4 Trends That Are Transforming Performance Management and Organizational Learning

At its core, performance management is all about giving our people the information, resources and guidance they need to achieve specific goals. Sounds simple enough. Of course, the devil is in the details.

One reason performance management is so challenging—the business world isn’t static. Our organizations evolve. Our business goals and targets shift. Our customers’ needs change. Some of these changes occur swiftly while others take time. But there’s no stopping them.

It’s a good thing, then, that significant changes are occurring to the tools, technologies and techniques at our disposal for managing performance and developing our employees. In fact, here are four trends that are on their way to becoming standard operating procedure for improved performance management and corporate learning:

1.     Bring your own device (BYOD) policies—Many companies are adopting these policies for a variety of reasons including their cost-effectiveness, their appeal to younger workers, and the 24/7 connectivity mobile devices provide to workers who travel frequently and work remotely. In addition, a growing cadre of talent management and learning/development providers are now delivering mobile solutions as part of their offerings, which enable companies to share powerful tools and resources with their people in exciting new ways. (See Gartner’s interesting research on BYOD here.)

2.     Bite-size learning—This refers to the practice of breaking topics and lessons into smaller, more “digestible” pieces. The rationale: to enhance retention of information and to allow busy employees to consume a topic in a few minutes. It also makes learning incredibly more effective in the age of the mobile, fluid, and multi-generational workforces.

3.     Location-based learning—This is the kind of learning you see taking place in museums and tourist sites. The learner is presented information on the spot via sound, images or text—or a mix of these three. Sound is delivered through headphones or speakers while images and text are delivered to a variety of devices including smartphones, laptops, tablets or screen projectors. Smartphones, in particular, have dramatically increased the popularity of location-based learning.

4.     Cloud computing—The “cloud” offers a convenient and inexpensive way to access an increasing selection of tools designed to help organizations track and improve employee performance, learning and development. Cloud-based solutions eliminate the need to update software manually, and they facilitate the easy sharing of information, resources and tools (especially those related to learning programs and knowledge sharing). Plus, cloud-based solutions are particularly attractive to enterprise organizations and companies with large, dispersed workforces.

Without question, those of us who want to improve all aspects of performance management—from assessments to learning and development programs to compensation management—need to take better advantage of these concepts and technologies.

For most of us, this means arming our companies with systems and solutions that enable us to do several key things well:

·       Empower our learning leaders to easily create development goals and recommend specific learning activities based specifically on an employee’s performance appraisal ratings.

·       Give employees easy access a full external learning curriculum that supplements our internal training and development content.

·       Provide our people with online access to a comprehensive learning management system.

·       Provide our managers with real-time access to reporting analytics and transcripts of learning activities.

The more we embed these strategies into our business cultures, the better we’ll become at building workforces that deliver real competitive advantages.

Interested in reading further about the convergence of talent management and transformational technologies? Download our white paper, “Performance Assessments in an Increasingly Mobile World,” which is available here.

Is Your 360° Feedback a Few Degrees Short?

For many companies, the answer to this question is a resounding, “Yes!”

The reason—their employees aren’t conducting self-reviews.

If this is the case at your company, your “comprehensive” feedback is not only incomplete but

it’s also causing you to miss out on a golden opportunity—the opportunity to drive truly targeted performance improvements, to raise employee engagement levels and to manage your talent more effectively.

Properly instituted and utilized, self-reviews impart all of these benefits to employers by helping them facilitate open communication between managers and direct reports; by encouraging personal growth in individuals at every level of the organization; and by making performance management a responsibility that managers and employees share.

Additionally, self-reviews help employers:

·      better understand how employees “see” their performance and the contributions they’re making;

·      address critical gaps between employee perception and reality;

·      and determine whether performance goals are being communicated and understood clearly.

Employees themselves also benefit from self-reviews in a number of ways. For example, employees gain a greater sense of control over how they’re being judged and evaluated when they conduct self-reviews. This translates into greater satisfaction and commitment. Self-reviews also give employees the opportunity to:

·      engage in a constructive dialogue with their managers in a setting that’s devoted entirely to them (as opposed to team and departmental meetings where performance may be discussed);

·      highlight their significant achievements and how they’ve addressed past performance issues;

·      ask for support, education or training to address skill gaps and weaknesses;

·      and think/talk about their performance in a larger context (i.e., how they’re helping to achieve the goals of their teams, departments, functional areas and the organization at large).

