UK 
United States
The current HR attention-grabbing headlines are all about abandoning performance management – it’s an ’on trend’ thing to believe…
“Performance Management – awful – who wants to do that? I know – let’s not do it anymore”
LET’S TAKE A CLOSER LOOK
Suppose we substituted ‘performance’ with ‘budget’ or ‘sales’ or ‘health and safety’. Would we abandon managing those things just because it might be difficult, repetitive or just plain boring? Are those highly successful companies that are apparently abandoning performance management really ceasing to manage performance? Of course not – they know they would stop being successful pretty quickly if they did.
SO WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING?
In reality three things are happening:
ONE – improvements in how we do things
A number of organisations that are already managing performance well are experimenting with ways to improve how they do it. For some that has meant dropping formal individual objectives in favour of broad organisational goals, for others it has meant stopping forced ranking of high and low performance, or changing how performance impacts pay.
Integral to most of the improvements is an overall increase in the frequency of performance conversations between managers and their team members.
ACTION - Time for a tough audit of outcomes from current processes for managing performance. Identify where you are getting the outcomes that the organisation needs, and then explore some game-changing options to the areas where you would like better or different outcomes altogether.
TWO – rebranding what we already have
In order to highlight the changes, organisations are rebranding performance management. The challenge of rebranding is that you can’t just change the logo, the name and tinker with the form. A new brand has to have a clearly defined and very different offer for the employees.
ACTION - Time for an honest assessment – have you made changes that are genuinely worth a rebrand, or will the workforce see straight through the new look and realise that there hasn’t been enough new thinking?
THREE – our employees are challenging it
Many organisations that are struggling to get managers to manage performance well are being buffeted by a whole range of employees who simply don’t want to manage people or be managed mainly due to not having management experience or skill.
These people are bombarding HR and OD teams with stories about how organisations are supposedly abandoning performance management, so ‘why can’t they…’?
ACTION - Time to engage. Managing performance isn’t an optional extra. Arm yourself with the facts about those headline changes to performance management (and not just the headlines), then get out and engage with managers. Work collaboratively to create an approach to managing performance that works for the organisation.
CONTACT 3C
If you are considering changing Performance Management within your organisation, we’d love to talk to you. We have a range of expert, proven approaches to help you refresh Performance Management and get it working well for your employees and your organisation.
Download details of one of our new development programmes for managers ‘Carry on Appraising’ here.
T: 01491 411544
