July 6th, 2018

Let’s talk (HR) Common Sense: Performance Development 2.0

Key take away:

• HR is effective when it is employee centric and turns common sense into common practice
• Four output measurements expected by all people are:

1. Quality of Leadership,
2. Doing interesting work,
3. Having opportunities to learn and
4. Grow and career advancement

• Performance development works when offering a framework with a few guidelines, clearly explained principles and a set of descriptors combined with getting people into the habit of having conversations and providing each other with feedback.

 

The future of work is made for companies like (y)ours

I am currently working in an environment where more than 70% of the workforce fits the millennial description. This means that all articles describing the “Future of Work” are reflecting already my daily reality. As a result, conventional HR approaches are questioned. A Harvard Business Review study (2016) into what different generations are looking for in their jobs showed however that regardless of generation, the quality of leadership, doing interesting work, having opportunities to learn/grow and career advancement were top of the list. While every generation valued these, millennials placed significantly more value on them. In other words, the conclusion we need to draw is actually that nothing has truly changed. We are just getting a more vocal consumer group and I like this! My excitement is linked to the opportunity this provides to raising HR’s value and brand.

People familiar with my previous blogs will have noticed that I am of the opinion that we only have ourselves to blame for the current poor perception around HR’s contribution. HR created an industry around doing HR (read: being process junkies) rather than truly listening to what people are genuinely longing for and focussing on boosting business performance. All too often HR are happy to be on the receiving end of instructions and implementation of strategy whilst most organisation’s people cost represent more than half of the cost base. A sane business person would therefore not even dare to pose the question why the person in charge of people would need to inform the strategy. We just need to become more commercial and switched on.

 

Performance Development 2.0

An HR detox is therefore required. This means becoming output rather than input focussed, asking constantly why we are doing what we are doing and how this contributes to business performance and what our clients and customers want: quality of Leadership, doing interesting work, having opportunities to learn and grow and career advancement. Four clearly defined criteria which are easy to turn into metrics and outcome measurements and in turn in client satisfaction or business parameters. Sounds easy and straightforward, not?!

I like to practice what I preach. In a recent opportunity to revamp the approach to performance development, we adopted a pragmatic approach guided by these four criteria:

1. We got rid of the form filling, ratings and process. Instead offering a framework with a few guidelines, clearly explained principles and a set of four descriptors to reflect the degree of strong performance.
2. We aimed to make things relevant (no compulsory mid-year review when you were in the midst of delivering against a major objective!).
3. We kept things simple whilst appreciating the need for customisation by offering a canvas and crayons and everyone could colour things in as they see best fit. This was important as two key measures in the engagement survey showed positive correlation with engagement, retention, client satisfaction and business performance: empowerment and accountability.
4. The forced distribution curve was in the same token replaced with a (affordable) pot of money which leaders can distribute informed by the conversations they had throughout the year.

 

Things kicked off really well. There was huge endorsement across all layers of the organisation and all constituents that made up the organisation:

• people in leadership positions,
• people in different geographies across the globe,
• people with high potential,
• people from acquired companies,
• people across generations, genders, …you name it.

 

We have however hit a road block and to prevent a car crash happening we need to be able to sort one thing and one thing only: getting people into the habit of having conversations and providing each other with feedback. Easier said than done it appears.

I was startled at first as the sector in which I am implementing this is all about media, advertising and communication, yet some leaders are not comfortable in having conversations with their people. It comes to show how hard it is to just get the basics right. Colleagues are reluctant to provide feedback which goes beyond “well done” and “thank you” or simply a silence or avoidance behaviour when something isn’t going well. They are looking to HR to tell them how to go about it. Herein lays once more the opportunity for HR to act refreshingly, and in contradiction to the perception of making things more complicated than needed, by turning common sense into common practice.

The solution needed was to bring back in a little more structure and guidance. Ironically leaving out all the process sparked as much discomfort as too much process. I embarked on putting learning  assets together following a narrative of goal setting, giving feedback, dealing with under/top performance, having reward and career conversations. Whilst doing so, another reality did hit me: HR consultancies have fancy webinars, workshops, pod sessions, playbooks, e-workouts but all seem to overcomplicate matters with the danger of undermining all the good design principles we installed in the first place and understandably wanted to preserve so desperately.

Pace is relentless in the environment I am working so embracing the 80% rule and acting swiftly is key. I compromised on buying resources from external providers though couldn’t help myself putting a “disclaimer” on all materials saying: as long as your feedback sounds as natural as a like on Facebook or as authentic as a product / service customer review you are hitting the right mark.

Speaking to peers it seems I have surprisingly uncovered a need for a refreshing consultancy which understands that all you need to do is turning common sense into common practice. This is when you want to be led by the four output measurements expected by all people: quality of Leadership, doing interesting work, having opportunities to learn and grow and career advancement.

 

Let’s Talk

I am putting money where my mouth is and together with the “Effragette” community* we have kicked off designing a simple and straightforward approach of all the 10 conversations a leader should be able to have if they want to call themselves worthy a people leader. We have branded it a “let’s talk”- toolkit and it includes the following topics: let’s talk about setting goals, let’s talk about providing feedback, let’s talk about performance appraisal, let’s talk about dealing with conflict, let’s talk about dealing with underperformance, let’s talk about motivation, let’s talk about a coaching conversation, let’s talk about top performance, let’s talk about managing a team meeting, let’s talk about a conversation with oneself

Just ping me an email if you are interested in contributing or finding out more. You can reach me on caroline.vanovermeire@effraconsult.com.

References: What Millennials want from a new job – May 11 2016 by Brandon Rigoni and Amy Adkins

*friends and contributors to Effra consult, a collective to work with organisations on boosting performance through people and often involved in HR detox exercises. For more information visit: www.effraconsult.com