Performance Appraisals – Can They Really Be ‘Stress-Free’?

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Performance appraisals are one of the most important responsibilities of a supervisor… and one of the most dreaded!

Why?

Perhaps the better question is – What can we do to remove the ‘dread factor?’

One way is to identify the five most important tips and make sure all your managers get a copy.

Tip #1 – Take time to prepare

Start by familiarizing yourself with the form and the ratings. Think about the goals each employee has been working on, the employee’s strengths and areas for development. Pull out all the examples and observations you’ve collected throughout the review period and add them to the appraisal form to support your ratings.

Plan your discussion in detail – not just compliments, but also areas for improvement.

Then, schedule the meeting and plan enough time for a thorough discussion. Select a time when you and the employee are not under pressure.

[wcm_restrict]Tip #2 – Start the meeting in a positive way

Always conduct a warm-up and try to put the employee at ease. Stress the routine nature of it and tell the employee you have many positive things to say (if that’s true).

Outline what you want to cover and in what order. Let the employees know he or she will have a chance to raise issues and be an active participant in the meeting.

Explain that appraisals are designed to help the employee know how he or she is doing. Make sure you are on the same track in terms of realistic goals and priorities.

Provide a forum for problem resolution and feedback to help the employee succeed.

Tip #3 – Plan the discussion in detail

Start with the positives. Say things like “You’ve made important contributions this year.” “I’m impressed by your performance on _________.” “You’ve been more conscientious about ________.” “I was pleased to see ______________.”

Work your way through each section of the form– use it as a tool for facilitating discussion.

Review significant accomplishments – give praise and credit (nothing is more stimulating/motivating).

Ask open-ended questions to get a general reaction. Many start with “How do you think things have been going” “Do these ratings seem fair?” “What would you do differently?”

Consider asking other questions to facilitate discussion: What did I do for you in the last 6 months that really helped your performance? What hindered your performance? What can I do in the next 6 months to help you? What do you want most from your job? Under what conditions do you do your best work? How would you like to receive suggestions for improving your work? How can I help you reach your career goals? What inhibits your best work?

Discuss areas where the performance falls short – with specific examples. “I was concerned _______________.” Focus criticisms on performance, not personality characteristics.

Don’t discuss areas for improvement in a way that will seriously disturb a good employee. The net result is to be encouraging. Identify specific actions the employee can take to improve performance. Ask for their suggestions.

Work for understanding rather than complete agreement. You can agree to disagree.

Tip #4 – Close the meeting in a positive way

It’s just as important to end the meeting in a professional and positive manner, as it was to start the meeting. You want the employee to leave the discussion with a positive impression of the process.

Ask the employee to summarize what was discussed.

If the employee introduced issues that would make you consider changing their evaluation, apologize for your oversight and tell employee you would like a few days to consider how this information might effect your evaluation.

Settle on a plan for the future. It’s important to let the employee have input. Write goals together. Make them measurable, challenging but achievable.

Offer your help. Express confidence that the two of you can successfully work through any issues.

Think about training, skills development, opportunities or added responsibilities.

Ask the employee to add any last thoughts/ questions/ reaction to the performance appraisal meeting; (“What’s been learned?” “Surprises?” “Was it fair?” “Your general reaction?” “ If you have more reaction later, my door is open.”).

If the employee disagrees with any points brought out, let him or her know he or she has the response options offered by your organization.

Share your ideas on where the dept is headed. Employees want to be in the loop.

Close on a friendly note – let them know they’re part of the team, that their performance matters to the company and the department.

Both sign and date form. Explain that signing the form merely indicates that the form has been discussed with him or her and indicate the date of the appraisal discussion.

Tell them you’ll continue to give feedback throughout the year.

Tip #5 – Remember your follow-up responsibilities

Follow up on commitments you’ve made for support, training, etc.

Begin observations for the next performance discussion with employees and record them!

Following these simple steps will eliminate the stress and uncertainty usually associated with performance appraisals. Now your managers can start to focus on making the performance appraisal a powerful management tool.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember]

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About the Author

Sharon Armstrong, author of The Essential Performance Review Handbook and The Essential HR Handbook, is the Founder of Sharon Armstrong and Associates. Sharon has served as director of human resources at a law firm and several other organizations in Washington, DC. Since launching her own consulting business in 1998, she has provided training and completed HR projects dealing with performance management design and implementation for a wide variety of clients. To read Sharon’s complete biography, click here.

