More On Benefits-Based Performance Management

Our proprietary benefits-based performance management approach to performance reviews focuses on clearly communicating the benefits that can accrue to the employee if they elevate their performance. It represents making a subtle change or addition to the performance review process. Our recent white paper provides more detail on what this approach entails. Click here to download your free copy of that document.

The white paper focuses primarily on the impact on employees and doesn't really address in any detail the impact benefits-based performance management has on managers. Managers are sometimes reluctant or apprehensive about completing performance reviews because in many cases low ratings or negative performance comments have to be included and then discussed. We all know that some managers don't like to deliver bad news.

What benefits-based performance management allows the manager to do is reframe comments normally viewed as negative into more positive statements. Those statements are intended to convey to the employee how making performance improvements related to specific competencies will benefit them directly. This alone allows the manager more freedom to put a more positive spin on the behavioral changes required to enhance performance.

Of course, this doesn't relieve the manager of clearly and concisely communicating to the employee what the performance issues may be. But it does provide managers a tool that will help them feel that they are coaching the employee at a more compassionate and thorough level through their ongoing feedback and the formal performance review processes.

It gives the manager a stronger comfort level and makes them more at ease because they understand that they can consistently display a level of concern about the employee generally absent during coaching involving performance issues. Let's look at a quick example.

Suppose the manager is faced with dealing with an issue regarding an employee's ability to work well with others. A comment on the employee's performance review relative to the competency cooperation might look something like this:

"Jim has had a difficult time relating positively and appropriately with co-workers. This has been a relatively recent development. During his first year with the company he appeared to be a positive team player and cooperated well with his team. During roughly the first 9 months of this year he continued this same level of cooperation. However, over the past several months, there have been instances when Jim has had outbursts of frustration and anger during team meetings and other members of the team have reported that Jim has been making negative comments about the team and the company in general. Specifically, during a meeting on July 25th, Jim raised his voice and told a team member that her idea was "idiotic and short-sighted". And again on August 1st during a project update meeting, he sat silent during the meeting and made repeated negative non-verbal gestures such as eye rolls and shaking his head in disagreement. Jim has not come forward to address any specific concerns he might have. In fact, in a conversation with me on August 11th, he was asked if anything might be bothering him and he indicated that 'everything was fine...no problems'. It is imperative that Jim correct this negativity and work hard to become a true team player who displays a high level of cooperation on a consistent basis."

This is typically where a manager would leave things lie in terms of written comments. But benefits-based performance management encourages and creates a framework for offering specific statements about how the employee will benefit from changing work behavior. In this case, some possible additional statements might look like this:

"Increasing your level of team-orientation and cooperation will help your fellow team members begin to embrace you as a part of the team again. Having their support is important to your success."
"Being highly cooperative and supportive of others and the company will better position you as a leader and as someone who understands that teamwork is important to advancing the team and its work. Good leaders dislay cooperation and support even when they do not necessarily agree with certain things. They voice their disagreement in a professional and positive manner."
"Making your interactions with fellow employees more pleasant and more productive will help diffuse talk about your negativity and, over time, will help position you as someone who can assume more responsibility."

The list of possible benefits is much longer, but these few examples provide an idea as to how adding these statements to review comments allows the manager to reframe the negative into more positive final comments. This helps leave the employee with a more positive feeling about the comments and the ratings they support, but equally important is the fact that the manager can share positive outcomes of enhanced performance. It gives the manager a way to coach in a manner that is more comprehensive as well. Not only is the employee getting the information about what is wrong, but he is getting the information about what is in it for him if he improves. This approach makes both the employee and manager feel better about the entire process.

Yes, this approach seems logical and a matter of common sense doesn't it? Some would suggest that many managers already do this. We would argue that most don't and, in fact, many struggle with what to write as general comments to support ratings. Assistive features such as our comment suggestion tool and the benefits-based statements generator are just two of the tools that ReviewSNAP is providing to managers to create more fruitful performance reviews and to provide more effective coaching.

Self-Awareness as a Competency

We've all seen it haven't we? That employee with good intellect that just seems to irritate people and continually struggle to gain acceptance within the organization.

It's not uncommon to find employees who have had plenty of good coaching, training and help for whatever reason just flat out self-destruct right before our eyes. These are employees who have the brains and skills to do the job, but just can't get along with others or are in some way more than slightly disruptive to their team.

