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In the business landscape, the narrative of sustaining employee engagement emerges not just as a tactical human resource initiative but as a strategic imperative for organizational growth and profitability. High employee turnover, with its associated costs of recruitment, training, and productivity loss, starkly contrasts with the economic benefits of retaining a committed and experienced workforce. Engaged employees enhance productivity, maintain customer relationships, and uphold a strong company culture, contributing to a company's competitive advantage and reputation.
Yet, according to Gallup’s recent Employee Engagement survey, only 33% of employees feel engaged in their work and workplace. This translates into far too many employees feeling disconnected from the organization, having less clarity in how to be successful in their roles, and decreased satisfaction from their contributions.
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Just a few years out of college, I joined a company in (what was for me at the time) a dream role. In this role, I was responsible for creating a learning structure and culture for a company with offices in several countries. By sheer coincidence, my start date was two months prior to the company’s annual employee evaluation cycle so my first big deliverable in my new role was to manage that process to the satisfaction of my boss along with multiple additional stakeholders.
I loved this big and audacious opportunity and was motivated by the degree of challenge and complexity it represented. To me, creating an evaluation process flexible enough to accommodate both electronic and paper-based environments (some of the country offices lacks the internet bandwidth to support and office-wide electronic evaluation process) while accounting for several time zones, languages, and cultural practices, was a magnificent puzzle that I was bent on solving. Pretty soon, panic began to infect my excitement. I had no dedicated staff to help manage this huge project and very little guidance, which I desperately needed as a person new to the organization. undaunted, I built as many relationships as quickly as possible to get the lay of the land and soon developed a project plan that I took to my supervisor and other stakeholders for vetting. As I fully immersed myself in implementing the project plan, my supervisor asked me to develop and integrate a learning series for managers consisting of 2-hour training sessions on six functional competencies (delegating, giving feedback, dealing with conflict, negotiating, personal effectiveness, and building effective teams). The logic was that the annual evaluation cycle created a timely opportunity to increase the competencies of managers across the organization. I wanted this effort to be a win because I understood the need and had a lot to prove. I worked 14-hour days until I completed these six trainings in time for a dry run with my supervisor before the evaluation cycle was set to begin. Three days before the launch of the annual evaluation cycle, my supervisor asked me to reduce the six 2-hour trainings down to 1-hour overviews in order to make it easier for more people to attend. While accommodating more people made perfect sense, it was also very clear that my boss had no idea how much time and effort it would take for me to reduce these 2-hour training sessions into 1-hour overviews while still managing all the other critical aspects of the evaluation cycle launch. More importantly, since my boss never asked me about the level of effort it took to complete the first six trainings and never offered additional support, it became clear to me that my supervisor did not see me as a person and a professional. I decided then that I would not continue to work for this person and left the department at first opportunity. I tell this story to illustrate that the way a leader approaches an employee’s performance can define the degree to which the employee is committed to working with this leader. The story also shows what happens when an organization lacks a framework to guide how leaders set expectations with employees around the work. While one could argue that, in my story, how the leader managed my performance is not the only issue or even the most important issue at play, it is the one that, as an organizational development practitioner, has informed how I help leaders think about performance management. What is performance management? At its core, performance management is an approach that a company uses to plan, monitor, evaluate, and recognize an employee’s contribution to the team, unit, and company. A performance management framework makes visible the competencies, mindsets, and behaviors that the company values. For example, in my story, the company prioritized high and fast output over relationship even though both competencies were organizational core values. Performance Management Framework The Performance management framework consists of four distinct stages spanning a company’s entire (fiscal or calendar) year. Stage I: Planning Stage Manager and employee agree on a performance contract for the employee by setting goals and performance standards. Stage II: Monitoring Stage Manager and employee meet regularly to leverage good performance and address poor performance through continuous feedback and professional development. Stage III: Evaluating Stage Manager and employee determine the degree to which the employee’s performance is consistent with the established performance contract. The assessment informs possible promotion and/or salary increase for the employee. Stage IV: Reward and Recognition Stage The manager works with other decision makers to quantify the employee’s contribution to the project, unit, and company in a way that keeps the employee’s motivation, performance, and commitment high. Traditional Performance Management Model Performance management is so ingrained in organizational norms that most people are not aware of the vernacular despite engaging in some level of the exercise. In my story, the company’s investment in an annual evaluation process suggest more than the other stages of the performance management framework is evidence that the company had the most understanding of Stage III – the evaluation stage. Most companies default to this stage because everyone has a part to play and the roles are