StrategyDriven Project Management Warning Flag Article

Project Management Warning Flag 4 – Too Much Time, Too Few People

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Project managers know successful projects establish and maintain a balance between the elements of scope, time, and cost. Adding to or depleting any one of these elements necessitates a compensating change in one or both of the other elements; the integrity of the project management triangle being maintained.[wcm_restrict plans=”41152, 25542, 25653″]

But can a project’s scope, time, and cost elements be both in balance – the project management triangle’s integrity established and maintained – and be out of balance at the same time? Absolutely!

Resources are always in short supply. For a given project scope, the project management triangle suggests that resource (cost) shortfalls can be compensated for by extending the project’s time to completion. Doing so, however, not only has a diminishing beneficial impact but in excess will detract from a project and actually increase its costs. This happens because of the thieves of time and speed of change. Specifically:

  • work expands to fill the time allotted
  • the student syndrome
  • multitasking
  • rapidly changing internal corporate and external marketplace environment often linked to the speed of change of technology

Thus, as more and more time is added, less and less work gets done; eventually requiring additional resources. And as the time to delivery increases, changes within the company (people, processes, and technology) and marketplace (customer demands, product/service use and competitor positioning, offerings, pricing, and methods) threaten the relevance of the project’s deliverables.

Allotting too much time for a project’s completion enables the thieves of time to rob team members of their productivity and the speed of change to steal the project’s relevance. While not all inclusive, the four lists below, Process-Based Warning Flags, Process Execution Warning Flags – Behaviors, Potential, Observable Results, and Potential Causes, are designed to help leaders to recognize whether they are allocating an excessive amount of time to their organization’s projects. Only after a problem is recognized and its causes identified can the needed action be taken to move the organization toward improved performance.

Process-Based Warning Flags

  • No time reporting process
  • No process to collect time to perform data associated with specific project tasks or work orders
  • Lack of a rigorous project scope control and/or project change management process
  • Methods for monitoring project progress don’t require estimated time until task completion
  • Project management processes do not exist to or are ineffective at assessing and determining the project delivery time based on marketplace conditions

Process Execution Warning Flags – Behaviors

  • Individuals do not report time to perform specific work activities even if required to do so by procedure
  • Individuals consistently report time worked as 8 hours per day or 40 hours per week even if they worked more or less than this amount
  • Individuals record time worked from memory once every several days or more
  • Executives, managers, and supervisors assign employees to work on several projects simultaneously
  • Lack of executive and managerial challenge to time reports
  • Lack of executive and managerial challenge to time requirement estimates
  • Lack of supervisory oversight and observation of work
  • Executive indifference to potential marketplace new and existing challengers regardless of their size

Potential, Observable Results

  • Individuals often work on many projects at one time
  • Excessive water cooler time, frequent long lunches, late arrivals, and/or early departures all with on schedule, on budget work completion at the desired quality level
  • Excessive time spent on personal emails and/or personal phone calls with on schedule, on budget work completion at the desired quality level
  • Excessive, perfectionist standards applied to all work with on schedule, on budget work completion
  • Deliverables have additional out-of-scope features while being completed on time and on budget
  • Projects typically take long periods of time to complete
  • Competitor products routinely reach the market first
  • Products/Services are often outdated or obsolete when they reach the market

Potential Causes

  • Executives and managers are uncomfortable with conflict and avoid challenging employees regarding their work practices
  • Executives and managers are not engaged with the workforce and their work practices
  • Executives and managers routinely assess a person’s value contribution based on how busy they appear, thereby, encouraging ‘busy work’
  • Individual contributor complacency
  • Executives and managers underestimate competitors ability to deliver new products and services to the market

Final Thought…

The natural question becomes can a project have too many people and too little time? While the answer is yes, this is much easier to overcome as proper prior planning and resource coordination can overcome this dilemma. The following video provides an example of one such project where a full size home was built in the record time of 3 hours 26 minutes.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember plans=”41152, 25542, 25653″]

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StrategyDriven Podcast Series

StrategyDriven Editorial Perspective – Creating Event Certainty, part 3 of 3

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No event response plan is even worth the paper it is written on if not promptly and properly executed. And while an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 barrels (840,000 to 1,680,000 gallons) of oil gush into the Gulf of Mexico per day1, more questions arise about the appropriateness of British Petroleum (BP) and the U.S. government’s response to the crisis.

“A good plan violently executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week.”

George S. Patton (1885 – 1945)
General, United States Army

 
Appropriateness of Action

After persistent questioning by the U.S. State Department Press Corp, it came to light in early May that while at least thirteen countries have offered to assist in the Gulf of Mexico cleanup the U.S. government is not accepting most of this support. The countries named by the U.S. State Department as offering support include: Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The U.S. State Department notice characterized the assistance as being offers that “include experts in various aspects of oil spill impacts, research and technical expertise, booms, chemical oil dispersants, oil pumps, skimmers, and wildlife treatment.” However, this notice also stated, “While there is no need right now that the U.S. cannot meet, the U.S. Coast Guard is assessing these offers of assistance to see if there will be something which we will need in the near future.”2

Over a month later, Fox News reported that the U.S. government has accepted some foreign assistance including:

  • Canada’s offer of 3,000 meters of containment boom
  • Three sets of COSEZ sweeping arms from the Dutch
  • Mexico’s offer of two skimmers and 4,200 meters of boom
  • Norway’s offer of 8 skimming systems

More important is what is not in use, namely the world’s best oil skimming ships from Belgium, the Netherlands, and Norway because of their non-compliance with the Jones Act, a 1920’s protectionist law aimed at benefiting labor unions. While the George W. Bush Administration waived the Jones Act requirements in order to accept foreign assistance following the Hurricane Katrina Disaster, the Obama Administration has indicated no such intentions in dealing with the BP Oil Spill Crisis.3

Failure of the Obama Administration to waive the Jones Act requirements and welcome Belgian, Dutch, and Norwegian oil skimmers to defend the shores of the United States is inexcusable. Compounding this issue is the lack of command leadership being exercised by both President Obama and Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen. Admiral Allen is quoted as saying, “if it gets to the point where a Jones Act waiver is required, we’re willing to do that too. Nobody has come to me with a request for a Jones Act waiver.” As the Incident Commander, Admiral Allen is solely responsible to make the decision on whether or not to make a waiver request. He is responsible to exercise command judgment, not wait on a subordinate or outsider to provide him with his opinion or direction. With the oil leak ongoing, an estimated 39,525,000+ gallons of oil leaked4, 840,000 to 1,680,000 gallons more oil entering the Gulf daily, failing oil booms5, a marginally effective BP well cap6, and only 320,000 gallons of oil skimmed7 add up to the common sense solution that President Obama and Admiral Allen need to act now to waive the Jones Act and invite our global allies to assist with the Gulf Oil Spill recovery effort.

As with almost all events, these inappropriate actions only serve to intensify the severity of damage being done to the people, businesses, and environment of the Gulf States.

Timeliness of Action

Timely actions mitigate events and prevent the promulgation of adverse effects. In countries such as the Netherlands, oil companies are given 12 hours to appropriately respond to an oil leak before the government takes over and the oil company presented ‘the bill.’ This, however, is not the case in the United States where BP’s response has, in several cases, been inexcusably slow8 with no or delayed government intervention.

From the beginning, BP and the U.S government were slow to respond to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It was 12 days before the relief well, cited by many experts as the key to stopping the leak, was started.9 And once one well capping method is deemed unsuccessful, it is several days before the next method is tried.10 Clearly, BP nor the U.S. government appears to have been fully prepared to implement their oil spill response plans and once implemented are doing so far too slowly.

StrategyDriven Recommended Practices

Risk response relies as much upon the proper and timely execution of the mitigation plan as it does development of the plan itself. All too often, executives and managers become penny wise and pound foolish; focusing too much on the cost of the event’s mitigation rather than on mitigating the event itself. Those falling prey to this temptation typically find their organization’s mitigation timeline extended and their costs soaring.