Let's face it, just being smart in no way translates into being a good employee. One relatively recent study by Leadership IQ found that 46% of new hires failed within the first 18 months of being hired. That statistic is certainly organization-dependent, but with a number that high across so many organizations involved in the study it illustrates that being a good employee is harder than it may seem.

Some of these employees are even great at the technical part of their jobs. But in terms of fitting in, they're a mess. So on the one hand we have a great worker, and on the other hand a terrible co-worker. I have a friend who calls employees with excellent technical skills, but lousy interpersonal skills 'organizational terrorists'. Of course, that doesn't mean they are a threat to fellow employees. It simply means they can be very disruptive of their work surroundings and more than just a little frustrating to their fellow employees.

Over the years, we come to learn that people really do come in all sorts of personality packages. Based on my experience dealing with these types of employees, it seems to boil down to very often a substantial to complete lack of self-awareness. In other words, they just do not understand how they are behaving and how much their behavior is impacting others. Unfortunately in a lot of cases these employees can't be coached to become enough more self-aware to save them from eventually having to leave the organization.

One such employee that I once had the "pleasure" of managing looked at me during a coaching session and said "I just can't help it that I'm so rude and annoying." And you know what, she was probably right. Those tendencies were so deeply ingrained into her personality that no matter how much I coached her, she could only get along with others for so long before she slipped back into those old habits and figuratively speaking ripped someone's head off. Needless to say, she was terminated. The sad part of that story is that she was also one of the very best technical employees I've ever employed.

But there are opportunities to coach self-awareness and to make self-awareness a key competency in your performance reviews. Everyone in the organization needs to understand the importance of being self-aware and display behaviors that reflect self-awareness.

Think about your employees for a minute or two and mentally rank them on a scale of 1to 5 (5 being highest) in terms of how self-aware you think they are. You might be surprised at how many of the employees need to work on their self-awareness skills.

Rough Waters in an Economy Calls for More Attention on Performance

You bet we're dealing with some rough waters in the U.S. economy. Organizations of all sizes are being affected by it and the importance of how they deal with performance of employees becomes magnified in tough times.

But what do most organizations do? They cut staff and cut programs designed to enhance performance. One could argue that the single most important thing that can be done when times are difficult is to focus even more intensely on hiring the very best people and on incrementally improving the performance of all employees.

How well employees perform during good and bad times is absolutely critical to the success of the business. And one could argue that there should be the same high level of intensity and urgency surrounding performance management regardless of how well things are going financially. Who in their right mind would argue that? Certainly no argument here.

Because one result of a slowdown in business can be cutbacks in personnel, that means that those who are left have to be that much more productive and that much more focused on performing overall at even higher levels than ever. Let's face it, when times are good, 'fat, dumb and happy syndrome' can set in and the level of accountability for performance at the highest possible level may not be in place.

Our founder likes to say "I don't care how good things look today, you had better prepare every day for the time when things go to ----." Sure I could fill in that last word for you, but you get the gist. His point is that nearly every business will face tough times at some point. And if there isn't a strong performance management culture in place that includes, at a minimum, employee development, goal alignment, accountability, excellent coaching and feedback, structured and well developed formal reviews, and a focus on developing a high morale, high engagement culture, the tough times will be even tougher when they come around.

Unfortunately, good times tend to breed contentment and lethargy and the commitment to truly advancing the skills and performance of all employees on an ongoing basis can slip. Then when things get tough, some level of panic can set in and irrational or knee jerk decisions can get made. Some of those decisions may include cutbacks related to employee development and performance management. Because employees are the key to advancing the organization in good and bad times, cutting back necessary activities and programs generally only serves to exacerbate the problems posed by a bad economy and faltering revenues.

Spending money on performance management is an investment. HR professionals understand that incremental improvement of employee performance serves to strengthen the position of the business thereby positioning it to take advantage of favorable conditions and to withstand a bad economy or a slowdown in the industry.

Don't fall victim to discounting the importance of a concentrated and comprehensive plan for continually moving employee performance forward. Doing so could put your company in a very unenviable position.

Manager's Review vs. Self-Review - Where's the Disconnect?

