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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Three Steps to Apply Your Talents to Goal Setting

As an employee, you can have a lot of power over what your goals look like for the next year. Many companies cascade goals down through the organization, linking individual goals with the overall strategy. Instead of waiting to hear what those goals are, though, you can pull together ways you best contribute to the business.

Here are three steps to follow when creating individual goals that you might bring to your manager:

1.     Tap Into Your Talents and Interests: People perform best when they’re working on what gets them energized and excited. While your job might include not-so-fun tasks (everyone has something administrative to do), make it clear to your manager where you do your best work and where your passions lie. For example, a retail store manager still has to set the schedule every week, but she could also be great at hiring and onboarding new associates. When she thinks about her goals, her talents in hiring and onboarding should be on the list.

2.     Make the Goal Measurable: Before bringing a new goal to a manager, make sure that you’ve thought through how you’re going to measure progress on that goal. Without these metrics, your own manager won’t know if you’ve accomplished that goal, made progress or are behind. When hiring and onboarding store associates, our manager can put some time metrics against her goals: Hire associates within two weeks of opening, associate proficient at point of sale system within two days, and so on.

3.     Bring It Back to the Business: Identifying your new goal isn’t complete until you’ve also included how it relates back to the business. Our store manager might get a lot of fulfillment by getting to focus on hiring and onboarding, but she also needs to say how that would be relevant for the store’s goals or even the company’s success. Her goal could include pulling together best practices for other store managers so all stores improve their hiring and onboarding processes.

Make sure you’re including your manager in the development of these goals, giving them plenty of notice that you want to work on these individual goals. If you surprise them too late, you might not get to focus on these areas. By being proactive, you’re working on things that help you perform better, but also help the performance of the business.

Setting Goals That Mean Something

Unless you’re in sales, goals can seem vague and unrealistic. Instead of a clear goal, like increase sales by 5 percent, vague goals take on the similarity of New Year’s resolutions — be a better team member, communicate more frequently, and focus on personal development. No wonder most resolutions get dropped before February.

Instead of generalizing goals, get really specific. Set both quantifiable and qualitative goals that mean something to employees.

·       Find the numbers. Most employees’ duties can be measured in a quantifiable way. Some metrics are easy (sales), and some are going to be a little trickier (customer satisfaction). For each goal an employee has, make sure there’s a way to measure it and track it with numbers.

·       Check the numbers. Do some digging to make sure those metrics reflect what’s important to the business. For example, number of leads can be important for a sales role, but converting those leads to sales is even more important.

·       Narrow qualitative goals. How people do their jobs is just as important as hitting milestones. Qualitative goals can naturally lead to vague descriptions, but you can help employees narrow those goals to specific desired outcomes. Instead of learn to write better, make the goal more specific, like learn three writing techniques used by top industry writers and apply them to company materials.  

·       Ask your employees. Your employees probably have a good idea of measures that accurately reflect success on the job. Set goals together so that business gets taken care of and the employee is part of the goal-setting process.

·       Follow up. Progress reports are important to help people not just follow goals as well as meet them. Without specificity, it’s hard to know an employee’s progress or if something has impeded the completion of the goal. By following up on a regular basis, goals can be adjusted and obstacles can be removed. Both the employee and the business will be better for it.

Spend time on goal setting and make sure the goals you set are meaningful to the employee and to the business. Articulating what’s expected early on means people stay on track. And by keeping your employees involved, you’re likely to see high performance and great success.

Your Smart Goals Aren’t Smart Enough — 3 Ways Your Goals Can Be the SMART-EST

Maybe your company has identified and communicated the high-level strategic and operational targets that are critical to achieving its long-term performance goals. As well, your departmental leaders and line managers can articulate and translate the organizational strategy and goals throughout their work teams, and every employee has an individual performance plan with specific assignments that follow a SMART goal format. If this process is familiar to your organization, you’ve established a foundational performance management best practice that’s supported by most high-performing organizations. But did you know that your SMART goals may not be smart enough? You need to focus on putting in place the SMART-EST goals to achieve the best possible outcomes for your organization’s success.

Boost your SMART goals by adding these three elements to achieve the SMART-EST results: 

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Relevant

Time-bound                                                                                                  

1. Establish a baseline: For each goal, use objective data to establish a stake-in-the-ground metric to measure and compare performance over time.

2. Set targets: Establish mini-milestones to review performance and provide coaching and feedback so that performance remains aligned and on track.

3. Test: Review goals regularly for continued relevance, and adjust quality, quantity or time measures as needed to keep pace with strategic goals.

Goal setting represents an important aspect of the broader process of performance management. Managers collaborate with their employees to establish appropriately leveled goals that are aligned to the organization and within employees’ span of control. While it’s common to develop SMART goals to coincide with the start of the organization’s fiscal calendar year, reviewing these goals shouldn’t be put on a shelf until it’s time for the annual performance appraisal process. Neglecting to adjust goals as the business changes can reduce the focus and structure they give to achieving strategic results.

There’s good reason to follow the SMART-EST goal-setting and review process. Companies that revise and update goals quarterly generate more than 30 percent greater impact from their performance management processes than those that simply adhere to an annual review.[1] To make the goal-setting and review process easier and more efficient for both managers and employees, consider implementing a performance management technology platform to track, realign and revise your SMART-EST goals as needed to keep pace with the changing needs of your business.

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[1] Garr, Stacia. High-impact Performance Management: Part 1 — Designing a Strategy for Effectiveness. Bersin & Associates. August 2011. To purchase the report, visit http://www.bersin.com/Practice/Detail.aspx?docid=14467&mode=search&p=Talent-Management