Performance Management

As employees work harder and longer, some are facing a breaking point, even though many companies aren't paying attention.

This seems to be research reporting week for me. Following on the heels of SHRM/Globoforce research on the bottom-line ROI of employee recognition, is this research from Office Team: “Recognize Results: Drive Success through Employee Recognition.”

Valve trades traditional managerial structure for free body massages.
Those opening the first page of Valve's latest guide for new employees will be met with a simple block of text containing the following words: "A fearless adventure in knowing what to do when no one's there telling you what to do."

Whether you’re a small business owner or an employee in a cast of thousands, you may find yourself working overseas at some point.

It’s that time of year again! Formal evaluations provide a framework for discussing the overall work of an employee, and, in a way, are a representation of your effectiveness as a manager. Making things even more difficult is the fact that no one particularly likes the formal or informal performance review process—especially when raises, promotions, and job security are at stake. Here's how you can turn the evaluation process into a positive experience:

 
Who's really effective at the office?
To get a handle on that question, a handful of bosses are taking decision-making power out of the executive suite and asking employees to help identify—and reward—talent by experimenting with internal markets in which workers "invest" in co-workers' performance and ideas.
Coffee & Power, a San Francisco odd-jobs start-up, granted each of its 15 full- and part-time employees 1,200 stock options this past January, to distribute among co-workers in whatever way they chose. A worker can plunk all his options onto one colleague or split them among the group, so individual bonuses are tied to how co-workers perceive each other's work.

If you are a college football fan, you are familiar with ESPN Gameday, the live show filmed before big games. It’s like a traveling circus rolling from campus to campus. Excitement reaches a fever pitch as game time nears, with thousands of students in strange costumes and inconsistent levels of sobriety gathering around the stage of the hosts. The hosts have some routine shtick. Near kickoff, one of them, Kirk Herbstreit, delivers a serious thesis about who will win the game and why. It is always well-reasoned and founded on solid theory and observation of practice sessions. Then his partner Lee Corso responds with a refrain familiar to viewers: “Not so fast, my friend.” 

How often have you had a work day when, as mid-afternoon races toward late-afternoon, you realize that you haven't really gotten anything done?
Painfully often, if you're like many of the professionals we talked to for a recent study on everyday work life through Harvard Business School.

Conventional wisdom says they're a pain. In reality, they are doing you a huge favor.
What you do and how you do it are important. But it’s the “why” that provides the real motivation to succeed.
The Power of Why
An experiment conducted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business demonstrates the power of “why.” 

Are you pushing your finest employees out the door without realizing it? If staff retention is an issue for your company, then you’ll need to think about what could be causing your top talent to look for other opportunities.
There are numerous ways that bosses and top management can drive star employees away without even realizing it. Understand that people don’t walk out on companies; they walk out on managers. These are three of the worst things a manager can do to destroy the loyalty of his top performers.

You've heard the adage, "Hire the right people, and everything else is easy." That may be true, but it's also unrealistic—especially in start-ups and rapidly growing, innovative businesses. Mistakes are made in hiring; high-potential peope fizzle out, burn out, or check out. Every owner eventually leads a workforce with mixed talent and ability.
And inevitably, one member of the workorce comes in dead last.

Over the past 18 months, I’ve asked for examples of organizations doing it.  As I've found clues, I've shared them here on this blog.  But now, I can finally give you some more details.  Today, I am proud to announce that we have published our case study on how Kelly Services abolished performance scores.
In the case study, we share the answers to the most frequently asked questions we receive about abandoning performance scores.  These are questions such as:
How do you compensate employees without performance scores?
How do you deal with compliance in countries that require documentation?
How do you identify high-potential employees?