Bottom line, all of this adds up to more engaged employees. And, as a growing body of research has shown, organizations that have high employee engagement are more profitable, more productive and enjoy greater customer loyalty.

So here are a few suggestions that can help your company make better use of self-reviews and reap the considerable rewards:

Have employees begin their annual reviews with self-reviews. This is a clear demonstration of your respect for employees and your interest in hearing what they think about their performance. Instead of feeling like a one-way critique, your performance reviews will take on the characteristics of a two-way exchange of ideas and information. And you’ll be able to address gaps in perceptions and expectations more proactively.

Encourage employees to focus on the aspects of their performance that are most important to them. Again, this gives you the opportunity to make sure there is agreement between what employees consider important and what management considers important. As a result, fewer disputes are likely to arise and differences of opinion can be discussed more easily.

Use self-reviews as a reason to hold more frequent (and less formal) performance appraisals. We’re always encouraging clients not to get stuck in the annual review cycle. Companies that hold reviews and performance-related discussions more often can make small, steady adjustments to performance and resolve problems before they become epidemic. Employees are far more open to small “course corrections” in their performance, and they won’t feel blindsided by negative feedback as they might if you wait an entire year to critique their work.

Have employees get personally involved in creating their own performance goals. Don’t just hand your employees their performance goals. Make them your partners in goal-setting and creating performance targets. Employees who have a direct hand in these activities embrace their goals and take ownership of their performance to a greater degree. It’s another way to build up their engagement—and to build a workforce that will give you a true competitive edge.

For other ideas on transforming your performance review process, download our white paper, “From Dread to Moving Ahead: Taking the Pain Out of Performance Management,” available here.

Don’t Be One of Those Managers!

A common mistake is to deliver a performance review and then kick back and wait until the next review period before providing substantive feedback. It’s important that you avoid being one of those managers.

A more effective approach is to follow up after the review and then on an ongoing basis.  One of the

important elements of performance management is ongoing communication and feedback to and from employees.

Follow up is important because it allows for reinforcement of important points made during the review and it allows the employee to provide input in terms of either how he or she is working to modify work behavior to improve performance or meet goals or how he or she may be struggling to improve performance. As a manager, you want to hear from the employee and you want to be able to coach as needed including reinforcement of key points made through the review process.

If the employee has shown improvement or continues to do well, you’ll want to recognize and convey that to the employee. This reinforcement of positives often breeds more positive work behavior.  If the employee is continuing to struggle or is exhibiting negative behavior after the review, the follow up session should be used to address the need to be positive and focus on working to improve performance. 

We know that effective communication with employees before during and after formal performance reviews enhances overall performance. The key is to develop an ongoing communication platform with your employees so that you and they become comfortable sharing positive outcomes, concerns, and ideas with one another. When feedback, formal or informal, is done infrequently a communication void can develop and open two-way feedback tends to lag as a result.

After the next review you perform, follow up with the employee within several weeks to discuss how things are going. Without rehashing the review, reinforce the two or three most important points from the review if you aren’t seeing positive changes in work behavior and let the employee talk openly about any frustrations or any steps taken since the review to address deficiencies or progress toward goal achievement. Coach as appropriate and then make a point of talking to the employee periodically to do a check on progress.

Five Advantages of Automated Scheduling for Employee Reviews

Employee reviews can be cumbersome. In some cases, they take time away from daily tasks and can be stressful for both managers and employees. As a result, they often get pushed aside in favor of handling a big project or conflicts with vacation time.

Employees who are interested in how they're progressing may have to wait several weeks or months
before they are reviewed. This can have a ripple effect. By using an automated process for scheduling reviews, the stress of missed performance evaluations can be eliminated. Here are five advantages to converting to this process.