We've all dealt with employees who believe their performance is well above the level of performance as represented by the performance review that we completed for them. Their self-review comes in with extremely high ratings and glowing comments about their performance. Ours shows ratings well below theirs and our comments are less than glowing.

How can there be such a disconnect? Let me count the ways:

The Manager

• The manager subscribes to the notion that no employee should be given high ratings because they need something to strive for or the infamous "no employee is truly outstanding on a consistent basis".
• The manager doesn't have a good handle on the employee's work and level of performance and hasn't been diligent about journaling (documenting) performance "events" during the review period
• The manager is a victim of "central tendency bias" whereby they are hesitant to select ratings on either end of the rating scale.
• The manager, for whatever reason, doesn't like the employee and lacks the maturity and professionalism to rate the employee based on work behavior and performance.
• The manager hurriedly completed his employee reviews and didn't put enough thought into any of the employees' reviews.
• The manager is measuring performance against poorly constructed goals and expectations for the employee.
• The manager has a great handle on the employee's performance and work behavior, has done an excellent job of documenting performance "events" during the review period, is very objective and thorough and carefully thought through the review and rated the employee according to sound logic and reasoning .

The Employee

• The employee is a narcissistic egomaniac.
• The employee is completely out of touch with reality.
• The employee has a bad attitude and is out to make some sort of odd point.
• The employee lacks a sense of self-awareness.
• The employee has an entitlement mentality.
• The employee is measuring his/her performance against goals and expectations that differ from those used by the manager.
• The employee is making mental comparisons to co-workers who are known underperformers.
• The employee knows his/her performance falls below the ratings placed on the self-review, but he/she is hoping to place seeds of doubt in the manager's mind thinking it could sway a change in the manager's ratings.
• The employee is truly performing at levels well above those perceived by the manager and is, for the most part, accurately reflecting his/her performance.

Okay, so this probably isn't a complete list for either the manager or the employee, but you get the point. In a perfect world, the manager and the employee are very objective, very professional and have a great handle on the actual performance of the employee leading to a lot of agreement on the performance review for the employee. But we all know this isn't a perfect world.

The good news is that most employees and most managers try to be as objective and honest as possible when doing reviews. It isn't all that common that a wide gap exists between the two. But it does happen.

To minimize the impact of a disparity of any significance between the self-review and the manager's review, it is important that the manager do, at a minimum, these five things:

Document all positive and negative performance events hat are of any significance for each employee over each review period. Discipline yourself to take time to make performance journal entries as the event of significance occur. This documentation will prove invaluable in preparing the review and in supporting your ratings.

When goals and expectations are being established, meet with the employee and make certain you are both on the same page in terms of what each really means. The employee should have a crystal clear understanding of what is expected of them over the upcoming review period or longer.

Carefully complete the performance review and be able to substantiate ratings with sound and logical comments.

Forget as best you can any unfair biases you might have about the employee. Rate them based on their work behavior/performance for each competency and not on things that are irrelevant to the review itself.

Based on the review as it was prepared, anticipate questions or arguments the employee might raise during the review session and be ready to respond logically and rationally to those questions.

Obviously performance reviews are a valuable component in measuring and elevating perfomance in any organization. Make sure you've done your homework so that on those rare occasions when there is a wide gulf between your ratings and the employee's ratings you can skillfully present a strong case to support.

Is Your Manager a Morale Killer?

Let's face it...some managers just don't have what it takes to lead people. Much like the bosses depicted in the recent movie Horrible Bosses, there are people who flat out destroy morale, innovation and confidence. Sure those bosses may have been a little overstated, but the message was clear. And it isn't at all a surprise that these 'organizational terrorists' also do a very poor job with performance reviews.

According to one survey conducted by Florida State University, 40 percent of workers felt they worked for bad bosses. And 37 percent said their bosses didn't give them the credit they deserved. Even when we account for the fact that some of the respondents were likely less than stellar employees with a personal axe to grind, the numbers are concerning at best.

When it comes to getting feedback from bad bosses, both of an formal and informal nature, there is no question that the message and delivery are likely to be problematic. Imagine, for example, a boss who is overly negative and pessimistic. That boss will often carry that negativity and pessimism over to the preparation and delivery of performance reviews leading to distorted ratings and associated comments.