clear. Also, the tasks are sequential and timelines are fixed, which means that people can feel good about participating and then moving on until the next time. The evaluation phase relies on rating employees, which makes it easy to standardize how people discuss performance across the organization. As a result, employees as well as leaders like the predictability of Stage III (Evaluating). Yet, when conducted independently of the other stages, Stage III is not robust enough to support the professional development and aspirational needs of employees nor does it allow the company to strategically manage and plan for its talent. Alternative Performance Management Model More and more, companies are relying on a performance management framework that prioritizes Stage I (Planning) and Stage II (Monitoring). They do so because these combined stages allow managers and employees to engage in meaningful development conversations in incremental periods of time. Adopting this approach requires a company to commit to cultural changes and invest in operational redesigns, which is why adopting this alternative model is often so difficult to achieve and sustain. Ideally, the purpose of performance management is to enable all employees to be wildly successful today and optimally positioned to succeed in the future. The best performance management models are values-based, agile, integrated, and highly individualized. These models work best because they power today’s performance rather than focus on assessing performance realized in the past. I remained with that company for several years and worked with amazing people with whom we accomplished a great deal. Yet, I never forgot the experience I had with my first supervisor – an experience that could have been mitigated, if not avoided entirely, through better performance management. Dear Spark,
One of the employees I manage is competent and talented. While I can see her being very successful at the company long term, she is early in her career and has a long way to go before she can assume any leadership role. This employee is very ambitious so she’s always looking for ways to stand out. For example, I provided funding for her to attend two conferences this year and she has already requested funding to attend two more next year. Meanwhile, employees who are more senior than she is and just as (if not more) deserving haven’t had such development opportunities. Internally, she keeps joining committees and special projects that have nothing to do with her real work but increase her visibility. Her productivity remains consistent but, when compared to her peers, the quality of her work isn’t as strong. How do I get this employee to focus less on her career goals so that she can invest more time in strengthening her technical competencies and overall performance? Signed, Willing to encourage within reason =================================== Dear Willing to Encourage, As an established leader, it is very gratifying to recognize a professional with the potential to become successful in your organization and it sounds like this particular employee is already showing some important leadership attributes. She is strategic, driven, and able to self-advocate – skills that are hard to teach and just as difficult to learn. It also sounds that, along the way, this employee adopted the idea that being highly visible is the fastest way to get ahead in the organization. While this may or may not be true, what matters is that you believe she will not be taken as seriously in your organization if she does not perform at a level that is acceptable to you and other decision makers like you. Your employee is motivated. Your job as a leader is to not destroy that. The opportunity before you is to help her understand that she needs to redirect her enthusiasm towards making sure that her technical performance is consistently stronger than it is today because the organization prioritizes performance over personal brand. Make it safe for her to hear this by getting some clarity for yourself around what, specifically, you want to see her excel at. If you are not sure, conduct a peer-based competency assessment so that you can get concrete feedback on her work, which will allow you some objectivity as well. Since she is already enthusiastic and committed, begin the conversation with the fact that her energy and drive are important strengths that will continue to serve her well. Follow by stating that performance excellence is central to every professional’s credibility and, at this stage of her career, she will be more strategic by focusing on increasing her technical mastery. Once you have a sense that the employee understands what you are asking of her and is willing to deliver, go over the competency assessment – both her technical strengths as well as area that show gaps. Discuss with her a way forward and agree on a development plan that has targets and timeline. Follow up with her regularly to make sure you are providing adequate support and guidance so that she is positioned to follow through on the development plan. Lastly, you mention that you think this employee has received a disproportionate amount of opportunities for development and visibility. The fact that she is able to go to conferences or have a seat on committees, simply by virtue of asking, signals structural gaps in the way the organization approaches employee performance management. The cost to leaders like yourself is that employees might conclude that favoritism is at play, which is erosive to your leadership credibility and corrosive to the organization’s culture. Find other leaders and influencers open to a conversation about taking a candid look at how learning and employee development happens in the organization and begin to put agreements in place so that, together, you can move the needle closer to an organizational structure and culture that encourage and support all employees to be motivated and stellar contributors. When I was 12 years old, my parents gave me my first bike. A thing of beauty, this bike was a 12-speed silver number. In my pre-bike life, I would sit on my front porch watching my friends roam the neighborhood like a nomadic tribe. So when I finally got my bike, I knew I was one step closer to becoming a member of the tribe, with nothing but freedom and adventure ahead of me. There was just one small glitch though – I did not know how to ride a bike.