• No surprises. Automated appointments on the calendar create a system where managers don't get a last-minute notification of reviews. This reduces a feeling of urgency and stress that can be avoided by the advanced notice and a chance for both the employee and supervisor to be prepared.
• Automated scheduling. An annual review or six-month evaluation that occurs at regular intervals and on time provides consistency. It helps employees learn how they are progressing, gives them confidence and enables them to prepare in advance to meet their goals.
• Budget effects. Implementation of performance evaluations sometimes affect an employee's salary. When evaluations are pushed back or skipped altogether, this can skew budget projections. For companies using a fiscal year and use-it-lose-it budget framework, this can have a problematic snowball effect.
• Employee morale. If a raise is tied in to a performance review that comes late or not at all, employees may feel cast aside when their reviews are missed. This can impact morale and performance.
• Friendly reminders. For some people with busy schedules, the reminder feature of performance review software is a notable advantage. It keeps them on task and fills in their calendar to prevent rescheduling and missed deadlines.

Automated scheduling keeps everyone in the evaluation loop on track, providing better results and increased engagement for the employee which makes the manager's job easier in the long run.

Reviewsnap Will Launch First Performance Management Mobile Application at the HR Technology Conference

Reviewsnap, the leading cloud-based performance management software solution, is pleased to announce that it will unveil its new performance management mobile application at this year's HR Technology Conference on October 7th and 8th in Las Vegas. The development of the application came in response to widespread feedback from the company's global client base.

According to Reviewsnap President Dave Arringdale, "We recognize and appreciate that our users have a host of technologies at their fingertips and they want the ability to address their performance management processes while on the go. Our new mobile application will give them access to all of the key performance management tools available within our Web-based solution without having to log on to a laptop or PC."

The application will allow for access from any mobile device, including all iOS, Android, Windows, and Blackberry devices, with internet access. Clients will have the ability to create journal entry feedback on employees, complete performance reviews, participate in 360 degree surveys, manage goals/objectives, and electronically sign-off on reviews. "This application provides further evidence of our commitment to listening and responding to our clients' needs," Arringdale said.

Let Employees Learn When and Where They Want To

Despite the plethora of mobile apps for this, and the dizzying array of cloud-based solutions for that, when it comes to how businesses offer learning to employees, most organizations still rely primarily on

classroom-based workshops.

It’s ironic when you consider that businesses continue to face tight and uncertain budgets; more and more of today’s workforce is choosing to work remotely; the trend toward mobile computing just keeps growing; and the generational makeup of the workforce is getting more complex.

Consider just these two statistics:

·       By next year, millennials — people born between 1977 and 1997 — will comprise more than one-third of the global workforce.

·       There’s recently been a two-fold increase in the prevalence of mobile tools for learning, according to Aberdeen Research.

As Aberdeen puts it, mobile is no longer a “nice to have” for learning programs but a strategic part of any comprehensive learning plan. Bearing all of that in mind, you’d think companies would be on alternative learning methods like white on rice.

Some are. In fact, companies that want to succeed in driving employee development will embrace flexible training alternatives.

Research by futurethink Innovation Institute in 2009 found that almost 62 percent of companies believed that successful learning programs would need to include e-learning options. A whopping 85 percent agreed that most learning going forward would be collaborative. And every company in the study agreed or agreed strongly that learning was going to be done in short time frames, using “micro-modules” for more-focused learning and better results.

That’s some of what flexible learning looks like. At least from the employee’s perspective. For the learning and development leader, it all hinges on — or at least is substantially enhanced by — a new evolution of learning technology. For example, e-learning, collaborative learning, and the implementation of micro-modules have a greater chance of success if they’re supported by automated content-integration solutions.

These operate behind the curtain between the employee and the learning and development leader. They help leverage the full power of the new trend in flexible learning.

Reviewsnap’s automated Learning Content Integration (LCI) module is one example. It lets learning and development leaders extend information gathered from an employee’s performance reviews to automatically develop targeted learning plans for that person.

Some of the ways Reviewsnap’s LCI module makes it easier to consider expanding your learning formats include:

·       Enabling learning leaders to automatically create development goals and recommend specific learning activities based on an employee’s performance appraisal ratings.

·       Allowing employees to easily access a full external learning curriculum, in addition to their company’s custom training and learning content.

·       Providing online access to a full learning management system (LMS).

·       Providing real-time access to reporting analytics and transcripts of learning activities.

In a nutshell, Reviewsnap’s LCI improves talent management by integrating learning activities and performance management. It’s another way business is changing how it manages employee development.

