conference, I was asked whether performance reviews are here to stay or whether they’re dying out. I said that performance reviews, in one form or another, will always be around for a whole host of good reasons. But I’ll add a caveat here. I certainly don’t want those traditional, once-a-year, paint-by-numbers reviews to stick around. As we’ve said in the past, they’re not much good to anybody.

The good news is … the performance review revolution has begun! I’ve seen firsthand how more and more employers are updating and improving their review process. (Read a few of our recent case studies to see for yourself.) When I think of the progress they’re making, I want to do backflips and jump for joy.

But that kind of behavior tends to draw attention—unless you’re in Vegas.

From the Floor at HR Tech …

 The hustle and bustle of the HR Technology Conference and Expo are in full swing in Las Vegas! And despite the famous slogan, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” I want to tell you about a subject that a surprising number of HR professionals here have raised with me.

That subject is … more frequent and streamlined performance reviews.

These conversations have been music to my ears! As you know if you read this blog with any regularity, we’ve been writing about the benefits of holding more frequent and informal reviews for quite some time. (If you’re interested, you can read “The Case for More Frequent Performance Reviews,” “The Art of Effective Performance Reviews,” and “Heed These 5 Performance Management Realities—Before It’s Too Late!” for more about the topic.)

The type of review we’ve been advocating increasingly is conversational in nature, less geared toward “criticism” or “critique,” and intended to either supplement or replace the traditional annual review (we prefer supplement). We’ve been recommending that managers hold meetings with their reports at least quarterly, if not even more frequently. And we’ve been stressing that managers should focus on asking just a few very simple and direct questions during these meetings—questions such as:

·      What have you accomplished since the last time we spoke, and what do you intend to accomplish in the next two or three months?
·         What are the main challenges you face in doing your job?
·         How can I help you overcome these challenges and clear roadblocks you’re facing?

With so many HR pros actually seeking me out at this conference to discuss revamping their performance review process, I’m more certain than ever that our cloud-based technology can be a catalyst for real change. It not only helps companies streamline their review process but it also gives their managers the tools they need to guide and track these discussions more effectively.

Given the urgency I’m sensing in these conversations, there’s no way that what’s happening in Vegas is going to stay here! In fact, I’m sure these conversations are going to continue long after we all get home.