Or how about the insecure manager who feels the need to take credit for the work of others. Is it possible that the performance review might reflect more negative ratings simply to keep the employee down and make the boss look better?

Experience tells us that there are a lot of people in this world who have been promoted well beyond their ability. Those employees can impact those around them in such a negative manner that turnover increases, engagement falls, morale goes into the tank and productivity takes a hit.

We've talked about the performance reviews of the employees working for these bad managers. But what about the feedback and reviews of the bad bosses themselves? Their managers simply have to address the issues with their behavior and performance in a direct and honest manner. To do otherwise is detrimental to the organization as a whole. The more bad managers running around an organization, the more likely that organization is to underperform.

In short, bad bosses need to be dealt with and when it's clear they can't or won't change their behavior and/or performance, it's time for them to go elsewhere.

Objectivity Can Be Hard To Come By

Have you ever sat down to do a certain employee's performance review and felt the urge to blast them in terms of ratings even though they do a pretty darned good job? Or how about the employee you seem to have a special place in your heart for? Do you feel compelled to give them better ratings than they really deserve because you like them?

These aren't necessarily uncommon occurrences in the world of conducting employee evaluations. Human nature being what it is, it can be tough at times to maintain a reasonable level of objectivity. The employee who is less likable, at least from your vantage point, can get cheated out of accurate ratings simply because your negative bias creeps into the process. On the other hand, that employee who may be a great diplomat and, well let's just say it, butt kisser, might garner more positive ratings than warranted.

So how do we avoid falling into the trap of being overly subjective in reviewing employees? The first step is to focus on the employee's positive work attributes. Do they do their jobs well? Do they bring certain skills to the team that are important to overall success? Are there skill or behavioral deficiencies that need to be enhanced? If so, specifically what are they?

Think in terms of the work they do and the workplace behavior for each employee being reviewed and focus less on whether the employee is cool or funny or geeky or socially awkward. Without question, if coaching to be a more effective communicator, for example, is needed, don't avoid going there. But don't let your perception of their personality traits influence your ratings of the employee in a more dramatic manner than necessary.

Now we all understand that there are the obnoxious or arrogant or irritating employees among us at times. The key with those people is trying to coach them to minimize those "behaviors" and make them less overt in the workplace. The more effective you are in coaching those "behaviors" out of the employee over time, the less they will subconsciouly creep into your perception and, therefore, evaluation of their work.

In short, take a step back when looking at how employees truly perform. Try your best to put those personal biases aside and maintain as much fairness as possible. Sometimes that is easier said than done, but your own credibility is at stake. Discounting the notion that you could be introducing undue bias into the process is potentially harmful to your reputation as an effective manager.

The Importance of Timely Reviews

Performance reviews are important for a number of reasons. And employees come to expect their reviews to be completed on time. When performance reviews are allowed to slide beyond their due dates, employee morale can be negatively impacted.

Employees are affected because the message that essentially gets sent to them when reviews are not completed on time is that they are not respected and the manager and organization just don't care about them enough to complete what they perceive to be a relatively simple task. If a review due date is missed by a day or two, that is one thing, but when they are missed by a number of days or weeks, that's when the employee begins to become frustrated. This is especially true in the absence of communication about why the review may be late in coming.

Because compensation is often associated with the timing of the performance review and directly with the results of the review, there is also the perception that the organization is simply trying to delay the payment of any additional compensation. Or the employee may even begin to wonder about his/her job security. Is my review not being done because they're going to fire me?! That is certainly a possible reaction.

Having a reminder and accountability system in place will help ensure that performance reviews are completed on time. Holding managers responsible for getting their reviews done on time is critical because of the potential impact on the employee and on the overall culture of the team or organization in general.

Don't allow managers to slide on this very important responsibility. If they are allowed to be habitually late with their reviews, problems with employee morale and engagement are sure to follow.

Secret of the Day - Avoid the Surprise Review

Okay, it's definitely not a secret, but it can't be stressed enough that feedback about employee performance is not a once a year event. Performance feedback needs to be well placed and timely particularly when there are performance issues.

When an employee gets to his or her review there really shouldn't be any surprises in terms of issues related to their performance. The concerns of the manager should be well known to the employee well in advance of the actual review unless the performance problems arose just before the review is conducted.

