Performance Management
Requisite HR August Newsletter 2017
Turning a Negative into a Positive When people think about Performance Management the first thoughts that come to mind are punishment and/or dismissal. It creates a pit in the stomach for many people just thinking about it. However, there are many modes to Performance Management - planned, ad-hoc, positive, negative, formal and informal. Each aspect is selected to suit the situation, but what they have in common is that they all aim to get the best of your team, even if what is best for the team or an individual is a parting of the ways. The best way to conduct performance management well is to impart all communications in a way that frames the issue in its most positive light. Difficult to achieve when the reason it is occurring is for a negative reason, but it can be done. For example, not all candidates turn out to be successful employees, however if someone fails their probationary period we should focus on that fact that the position or Company was not the right match for the individual, and that now they will have the opportunity to find a position that it more suited to them and thus more likely to help them achieve their personal and professional goals. This can be done by acknowledging the past when you provide feedback to the individual about why this position was not the right match and then focusing on the future by making suggestions as to what type of role or organisation would better suit them and their preferences.
Turning a negative into a positive isn’t always going to work, but some of the things you can do to increase its chances for success are: 1. Ensure that bad news doesn’t come as a surprise. Failure to tell a team or team member about performance issues and not giving them opportunity to improve is poor management. 2. Don’t delay. The majority of people go about their day trying to do the best that they can in the workplace. In these circumstances, there is no intent to do the wrong thing, plus they are not psychic. So if you don’t tell them, they are going to continue to do the wrong thing, all the while thinking that they are doing a great job. Delaying the situation not only condones the event or behaviour, it isn’t going to create the change you desire and more than likely the conditions will continue to worsen. 3. Have a positive mind set and use positive language. Remember that the conversation is an opportunity for positive change and you should frame your words in the same manner. Remember that the words that you speak build the house that you live in. 4. Those that fail to plan, plan to fail. Put your thoughts in writing and outline the change / outcome you want to achieve, it will help you stay on track during difficult discussions. 5. Supportive Evidence. Don’t critique based on feelings or unsubstantiated accounts, ensure that you have the evidence to back up what you have to say. Then you can focus on the change required, instead of having your conversation taken up with cries of denial. 6. Focus on the positive and the future. This will help create hope to balance out the negative aspects of the conversation. 7. Bring solutions and create a plan. Don’t just dump the bad news and then run. Come to the conversation with various solutions then work with the team member to create a plan, that it going to help the person get to where they need to be. 8. Follow-up. Don’t provide a plan and let them flounder. Ensure you provide the tools and support they need to achieve the change. 9. Remind them of Confidentiality. When reporting the news, bad news sells. In the case of a team member, they may share information contained in the discussion to garner sympathy. This can poisoning the team when they only hear one side of the story. Remind them that a performance management discussion is confidential. 10. Remember that People Matter. Treat them with respect and dignity, as you would want to be treated yourself.
The
Millennial Storm With any new generation Companies must reevaluate and adjust their management style to suit the work styles of the new generation, if they want to get the best out of them. Millennials are fast replacing Baby boomers and Generation X as the dominate force in the workplace. This generation are well educated, skilled in technology, very self-confident, and one of the most productive and innovative in history. Coming from a background of high accomplishments they join the workforces with even higher expectations. So how can we performance manage this new generation best? Well to understand how to best manage this group we must understand what drives them. According to Forbes key issues are meaningful work, opportunities to collaborate, freedom of choice and fun. The book "Keeping the Millennials" reiterated these key issues and also delved into their desire for feedback and the importance of relationships. Integrating these drivers into a great working environment that is social, fast paced, engaging and enjoyable, increases the chances that you will unleash their naturally high energy levels, creating the right environment for Millennials to be high performers. As a young and energetic group, Millennials derive their pleasure from doing a meaningful job, so it is important to hold discussions with their team members to get their views on what constitutes a meaningful work to them. When people are passionate about the work that they do, discretionary work effort levels increase and so does their corresponding performance levels. With Millennials being loyal to people not Companies, the relationship between a manager and a millennial team member is critical to good performance, however traditional employee appraisals are not only dreaded by both parties and usually poorly conducted by managers, they also do not generally lend themselves to creating good professional working relationships. A bad appraisal damages the psychological contract between these two. This “contract� is the mutual beliefs perceptions, and informal obligations between these parties, and governs the perceptions of the employer-employee relationship, influencing how employees behave from day to day. Moving to a system such as Dr. Tim Baker’s Five Conversation Framework, which consists of five 10-minute conversations over a five-month period that take place twice a year between the manager and each team member, is going to be more suited to Millennials
If their performance is struggling then they want to know about it. They have growing up in a technology rich world getting automatic feedback at a push of a button, so they value real-time feedback and scheduled facetime (such as the Five Conversations Framework) for performance discussions, however they struggle with corrective feedback and prefer feedback that encourages. Although it can be a lot of work, it is a very effective way to keep them motivated and keep them on track. Millennials also crave feedback in the form in employee-recognition and incentive systems. They are looking for evidence that their achievements are being recognized. These systems use positive reinforcement to influence the performance of your team, however the rewards need to be good or services that Millennials actually value or improve their social standing amongst their peers and the wider society. High-quality rewards send the message that their effort is truly valued, as are they. However, as they place a great deal of value on collaboration, defining team goals and setting up rewards for hitting benchmarks can be equally effective for driving performance. The Millennial Storm is here, but by adjusting your performance management styles to suit this generation, both parties can come out ahead.
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