Starting A Performance Management Movement

If you haven’t noticed yet, your workforce isn’t changing…it’s changed. It’s more digital, global, connected, and it’s full of highly talented millennials that are more motivated by work experience than a paycheck. And to complicate matters, the expectations, needs, and demands of your business are evolving at Mach speeds. 

Millennials will make up 75% of the global workforce by 2025

For those companies that are striving to be the best, these changes have ignited a “Performance Management Movement”…A movement that has spread across all industries and geographies, with a focus on reevaluating every aspect of performance management. For example:

• Annual reviews are giving way to frequent touch points with continuous feedback that is easily collected
• Leaders are more focused on coaching and feedback vs. evaluating/rating performance
• Traditional learning programs are being left behind in favor of self-directed, on-demand, and dynamic learning
• Separate talent management systems are evolving to an integrated-mobile platform with a focus on data/analytics

80% of executives rated the employee experience very important

-2017 Global Human Capital Trends

No one can argue the fact that these changes are exciting, needed, and will help create an overall employee experience that is more attractive and engaging to the new workforce. With that said, companies reinventing their performance management programs are faced with many challenges:

• Redefining what top talent looks like and aligning that with corporate goals
• Understanding the emerging skills and critical capability gaps
• Creating an employment brand that attracts and retains top talent
• Integrating sourcing with HR, talent development, and the business
• Aligning the goals of the company and employees with development planning and training
• Preparing leaders to drive culture, lead people, and get results
• Creating and executing employee-centric and performance-based learning
• Measuring and tracking employee development, learning, and business impact
• Replacing traditional Learning Management Systems with new platforms that connect all aspects of talent management

Only 24% of companies feel they are excellent at aligning employees and personal goals with corporate purpose and only 14% understand the emerging skills and critical capability gaps within their organizations.

– 2017 Global Human Capital Trends

Where To Start?

Step 1: Sanity Check

If you’re looking to start a performance management movement and you’re asking yourself “Where do we start?!?”…I suggest you start where any good movement starts, with a sanity check”.

By “sanity check” I mean, does your executive team fundamentally believe that in order to achieve greater and different results you must invest in talent differently? If the answer is yes, then proceed to the next step.

Being the “Lone Nut” advocating change without any followers gets you nowhere.

Click here to see the Ted Talk on how to start a movement.

Step 2: Redefine Performance

Now that we’ve confirmed you’re not “Insane” or a “Lone Nut”, you’re ready to take the next step: Redefining Performance. After 20 years consulting with companies on all aspects of organizational and people performance, I’ve come to one irrefutable fact…

Organizations must define job role performance before they can effectively find it, hire it, develop it, and manage it.

Let’s be crystal clear, defining performance means you can answer the following questions for each critical job role within your organization:

• What results/goals is (JOB ROLE XYZ) required to deliver?
• What are the performance indicators that can measure (JOB ROLE XYZ) progress towards goals?
• How does (JOB ROLE XYZ) need to perform in order impact the key indicators and achieve the results?
• What does (JOB ROLE XYZ) need to know and do in order to perform successfully on the job?
• What are the personality attributes and characteristics that will help someone succeed in (JOB ROLE XYZ)?

As you can see in the diagram below, defining job role performance in this way provides insight into all aspects of the talent management cycle.

In addition, you set the stage for building engaged, committed, and high performing teams by providing clear lines of sight between effort, performance, and results. I will discuss this further in future blogs, as well as:

• Identifying skill gaps at multiple levels
• Designing holistic solutions to close skill gaps
• Developing a performance culture through feedback and coaching
• Leadership development for the future
• Effectively using technology to support talent management

If you’re starting your performance management movement and need an advisor, guide, or pair of hands, please contact SDI to get started by clicking here.

If you’re interested in how a technology platform can support a modern performance management program, check out Expectancy Learning by clicking here.