In the American context, age 12 is rather late in childhood to learn to ride a bike. Yet, I had been watching people on bikes for so long that I considered myself to be pretty bike savvy – little kids on their tricycles learning to pedal under the watchful gaze of their parents and boys with the confidence of daredevils, though barely older than I was at the time, wheezing by at breakneck speed. So, when I finally got my bike, I thought “How hard could it be?” After the first attempts to get my feet on the pedal while trying to stay upright, I realized that riding a bike is not as easy as it looks. What was unbeknownst to me, before attempting to teach myself how to ride a bike, is the number of things I needed to know (like how to use the brakes!) and the number of actions my muscles would have to memorize (like how to keep my balance) before I could stay upright and then pedal without falling. What I did not appreciate until much later is the number of competencies I had to master in order to become one with the neighborhood kids who formed the nomadic tribe in search of adventure. What is a Competency? Anytime a person is doing something, whether opening an umbrella or writing an article, there are things the person needs to know and things the person needs to be able to do. A competency is a combination of the knowledge applied (also known as skills) and behaviors necessary to complete an activity efficiently and effectively. Since people are continually performing new tasks, a person acquires competencies at any stage of life or career. Why Do Competencies Matter? Competencies focus on the skills and behaviors a person needs to perform optimally in the present as well as in the future. For example, learning to ride a bike gave me the technical know-how and confidence foundational to learning to how to roller skate the following year. For this reason, competencies are considered to be forward looking because they create the conditions for a person to keep adopting new knowledge and skills or increase their proficiency within the same competency. This is what allows a child to transition from tricycle to bicycle. Not all competencies are created equal. Some competencies, like constructing a polite greeting, are very common and everyone knows how to do them. Other competencies, such as problem solving, are also important but not everyone excels at them. Rarer still are competencies, such as conflict management, that an organization needs to have in large supply but very few people possess. When categorized, these make up three levels of competencies. Level I: Price of Admission Competencies (High Supply) A mix of skills that everyone needs and almost everyone has but which do not set the average performer apart. Level II: Leveraging Competencies (Moderate Supply) A mix of skills that everyone needs but most people either do not have or have not achieved mastery. Level III: Competitive Competencies (Low Supply) A mix of skills that an organization needs but few have or are working on acquiring. What is a Competency Assessment? A competency assessment is a tool used to evaluate the degree to which a person can complete an activity in an optimal way. This tool usually takes the form of a set of questions to answer or an activity to complete. For me, the competency assessment moment came when I joined the kids in my neighborhood for a bike ride. Wobbly, I had trouble taking the turns as quickly as they could. After all, I knew the mechanics of bike riding but I was inexperienced. Within a few days, however, I was much better able to keep up, which convinced me that, while I still lagged in my degree of mastery, I was getting much better. Types of Competency Assessments There are several ways to gauge a person's degree of proficiency and mastery. These three are most commonly used competencies: Self-Assessment The individual uses personal experience to determine a level of proficiency in each competency. For example, as I was learning to ride my bike, I could tell how inexperienced I was compared to the kids who were very comfortable on their bikes just as I could tell that I was getting better. Peer-based Assessment Colleagues, selected by someone senior like a supervisor (sometimes with input from employee) determine the person’s proficiency in one or more competencies based on their observations. For example, while the kids in the neighborhood let me ride along, they could see that I had trouble taking turns. So they would wait for me a little ahead in order to let me take the corners at my own speed and still be able to catch up. 360° Assessment A 360° assessment is a broadening of the evaluators to include not just the person and peers, but also the person’s supervisor, as well as any other stakeholders whose input will add value to the employee’s development. For example, when I first started to learn to ride my bike, my sisters and my parents would often watch me in support and would give me feedback on how well I was doing or what I needed to do differently. Competencies are invisible to the untrained eye yet essential for performing any task or activity effectively. When I was learning to ride my bicycle, having a breakdown of the various steps to master, as well as the best way to master those steps, would have enabled me to be more psychologically prepared. Also, it would have alerted me to the fact that investing in knee pads is a very wise choice. |
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