Piece by Piece: Performance Reviews Amid the Changing Nature of Manufacturing

The recent economic recession and the always-competitive pressures in global manufacturing continue to push companies to pay closer attention to the evolving nature of performance and the practices and benchmarks they use to assess and measure performance.

This isn’t a simple case of implementing a standard performance review, though. Manufacturing, by its very nature, has specific challenges and considerations when going through the performance review process.

·       Smarter manufacturing systems create a more sophisticated workforce. While an organization previously rated a riveter or machinist based on their speed and technical ability, they now rate on the ability to run complex machinery and anticipate problems.

·       Lean manufacturing processes have changed priorities in many manufacturing organizations. Working on problems happens in offices, not on shop floors, and being consistent and on budget is essential.

·       The changing competencies of the modern manufacturing employee mean that performance is now a moving target for managers to approach with care and consideration.

In a meta-analysis of studies on manufacturing performance measures, the authors found that modern performance management in manufacturing takes into account factors such as meeting the needs specific to manufacturing and making sure goals are simple to understand while focusing on long-term results, as well as accurately articulating business strategy and results.

How can manufacturing organizations accomplish this in their own business?

Incorporate change into the performance evaluation process. With changes in manufacturing processes, new technologies being introduced, and the global nature of the industry, the ability for employees to evolve is as important as ever. The ability to change and learn should be something that every manufacturing organization is measuring and setting goals around.

Align manufacturing goals with individual performance. With lean protocols in place, every person who touches the manufacturing process is important to the success of the entire operation. Employees’ performance should be in tight alignment with the entire manufacturing process, factoring in individual contributions and their impact on the system.

Measure what is necessary rather than what is easy. In a manufacturing environment, what is important to the organization may not always be what is easiest to measure. While speed and quality of work may seem most important, factors like teamwork and flexibility in tasks may actually be more important and impactful to the bottom line.

While manufacturing may be shifting and changing, effective performance management should be able to meet these challenges head on. Following these best practices can help managers focus their efforts to meet the specific issues manufacturing organizations face on a daily basis.

Higher Education: Get Faculty Engaged in Performance Reviews

Engaging college and university faculty in the performance review process is a unique challenge. But that doesn’t mean you have to fail at it. A few best practices targeted at academia can solve the problem and engage college faculty in the performance review process.

First, it’s important to understand why higher education faculty members are less likely than campus staff employees to see the value of performance reviews.

·       Faculty may have a professional bias against performance reviews, feeling that the entire concept of job assessments and performance reviews has no place in the world of academia.

·       Faculty may believe that end-of-term satisfaction surveys answered by students are a sufficient gauge of their performance.

·       Attitudes and beliefs about tenure — and rules that apply to tenured faculty — may prejudice faculty against performance assessments.

·       Faculty may believe they are actually over-scrutinized, and unfairly at best, thanks to myriad student media and rating websites (e.g., ratemyprofessors.com, rateyourprof.com, and myedu.com).

·       Finally, faculty — not unlike many staff employees — may feel the review process is too much of an interruption to their school year and occurs at no good time.

As Jeffrey L. Buller writes in his book Best Practices in Faculty Evaluation, “It’s not at all uncommon for faculty members to ask, ‘Why do we have to do assessments? We already assess our students in class every time we determine their grades.’ Or, ‘Why do we have to do program review? We already do assessment.’”

Applying a handful of best practices can go a long way toward getting faculty to appreciate the value of a robust and productive performance review process.

Be specific with your language. “Needs improvement” may be clearly understood by an administrative staffer who has very specific, concrete job requirements. But that assessment is likely to be far too vague to a faculty member who works in the more subjective, less well-defined world of the lecture hall.

Customize goals and competencies. Make performance expectations for faculty members align with the roles they perform as educators. Off-the-shelf goals and competencies are unlikely to create engagement and, at worst, will cause faculty to believe university leadership simply doesn’t understand them.

Get faculty feedback before finalizing goals and competencies. Don’t assume that the competencies and goals you’ve developed for faculty are as specific and appropriately customized as necessary. Asking faculty for feedback during the development process can improve assessments and heighten faculty engagement.

You can learn about these best practices in more detail in our brief “Customizing Performance Reviews for Higher Education.”

Performance Reviews for Heightened Employee Engagement: Yes? No? Maybe?

