The function and purpose of performance reviews has certainly evolved over time, as shown in the infographic below, posted on Mashable.

Initially introduced with the view of trying to achieve greater levels of productivity, they progressed to become more people-centric and aimed to make sure employees were happy at work and received appropriate rewards and compensation for their work. In recent times, it has been shown that 80% of workers (in the US at least) are dissatisfied with their performance reviews. They also often feel that there is disconnect between what they are evaluated on, and the work they actually do.

Social performance management – focusing on social goals, feedback and recognition – and using a web-based tool such as Engage, is the next step in the evolution of performance management.

Does your company have a formalised and supportive process for helping young, first-time managers navigate their new role as a manager? Or do they tend to get thrown in the deep end, even though they may not have a good idea at all of what it means, or what it takes, to manage people?

It may be something that is easily overlooked.  Those that have a lot of management experience behind them may not recall how difficult they found some aspects in the beginning.  Your reasoning behind something may become automatic – you know what to do without even realising it, or having to think about it. This is what happens when you become an expert – you often ‘forget’ about the basics and, perhaps more importantly, how to relay those basics to others.

Here are a few suggestions for what organisations, and senior management, can do to help a first-time manager successfully settle into their new role:

1. Be very clear about their expected roles and responsibilities.

2. Allow some time for a ‘job shadow’ of highly experienced managers to take place – perhaps think of it as a ‘manager’s internship’.

3. Provide (or make sure they have) a mentor for their new role as a manager to help build their confidence by giving prompt, constructive feedback, and also to help them create a development plan for supporting their improvement over time.

4. Place much more emphasis on continuous feedback and coaching rather than just the initial training. As Eric Douglas says in his article ‘Helping New Managers Achieve “Flow”‘:

Do you sometimes find it difficult to get any good work done at the office? How much of your time is interrupted by meeting, after meeting, after meeting (that often seem pretty unnecessary!)? Maybe you feel like you could actually be more productive working somewhere else – far away from the office.

Jason Fried, co-founder of 37signals, gives a fantastic talk on why he believes work doesn’t get done at work, and makes a couple of interesting suggestions on how this can be changed…

This post was originally published on 9 June, 2011.

We frequently get asked questions by our customers on goal-setting, and what the definition of a goal is. For example, is a goal something that is target driven? Or is it a skill that a contributor wants to improve on (that may be difficult to measure concretely)? What is the time period of a goal – is it a task to be completed within a week? Or is it an activity to complete over a longer period of time, perhaps over the course of several months?

There is no right or wrong answer to these questions, but we can give a few guidelines on the types of goals we see as best suited to capture on Engage. First, let’s look at a few different goal types:

Target driven goals:

One example of this is to reach a certain monthly target – something that is particularly applicable to sales employees.  A goal may be: “Meet target of $xx xxx.xx by end November”. It goes without saying that updating and tracking progress on these goals is easy and objective – simply update the goal progress each time a sale is made.

Delivery goals:

This could be a task or assignment that the employee must complete within a couple of months.  For example, a quarterly report: “Deliver the cash flow report to the Finance Director, including all relevant invoicing details and expenses, by December 20^th. Also provide an up-to-date draft of the report on November 20^th.”

Operational goals:

These are objectives that are routine for an employee – actions that they must perform daily (or weekly) on an ongoing basis. Even though these goals are routine (and may even be done automatically, without much thought), they still take up an employee’s time and energy, and how they perform on them will count in their overall performance review rating. For example: “Update the company website daily with news and any relevant updates in relation to company information (eg, changes in contact details, etc)”.

Development goals:

These goals are generally focused more on long term (several months, or up to a year), and are likely to be more difficult to measure. An example may be “improve programming skills from good to excellent, under the guidance of a senior programmer”.

Personal growth goals:

Such goals may be set within the context of a mentor/mentee relationship and are also likely to be difficult to measure. For example “become a better manager and leader of other people at work”.

So there are several different types, or categories, of goals – which ones are supposed to go on Engage?

Answer – Each type of goal can be captured on Engage, and you may choose to use the app in the way that best suits you. Having said this, we advise against using Engage as a ‘task manager’ – for example: “Call client X on Friday to follow up”.  Our vision of Engage was to create an application for tracking performance management through goal-setting and providing a framework for capturing feedback, not an application for task and time management.

The team at Calibre Apps uses Engage to manage personal growth and development goals, as well as delivery goals. You may ask: “but how do you update progress on a goal like the personal growth goal example?”.

Simply remember that just because you can’t measure a goal concretely, it doesn’t mean that progress cannot be tracked. Write a note (ie, provide feedback) when a relevant event occurs that serves as evidence that the person is developing – for example, a contributor in the manager’s team reports that they acted like a good, calm mediator when a minor conflict situation arose. For these goals, there are also no rules about when and how often to update the goal progress – it can be done at the contributor and manager’s discretion.

To sum up, our guidelines for goals to capture on Engage are -

• Personal growth goals
• Development goals
• Delivery goals

Last week, a networking breakfast in Cape Town was attended by a variety of professionals from different industries, who had the privilege of listening to some words of wisdom from Dion Chang – founder of Flux Trends. The topic of the day was ‘Meeting the challenges and expectations of the Generation Y workforce’.