Surprise reviews that are full of concerns and issues previously unknown to the employee simply means that appropriate and timely feedback isn't taking place. And the employee is not being coached to higher levels of performance and hasn't been given the opportunity to correct performance issues. Yes, there are the "lost causes", so to speak, but they generally don't get to a formal performance review unless an interim review is completed to support termination or final disciplinary action. But we're really talking about those employees who can be coached and seem to have the underlying potential to fill the job they hold.

When a review is completed after 6 months of poor work quality, for example, and the employee has not been coached about this issue, yet ratings related to to work quality are low, a fairness issue comes into play. Had the manager discussed the performance problems months earlier, the employee may have corrected the problems and the review would likely have reflected the improvement....or at least should have. Of course, it's entirely possible that the employee would not have made the necessary corrections in performance levels and in that case the low ratings on the review would accurately reflect performance after attempts by the manager to assist the employee in correcting the issue. But the employee needs a chance to understand exactly where deficiencies exist and what they need to do to correct the deficiencies.

Managers who are engaged in the process of employee development understand that immediate and appropriate feedback is the best way to correct performance issues. Doing so also helps avoid the surprises on reviews that can end up causing more harm than good. A general rule of performance management is that performance reviews should reflect largely what the employee has already been made aware of.

Employees deserve a manager's attention and effective coaching. Stress this in your organization and don't allow surprises of any significance to crop up during an employee's performance review. For those "lost cause" employees, don't hesitate to cut your losses and terminate as needed.

It's Here! Download ReviewSNAP's Benefits-Based Performance Management White Paper

ReviewSNAP has developed an innovative approach to conducting performance reviews and ongoing feedback in a way that clearly conveys to the employee the benefits that accrue to them when they embrace workplace behavioral changes. This new, innovative approach is called Benefits-Based Performance Management™ (BBPM™). We have created a white paper on BBPM and you can now download that white paper by clicking on the image below. If you have any questions or would like to discuss this approach or performance management in general please don't hesitate to contact us at 800-516-5849 or email us at info@reviewsnap.com

ReviewSNAP Introducing a New, Innovative Benefits-Based Performance Management™ Approach to Performance Appraisals

ReviewSNAP™ announced today that it will roll out its benefits-based performance management enhancement in the fourth quarter of 2011. Benefits-Based Performance Management™ (BBPM™) is an innovative approach to conducting performance reviews and ongoing feedback in a way that clearly conveys to the employee the benefits that accrue to them when they embrace workplace behavioral changes.

ReviewSNAP has developed this enhancement to the performance review process because it has found employees often do not understand completely why they should take seriously some of the ratings, comments and suggestions offered as part of their performance review. They may hear what they believe is a concern about their performance, but often fail to make the connection between how taking those concerns seriously and then making a conscious and focused effort on changing work-related behavior will benefit them in any material manner.

This approach does not have to represent a major departure from standard performance review processes. But it does provide the reviewer with additional tools to add verbiage to the reviews and to their discussions with employees that is intended to deliver more impact for employees as to why they should make important changes in their work approach.

According to Dave Arringdale, ReviewSNAP President, “Employees sometimes walk away from a coaching or review session wondering how they will truly benefit if they make behavioral changes to improve their performance in a particular area. Benefits-Based Performance Management™ helps embed into the entire feedback process a sense of partnering between the manager and employee and provides a clearer target for the employee to shoot for to help them become more successful. It’s really about what’s in it for me?”

This concept has been under development for some time. ReviewSNAP, in conjunction with its parent company, Applied Training Systems, Inc., has been conducting research for some time on the various ways performance reviews affect employee behavior and performance. That research uncovered a significant finding in that using a benefits-based approach seemed to outperform a more standard approach to conducting reviews and giving ongoing feedback.

“Whether we want to believe it or not, people are selfish by nature,” said Arringdale. “While they generally want the employer to believe they are eager to do a great job, they are not always that eager to modify their work behavior enough unless they feel there is a real payoff of some sort for them.”

ReviewSNAP has developed a comprehensive library of benefits statements that can be integrated into the actual performance review if desired. This library will soon be integrated within its Web-based performance management system. The addition of the library and the benefits section of the review templates are expected to take place by mid-fourth quarter of this year. The use of this feature will be optional within the system.