Unless you’ve been living under an HR rock the past several years or are in extreme denial, you’re aware of the link between employee engagement and job performance. (Of course, leading research organizations like Gallup and respected employee engagement survey companies like Modern Survey could have it all wrong.

We don’t think they do, though.)

What’s less certain is the role that performance reviews play in engaging employees. Can employee assessments help drive engagement? Should employers manage and attempt to improve employee engagement as a part of the review process?

The answer to both questions is the same: It depends.

But let’s start with what’s undeniable: A key part of workforce management is laying out goals and helping employees understand whether they’re reaching expectations. That’s a given, regardless of what you believe about the whole performance reviews-driving-engagement riddle.

Then look at setting and assessing employee goals through the lens of employee engagement. Guess what. Employees who are highly engaged are much more likely to feel they receive clear performance goals, that they get routine and valid feedback about their progress toward those goals, and that their managers are actively involved in the process.

In fact, of the six steps that Gallup’s 2013 State of the American Workplace offers for improving employee engagement, three are related to setting and tracking goals for employee performance. “Managers who focus on their employees’ strengths,” the report says, “can practically eliminate active disengagement and double the average of U.S. workers who are engaged.”

Going a step further, researchers at the University of Toronto and University of Guelph concluded that performance management absolutely should evaluate and focus on employee engagement in addition to job performance.

“Making employee engagement part of the performance management process not only makes it an ongoing and constant issue rather than a once-a-year survey, it also signals to employees that it is important and the organization is committed to improving the engagement of its employees,” according to paper co-author Alan Saks.

So, should you try to improve employee engagement as a part of the review process? The odds seem to say you should. But even if you think it makes sense, you’ll need a performance review system that makes it possible to include key drivers of engagement in the performance review process.

A Web-based, automated solution like Reviewsnap makes the employee performance review more strategic. As a result, everyone involved sees the same goals, and you’ll see better results and increased engagement.

Midyear Checkup: Looking Back, Thinking Ahead

We can hear you already: Annual performance reviews are such a pain in the neck, why would I want to double the agony by doing them at midyear, too?

Bear with us. The benefits outweigh your fears.

The midyear mark is a good time to check on employees’ progress toward their performance goals. It’s a good

time to make sure development plans are on track — and make adjustments if they’re not. Finally, midyear is the right time to assess and revise goals for the rest of the year.

In a nutshell: Midyear is the perfect time for employees and managers to combine their discussions and plans around goal-setting and appraisals.

In addition, consider these other important reasons for midyear performance reviews, from respected HR veteran Victor Lipman:

1. They force managers to give meaningful feedback. Meaningful feedback between managers and their reports is assumed to be an ongoing practice. But it’s easily lost in the ebb and flow of daily work. A formal midyear performance assessment increases the odds of timely attention to key issues.

2. They require managers and their subordinates to confront difficult issues they both might otherwise ignore. Lipman call this the “unpleasant cousin” of point No. 1. A prescribed midyear appraisal mechanism makes it less likely that conflicts will be avoided until it’s too late to effectively deal with them.

3. They make year-end evaluations easier. Comprehensive and well-organized midyear performance reviews create a blueprint for what lies ahead. Hopefully, key strengths and weaknesses will be aired and discussed, and end-of-year surprises will at least be minimized.

4. They can improve employee engagement. People want to know how they’re doing. If done candidly, fairly, and constructively, midyear evaluations offer meaningful feedback and help employees make course corrections by the year’s end.

Now that you’re at least considering adding midyear performance reviews to your lineup, what steps should you take? First, realize that HR leaders, team managers, and employees all benefit from a system that creates an automated, user-friendly performance review process. Reviewsnap is one of those systems.

Reviewsnap prevents the midyear review process from being a headache because it streamlines and automates the entire process. The same features that do that, which include automated self-reviews, ease employees’ anxiety about their upcoming reviews. The process actively involves employees and boosts employee engagement.

For HR managers, midyear reviews handled with a Web-based, automated solution like Reviewsnap afford customized performance reviews that truly align with organizational goals. They provide an opportunity at midyear to assess and possibly reset company and department goals, and track progress toward those objectives.

Midyear performance reviews — you owe it to your organization to consider them.