With big names such as Adobe, Microsoft, Deloitte and Accenture scrapping the performance review altogether and corporate thought-leaders agreeing that there is something flawed with their operations, is it time for businesses to seriously consider what value their existing performance management processes bring?<\/p>\n
Getting it right<\/h4>\n
Social media management platform Hootsuite has nearly 1000 employees spread across 14 offices in 13 cities including Vancouver, Toronto, San Francisco, London, Singapore and Bucharest. They scrapped the annual review two years ago, in favour of a programme called Cadence.<\/p>\n
For Matt Handford, Senior Vice President of People at Hootsuite, scrapping the annual review was driven by a number of elements.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe found it was hard to assign ROI to the amount of time being invested in performance management systems. There was a lot of bureaucracy and time spent getting 100% of our employees and leaders to look at themselves through a structure of forms and checklists, and eventually assign themselves a rating,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rating tends to detract from hearing the feedback, and the ability to actually grow and build skill. So we essentially had a process that was taking up a lot of time and was hard to understand. Not only was it not additive, but it was also potentially distracting\u201d<\/p>\n
In looking to transform their processes, there were two areas in which Matt and his team identified the most value: \u201cIn our case, we chose to focus on conversation, connection and alignment, and development. Because we chose to focus on these areas, we didn’t worry as much about evaluation, capability, long-term assessment and the types of things that allow bias to roll in\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the new process, we benefit from the cultural, connective and managerial dialogue that we were aiming for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Breaking it down<\/h4>\n
Hootsuite\u2019s Cadence programme can be broken into two parts: the first is to foster simple, employee-driven, 1:1 conversations with direct managers and the second is to encourage an employee-led and employee-driven conversation on developing and growing capability, from short-term job-specific skill development to career mapping and planning.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a fast technology business, built on innovation, with a demanding, highly educated, highly marketable workforce that moves at the speed of social media. Therefore, it\u2019s counter-productive to spend a ton of time trying to think about 8-12-month individual goals in the strictest sense,\u201d says Matt.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is most valuable is having what we call \u2018priorities\u2019. Priorities are going to change, they are going to rock and roll probably week-to-week or month-to-month in some cases in a business like ours,\u201d he continues.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we provide a really simple framework, which the employee drives and owns and has the accountability to say \u2018here are my top five\u2019 for this week and then their manager just keeps checking in. That becomes the basis of that weekly conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second part of Cadence occurs as and when required \u2013 usually once a month or once every two months \u2013 and covers wider progression, growth and learning.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fundamentals in our culture that we see as differentiators and we see as encouraging success are all about the ability to build and develop capability at very high speed,\u201d explains Matt.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur employees have high expectations of themselves, the organisation and how quickly they\u2019re going to move through learning and progression in their career, so our performance management system needs to reflect that.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Man](\"https:\/\/tiger-recruitment.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Performance-management-e1539175190881.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The results are in<\/h4>\n
Two years into implementation, and the company is now scoring an 80% positive response on the question Are you having 1:1 meetings on a weekly or bi-weekly basis with your leader?<\/em> in their annual employment survey. This emphasis on consistent conversations has seen employee alignment improve significantly around performance management.<\/p>\n \u201cIn our employee survey, one of the highest scores we receive is in response to the question \u2018I understand how my work connects to the ultimate goals of the organisation.\u2019<\/em> This question is one of our top 10 highest-rated questions, with 85% to 95% of people responding positively,\u201d says Matt.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re 1000 people, across a dozen countries. We\u2019re way beyond the start-up challenge of having individuals aligned.\u201d<\/p>\n The next challenge is making sure those conversations are as effective as possible.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to make sure that the current conversations are as useful and valuable as they can be, so we\u2019re trying to build that skill in the organisation,\u201d explains Matt.<\/p>\n \u201cIt puts pressure on the leader in a different way and on the responsibilities of the employee in a different way, so there\u2019s a developmental muscle that needs to be nurtured.\u201d<\/p>\n With the removal of ratings, the idea of consistency is also an ongoing challenge for the Hootsuite team.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to ensure that you\u2019re having a consistent way that people\u2019s performance is being reviewed. We\u2019re trying to create a rubric for a structure \u2013 how do we incorporate a uniform, unconscious-bias-proofed structure that allows the experience of the 1:1s and the Cadence programme to stay consistent?\u201d Matt explains.<\/p>\n \u201cFor us, that\u2019s the holy grail for the next 12 months.\u201d<\/p>\n For those starting to move away from the traditional performance management processes, Matt suggests changing your thinking: \u201cIf people did the math, they\u2019d see that usually performance management is up there in the top five investments you\u2019re making in your business, but we don\u2019t tend to think about it that way.\u201d \u201cSo I would start by trying to think about the process cost and the drag on the organisation, as it frames the scale of a challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n Once you\u2019re clear on the opportunity cost implications, it\u2019s about finding simple solutions that make the process more efficient, and by proxy, adding business value. In doing this, Matt cautions against looking first to complex technology and instead analyzing the business value drivers that you\u2019re trying to hit. At the end of the day, modern performance management offers an opportunity to pull together a high-performing team in a meaningful way, creating community, alignment and dialogue. Whatever your end solution looks like, it is these drivers that should stay front of mind.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n No time to have one-to-one meetings? Perhaps it’s time to hire an executive assistant<\/a>! As a specialist recruitment agency, Tiger can help \u2013 get in touch today!<\/a><\/p>\n In the early nineteenth century, a British entrepreneur named Robert Owen introduced what could be identified as one of the earliest iterations of traditional performance management. In his textile factory in Scotland, supervisors assigned each factory worker a coloured block based on their performance that day. The idea was that high achievers were rewarded and<\/p>\nWhat now?<\/h4>\n
\n
\n2. https:\/\/www2.deloitte.com\/insights\/us\/en\/focus\/human-capital-trends\/2018\/personalized-incentives-talent-management-strategies.html#endnote-sup-2<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"