This cohort is quite distinct, and differs from the generations before it in a number of ways. First, it’s members are accustomed to a fast-paced living and working environment where everything happens in real-time – instant gratification is the norm for this group. Second, learning sources differ from those of their parents – where elders used to be the source of wisdom for previous generations (Baby Boomers in particular), the most common source of wisdom for Generation Y is Google. Dion Chang reported that this generation is exposed to media and information via the Internet, through multiple portals, for up to 17 hours a day – making them, without a doubt, the most connected generation yet!

Growing up in such a world has implications for what this generation prefers (and expects!) in their working environment.  They are used to constant change, and this includes changes in jobs.  On average, Gen Ys will change jobs 29 times – a stark contrast in comparison to the 3 times of Baby Boomers.  Company loyalty is not what it used to be, and is not a priority for this generation.

The priority for this generation is to have a high degree of freedom and flexibility in their working environment.  They are not as interested in the security of a traditional corporate environment.  This generation is a transient workforce who wish to work in ‘coffices’ and ROWE’s, and have an excellent work-life balance.

This being the reality, companies need to adjust, and allow flexi-time and telecommuting to take place, as many companies are doing already.

Companies should also put some energy into figuring out how to get the most out of these dynamic millennials. Here are just two starting points:

Take advantage of the Slashies

Since this generation has so much exposure to knowledge and media, they are constantly developing their skills in a wide range of areas.  They grab opportunities to try out new or different things to determine what they love before they ‘settle down’, and along the way it allows them to take up the challenge of fulfilling more than one role at work – they are ‘slashies’.  This is something employers can tap in to.

Consider mentorship as a two-way street

Mentoring is a significant part of career growth and development for this generation, and is a practice that should be adopted by all companies. But it’s not only the younger Gen Ys that can learn from their more experienced mentors. Senior managers, that may be Baby Boomers or Gen Xs, can also learn a lot from Generation Y – they are up-to-date with new technologies, have a mountain of knowledge and skills that they can pass on to their mentors, and are ready to share new, fresh ideas.

When considering today’s business world, where there is so much competition between companies to get the most talented people on their teams, this question is more important than ever before.

Lindsay Walker, blogger and Corporate Journalist at i-Sight, says:

Read the full article, where she discusses 3 key aspects that significantly contribute to employee happiness and loyalty: respect, growth, and recourse.

This post was originally published on 23 May, 2011.

Let’s hope these team vibes aren’t familiar to you!

When it comes to conducting performance reviews, nothing beats a face-to-face conversation. But the problem these days is that some people don’t work in the same location as their manager for a significant amount of their working hours. You may be based in different cities, or maybe even a different country.

Nevertheless, performance review meetings can’t be postponed or ignored – they need to be done to keep the growth and development of your employees consistent and on the right track. A plan needs to be made to conduct your performance reviews remotely while making the event as close to having a face-to-face meeting as possible. Phone calls on their own just don’t really work, do they?

Using a web-based system for performance management, in combination with a simple screen sharing app, alleviates some of the challenges around doing remote performance reviews.  All you need to conduct a valuable and informative performance review meeting is the following:

• Engage
• A phone line, and
• A screen sharing app, such as join me

Although this is not technically a ‘face-to-face’, it is almost as if the manager and contributor are in the same space and both are able to fully participate in the review meeting. Maybe you don’t have a phone line available – but that’s not a problem because join me lets you chat and make calls too:

We all know that giving and receiving feedback is an essential part of performance management, as well as personal growth. But what if feedback is irrelevant? What if it isn’t helpful or, worst of all, is just down-right confusing? Here are 5 tips to help get you on track with your feedback…

1. Relevance

Make sure the feedback you give is relevant to the work or goal in question.  If you are giving feedback for goal X, don’t consider how the person performed on goal Y.

2. Context-specific

Make sure you fully understand the context in which the person is working.  It is possible that their performance has been hindered by something out of their control. Worst case scenario: If the context isn’t considered, it could lead to an employee feeling unfairly criticized.

3. Give examples

If you feel an employee can do something better or differently, provide them with specific examples so they are well guided on how they can improve.

4. Be thorough

Think through your feedback carefully.  If feedback is poorly constructed or unclear, it could easily serve as a ‘de-motivator’ for an employee.  Being thorough could also help you avoid the following scenario: You suddenly realise that 2 weeks ago, Suzie could have done X much better, but you only gave her praise because you hadn’t thought through the situation properly – and now you can’t exactly ‘change’ your feedback.  Consistency is key – if you aren’t consistent, it could decrease your credibility as a manager and cause employees to not take your future feedback seriously.

5. Have a dialogue

Be willing to have an open and honest dialogue around the feedback.  Consider the possibility that your employee disagrees with your feedback. Make sure they know they’re allowed to voice their opinion. If an employee doesn’t agree with your feedback, or doesn’t understand where it has come from, tension could build, performance probably won’t improve and, most importantly, your employee could become increasing dissatisfied and despondent.

In his article ‘Do You Know How to Give Constructive Feedback… So It’s Actually Constructive?‘, David Lee provides us with a fantastic example of how unhelpful feedback can lead to unwanted consequences…

This post was originally published on 27 May, 2011.

A question so many people would like the answer to: How can I be lastingly successful?

Marcus Buckingham asked this question, and has done extensive research to find the answer. He came to realize that people who are the best of the best, no matter what their profession is, have a particular similarity – they all build on their strengths and manage around their weaknesses: