It’s well documented that employees, managers and HR pros believe that the annual performance review is a waste of time – they’re too generic and vague, not timely enough, and in the end they’re often simply seen as an admin task that doesn’t add any real value to either employees themselves, or the organisation as a whole.

In a recent article for HBR, Eric Mosley notes the problems with the current state of annual performance appraisals, and suggests a different model for performance management that is socially driven:

Of course, in this particular situation, ‘crowdsourcing’ simply refers to the idea of each employee gathering information and getting feedback from multiple people who they work with on a regular basis. These are the people who can really see how hard the employee is working and what they are achieving. In traditional performance management, where the review is conducted by the manager (or HR) alone, there is just a single, narrow view that the employee’s performance is being based on, and this can often be inaccurate.

But perhaps the main question is: how can this be done effectively from a practical perspective? There are many tools and applications available for tracking employee progress and performance, one of which is Engage, which specifically allows for the gathering of feedback in realtime, which is of course the key to continuous improvement for employees.

And it’s not only managers that have access to provide feedback – anyone can be asked to provide feedback, from team mates, to colleagues in a separate department, to customers and clients, so the idea of ‘crowdsourcing’ performance management is covered.

Click through to read Eric’s full article, ‘Crowdsource Your Performance Reviews‘, where he also discusses several business and managerial benefits of gathering recognition and feedback from multiple sources.

When it comes time to conduct performance reviews, do you feel you have the knowledge and data about your employees to allow you to give a thorough evaluation of their true performance? Or are you, and the employee, not really sure what you are measuring their performance against, leading the review to be vague, focused only on the last couple of weeks, and generally unhelpful?

To overcome this, one must acknowledge that an effective performance management process takes work.  Managers and employees alike need to be prepared when it comes to performance reviews, and these 5 steps will help in getting there:

Set targets

Set clear, objective, SMART goals for employees to work toward.

Include employees in setting targets

Get employees’ input, making the goal setting collaborative. When people have a say in what their goals are, they will take ‘ownership’ and responsibility for the achievement of those goals.

Track progress

Do this as regularly as possible, and take action if there is anything out of an employee’s control that is hindering their performance. Also make sure that they have all the resources necessary to achieve their goals.

Give feedback

This should also be done as regularly as possible. Realtime feedback allows employees to modify and improve their behaviour immediately, rather than waiting until their performance review or next big meeting for constructive feedback on what they should be doing differently.

Have employees rate themselves

Asking employees to do this requires them to be proactive about their achievements and performance, and to think honestly about how they can improve. The idea behind this is that employees should be accountable for their own development and their own careers, with the help and support of their managers.

Take the time to read more on these steps in the article ‘6 Steps to Move from Perception Management to Performance Management’ by Mehul Mehta and Lawrence Polsky.

This post was originally published on 17 August, 2011.

It’s no secret that our team advocates the idea of replacing the annual performance review with more regular, frequent and meaningful feedback and conversations between employee and manager. John Hollon recently wrote an article on this topic, where he excellently describes why the performance review meeting is not the most important conversation. Here’s what he had to say:

He also quotes Jason Lauritsen, and HR Pro and management consultant, to reinforce his point:

Lauritsen is certainly making a valid point here, as we know there is evidence that timeous feedback – or ‘feedback loops’ – essentially give people continuous opportunities to learn and improve.

Unless you’ve been living in a hole over the last several years, you’ll know that social media and social tools are a significant part of our daily lives.  They have certainly impacted on how we communicated with each other in various ways.

But it’s not only having an effect on the social, non-work side of our lives, it is impacting on the work side of the equation too – in the area of performance management in particular:

1. We’re willing to share how we’re doing virtually. We are becoming accustomed to sharing how awesome or bleak we’re feeling with our friends via Facebook, Twitter, our blogs, etc.  Millennials in particular feel more comfortable doing this, and the situation isn’t any different at work. Employees are likely to feel a bit more brave about sharing how they’re doing through an online tool, rather than having to approach their manager to bring up something that’s concerning them.  Social tools that allow for this open more transparent communication channels between employees and their managers, so these tools become a great starting point for having those conversations that are difficult to have.

2. Annual performance reviews are going out the window. Today’s working environments are fast-paced and ever-changing. The need to adapt quickly is paramount, and tools that facilitate the capturing of regular feedback have become very important. Feedback needs to be given as and when an event occurs, so that people can learn from their mistakes and triumphs continuously. The adoption of social tools in the area of performance management is a great opportunity to truly develop employees on an ongoing basis.

3. More effective management of remote workers. Managers need to easily be able to keep in touch and up to date with what’s going on with their employees who are working offsite, or from home.  The virtual workforce is growing, so tools that allow for simple and efficient performance and goal-related exchanges have become valuable assets to organisations – and they also make it easier to collaboratively conduct remote performance reviews.

These social tools certainly do not replace face-to-face performance conversations, but they do stimulate them.  But most importantly, they facilitate the easy and continuous capture of feedback, which is the key element for teams and individuals to stay on top of their work, and to remain ahead of the pack through constant learning and development.

Doug Conant was the President and CEO of The Campbell Soup Company for more than 10 years. In his time there, the company radically improved their employee engagement levels.

When he arrived at the company in January 2001, there was one disengaged employee for every 2 engaged employees.  By the time he left in July 2011 there, was one disengaged for every 17 engaged employees.

So what was the secret recipe for this spectacular turn around? He discusses it in the video below:

Key points:

1. Declaring yourself. People are not ‘mind readers’ – managers must clearly communicate intentions to everyone in their teams.

2. Deliver on what you declare. If this doesn’t happen, employees will lose trust in management and engagement levels are certain to drop.

3. The hand-written notes. On a daily basis, Doug personally wrote 10 to 20 hand-written notes to employees to acknowledge and celebrate their successes.

Kimberly Roden writes an excellent three part series post on why annual performance appraisals should be chucked out of the window forever. She points out the issues that make the current ‘annual performance review system’, that so many companies still have, a waste of time.

For one thing, the ‘forms’ used are all wrong.  Employees, with their various human complexities and varying roles, can’t simply be rated against a traditional, pre-determined evaluation form. It’s more complicated than that.

In terms of fixing it, she first advises that short, one-on-one meetings between employee and manager happen on a regular basis – at least every month, but preferably every 2 weeks. Having these frequent conversations will be very beneficial for three reasons:

1. Conversations around performance become easier with practice. If you dread giving employees constructive criticism, forcing yourself to do it more often will make it easier as time goes by. You’ll also become better at effectively communicating the points you’re trying to get across – practice makes perfect!

2. More frequent feedback means performance can be improved immediately, rather than only in seven, eight or nine months time when you have the annual review meeting. And that is even if you remember to give that feedback, or if it is still relevant.

3. In all probability, the necessity to give tough love will diminish if feedback is kept frequent. Additionally, if you stick to regular, short meetings it provides greater opportunity to praise employees for work they are doing well, and reinforce the positives. This won’t happen as frequently with an annual review process.

Remember that having frequent one-on-one conversations is great, but it’s even greater if there is a way to quickly and easily record or make a note of the conversation that took place. Adopting a real-time performance management application for this purpose will ensure that no feedback or progress will go unnoticed, and will be a valuable tool for both individuals and teams.

The second piece of advice for moving away from the traditional annual appraisal system, is to strive for the greatest objectivity possible in the performance management process. Often, a single annual performance review meeting will be between the employee and manager, but what about the team mates of the employee? When do they get to have a say about how the employee has performed (or not performed)?

The first step in moving toward objectivity is to set goals that are very clearly defined, so everyone knows the criteria they are giving feedback against. It goes without saying that the best way to do this is to make goals SMART.

The second step is to ask as many relevant people for feedback as possible on a regular basis. Maybe an employee meets for their one-on-one conversation with their manager each month, but then they should also be asking team mates (as well as clients and customers, if possible) for feedback at least every quarter.

In her third and final post, Kimberly refers to “the sin of recency” – essentially, if feedback is only exchanged and captured once a year, then only most the recent issues, achievements, mishaps and triumphs are recalled. What happened nine months ago is forgotten. This is why data and feedback must be captured at regular intervals throughout the year. This can be considered the third step toward striving for objectivity – it ensures that the more recent events are not weighted more heavily, or deemed more important, than events from several months ago.

To summarize, annual performance appraisals must be no more, and instead be replaced by:

• Regular one-one-one meetings between employee and manager
• Feedback captured quarterly by team mates, clients and customers against clear, SMART goals

There are a variety of practices employers can follow in order to increase employee engagement. In fact, there seems to be so much information available on the topic, it may all be a little overwhelming – how do you know where to start?

A good place is here. Below are just 3 tips to get you on the right track with engaging your employees:

1. Develop career plans collaboratively

Set growth and development goals (in addition to the traditional delivery and target driven goals) alongside your employees – show them that their role and contribution matters, and that you view them as having a future at the company.

2. Give feedback as often as possible

When employees receive constant feedback it serves as an acknowledgement that their work is being noticed and is important. Additionally, each piece of feedback is a learning opportunity, which can be very motivating.

3. Have regular performance reviews

Do this every 3 or 4 months. A once off meeting annually is too sporadic to be truly valuable. Regular meetings around performance, along with continuous feedback, will show employees that they’re on track with their goals, and that their goals are indeed significant in the overall context of the organisation. It will give them a sense of purpose.

Before even considering the best ways to give feedback, there is something else to be noted:

Giving feedback, and regularly having informal conversations around performance – as opposed to solely relying on annual reviews – should ideally be embedded into the culture of your company. Employees do need to take some responsibility for this kind of participation, especially at a team and peer level, but such a culture does need to be driven at management level.

Management can start driving such a culture, and sustain it in the long run, by following these 4 tips:

Keep feedback specific – vague platitudes (“you’re doing well, keep it up” and “keep doing what you’re doing”, etc) aren’t very helpful to employees. That feedback could be given to anyone! Make sure the receiver of the feedback knows exactly what it was that they did well and why you appreciated it.

Keep it frequent – more frequent feedback gives employees more opportunities to grow.  Using ‘feedback loops’ continuously helps employees to improve on what they’re doing right, and to learn from what they may have done wrong.

Publicise positive feedback – but only if this is how the employee wants to be recognised. Most people will want their successes to be shared with their team, or even the whole company. But some people may prefer a private conversation, and each employee’s preference should be established.

Keep constructive criticism private – one-on-one conversations are always the way to go when it comes to giving someone constructive or negative feedback. Along with the privacy, bear in mind that the employee may require further support from their peers and manager to help them improve the area in which they struggle.

So we know that feedback is important – we need to get told where we’ve done well or poorly in our KPAs to make sure we’re contributing something of value to our organization, and make sure we’re going in the right direction.

The main question is, “should feedback to our peers/managers be anonymous, or not?”. Let’s consider both:

Non-Anonymous

The benefit of this framework is that people must take ownership of the feedback they provide, and are automatically held accountable for what they say. It also encourages people to be more thorough and thoughtful with their feedback, because they’ll certainly need to be able to back it up if they get asked to clarify or elaborate.

But the downside here is that employees may be unwilling to be honest if they have negative feedback to share, even in the form of what may be just mildly negative ‘constructive criticism’ – let’s be honest, no one really likes to give negative feedback to someone’s face, right? So the problem is that there is the potential for these difficult conversations to be skipped over, and real progress can be hindered as a result.

Anonymous

On the other hand, perhaps people are more willing to be critical when they know that the receiver won’t find out who they are? This could be good, as it means someone may be more likely to get constructive criticism when it’s deserved.

But, what if it isn’t deserved? There are some rude interesting people out there who will take an opportunity to be unnecessarily harsh if they can.  Or perhaps they just don’t like their boss/peer – so they use their anonymity for the wrong reasons, and give unwarranted negative feedback. (Just have a look at anonymous comments on various youtube videos, or blog posts – often completely contrary and disparaging, I’m sure you’ll agree.)

To conclude…

The problem with anonymous feedback is that it has a greater capacity to be destructive, rather than constructive. Perhaps this is a cynical viewpoint, but when people are obliged to take ownership of feedback, while also being encouraged to be honest and thorough, it will surely be more valuable.

The key is to communicate the value of open and constructive feedback to everyone, and make sure everyone knows how to give it.

This post was originally published on 30 August, 2011.

Feedback – specifically realtime and 360-degree feedback – is a fundamental part of Engage. Our aim is to provide contributors with a tool that enables them to gather information about their performance on a continual basis.  The idea is that constant feedback provides constant opportunities for people to improve, and always be moving closer to achieving their goals at work.

Another way to describe this, is that Engage facilitates the use of feedback loops. Thomas Goetz, executive editor of Wired, says the basic idea is simple:

The use of feedback loops should not be underestimated, and here’s why:

Read the full article by Thomas, ‘Harnessing the Power of Feedback Loops’.

This post was originally published on 20 June, 2011.