Canadian HR Reporter

Credit: Olivier Le Moal/g-stockstudio (Shutterstock) N obody wakes up in the morning and looks forward to conducting performance appraisals. So how can this "appraisal aversion" be changed? Here are 8 tips for people who are looking for an alternative: Separate discussions on pay and performance ere must be a complete separation of performance communication and any changes related to compensation. When the two elements take place at the same time, people have a strong tendency to fo- cus on pay increases, not on performance outcomes. erefore, performance discus- sions should be completed before any com- pensation adjustments are communicated and approved. Budget constraints and compensation guidelines can place restrictions on fi nan- cially rewarding employee results. When pay adjustments are perceived to be insuf- fi cient, people lose sight of the other impor- tant aspects of their contributions during the performance discussions. Talk about pay will often overshadow other factors associated with working and making an impact. Know that ratings are de-motivating ere must be no ratings of any kind associ- ated with performance management. Just because there is a letter, number or word beside the employee's performance does not make it objective. ere are a myriad of reasons for avoiding ratings that include the complexity of jobs, changing requirements, a lack of consensus on the criteria, the judg- ments of others, the lack of rating consis- tency and ease of manipulation. ere is no negative impact to eliminating ratings. However, there are some employees who want to know their performance relative to others. In this case, there can be informal communication, such as "Your perfor- mance is at least equal to others where a high standard of outcomes is required" or "You can be proud that your achievements exceed those of others in our department." Organizations put themselves into a bind. On the one hand, managers want better-than-average performance but have a pre-defi ned distribution of ratings. Addi- tionally, some roles do not have a signifi cant impact on overall or departmental results. Where arbitrary parameters exist, manage- ment and employees fi nd themselves in a situation where the process promotes a negative working relationship. Know who owns the system Under this suggested approach, ownership of the performance management process changes from HR to operational depart- ments. It is no longer about completing the HR performance appraisal form. Now, HR acts as a critical facilitator. erefore, each designated department or group will need to develop its own ap- proach within the parameters of each or- ganization's overall goals and the objectives of the performance management process. So, how does HR adopt a facilitator role? One approach is to develop a set of ques- tions to help management and employees build their own unique process. Because both managers and employees lack expe- rience in constructing their performance management system, there is a set of ex- ample questions that can be used: • What information is available on the per- formance of the company and designated unit that can be shared with employees? • How frequently is this available? • From employees' perspective, how of- ten would they prefer to receive formal feedback? • From a management's perspective, how of- ten is it possible to provide this feedback? • How do employees know their perfor- mance outcomes? • How do employees communicate what they have accomplished? • What is the best way for employees to communicate their accomplishments to their manager? • How will management and employees know the process is working? • When this review takes place, what ap- proach will be used to improve the process? • What role, if any, would HR play to facili- tate an eff ective approach? • How does the process refl ect the nature of the work and management's style? For some groups, the caveat is further as- sistance will be needed. Here, HR can pro- vide performance management examples from which models could be adapted. Also, for example, there needs to be a common approach within a given department such as marketing or engineering, across a num- ber of individual managers who report to a common senior person. In other words, some trade-offs will need to be made between every leader "doing their own thing" and having some commonality within natural organizational structures and reporting relationships. ere is no one roadmap that will work for everyone. In a consultative environ- ment, the parties concerned have to fi nd a way that will function eff ectively. Case study is previous tip may be diffi cult to under- stand as there are many options. However, the following example may better explain how the process is operationalized. A group of people provide support ser- vices over the phone to customers who have bought a software solution for their business. ere are about 50 people in the group under one manager and four team leads. Service providers work independent- ly after three months of intensive hands-on training. Research has shown the quality of the custom service is one of the top three factors that matters for customer reten- tion. Every two to three years, an external research fi rm formally obtains feedback from customers and this information is shared with management. For implementation, the team leads, along with an internal HR consultant, asked staff how they would like feedback on their performance and how their results ought to be assessed beyond "If there are no complaints, performance is fi ne." ere was considerable diffi culty in the beginning as the service providers felt they had very little control and so most of the issues were not theirs. Customers rarely provided any formal positive feedback. After much deliberation, the agreed-up- on new performance management process was to be implemented, as a trial, for eight months. It included: • e external consultants' results, on the service elements, would be shared with the service providers in a meeting with the manager. • Each service provider would call a sample of customers on a random basis within fi ve business days about the quality of the ser- vice based upon an agreed set of questions. e results would be shown to the entire group every two to three weeks without the name of the employee who provided the service. No one would request feed- back from a customer to whom they had provided a solution. • A meeting would be scheduled between the service provider and the team lead within fi ve to eight months to review their individual customer feedback results. • A committee of the most senior service providers would meet every three months to determine if there were any common is- sues that could be supported in other ways such as developing an in-house online video to provide another service solution avenue. • The HR internal consultant would re- view with staff how the new process was NEGATIVE > pg. 15 for successful for successful performance management for successful for successful for successful for successful for successful for successful for successful for successful for successful performance management performance management performance management for successful for successful for successful for successful for successful for successful FEATURES PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT Separating discussions on pay and performance should be part of the process By Earl Silver

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