Whether responding to an isolated incident such as the unexpected resignation of a key resource or a global impacting event like the BP Oil Spill, StrategyDriven recommends executives and managers consider the following event response principles:

Event Response

  1. Promptly execute the in place risk mitigation, transference, and avoidance mechanisms. The in place plan, conceived by the most experienced minds in a stress-free environment, cannot help alleviate the event’s negative impacts if not implemented – timely execution is critical to curtailing the damage. While executing the plan, allow flexibility to address unique circumstances.
  2. Always be looking ahead… assume failure and prepare to perform the next several response actions in parallel. Transitioning from one phase of a plan to another takes precious time. Assuming that current efforts will fail and prestaging the personnel, procedures, materials, components, tools, and equipment to executive several subsequent phases eliminates this wait time thereby accelerating the event response efforts which in-turn help reduce the overall negative impact incurred.
  3. Accept outside assistance as appropriate. Some outside assistance may be truly unnecessary, inappropriate, and distracting. However, legitimate offers of assistance from knowledgeable and experienced persons should be accepted so to shorten the response and recovery time frame and/or mitigate negative outcomes.
  4. Communicate constructively and proactively with the press, public, and stakeholders. People fear the unknown; and during times of crisis, the unknown creates vast unnecessary uncertainty. Remaining as transparent as possible by openly communicating known event conditions and mitigating actions as clearly and accurately as possible helps reduce the unknown and generates good will.
  5. Constructively assist in the incident recovery – even if the event is not your direct responsibility. As responsible members of the broader local and global community, we should reasonably assist others in the mitigation of significant events if we possess the talent, knowledge, methods, and/or equipment to do so.
  6. Seek legal counsel. We live in a litigious society. Whether the event is or is not your organization’s responsibility, it is often prudent to seek legal counsel to ensure your and your company’s rights are protected.

Final Thoughts…

For four weeks, we have commented on the failures of British Petroleum and the U.S. government in responding to the Gulf Oil Spill. Based on this example, we have recommended several actions be taken by leaders to ready their organization and better respond to significant events should they occur.

Johnson & Johnson’s handling of The Tylenol Crisis of 1982 stands as an example of effective crisis management. For a brief review of that event and Johnson & Johnson’s response, we suggest reading: The Tylenol Crisis, 1982 by Effective Crisis Management.11

StrategyDriven wishes to thank the people and companies of Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom for their offers of assistance in the BP Oil Spill recovery effort. We also extend our appreciation to the men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard and the Gulf States for their effort to contain the spill and protect our country from its harmful impacts.

Final Request…

StrategyDriven Editorial Perspective PodcastThe strength in our community grows with the additional insights brought by our expanding member base. Please consider rating us and sharing your perspectives regarding the StrategyDriven Editorial Perspective podcast on iTunes by clicking here. Sharing your thoughts improves our ranking and helps us attract new listeners which, in turn, helps us grow our community.

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Sources

  1. “BP Oil Leak Rate Called 8 Times Worse Than Earlier Estimate,” David Muir and Bradley Blackburn, ABC News, June 10, 2010 (http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Media/bp-oil-spill-federal-panel-flow-rate-worse/story?id=10881441)
  2. “U.S. not accepting foreign help on oil spill,” Josh Rogin, Foreign Policy, May 6, 2010 (http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/05/06/us_not_accepting_foreign_help_on_oil_spill)
  3. “Jones Act Slowing Oil Spill Cleanup?” Brian Wilson, Fox News, June 10, 2010 (http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/06/10/jones-act-slowing-oil-spill-cleanup/)
  4. “How Much Oil Has Leaked Into the Gulf of Mexico?” Chris Amico, PBS, May 9, 2010 (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/05/how-much-oil-has-spilled-in-the-gulf-of-mexico.html)
  5. “Containment boom effort comes up short in BP oil spill,” Peter Grier, The Christian Science Monitor, June 11, 2010 (http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0611/Containment-boom-effort-comes-up-short-in-BP-oil-spill)
  6. “BP Oil Spill Cap helps slow Gulf oil spill: Will it work?” Cheryl Phillips, Examiner, June 6, 2010 (http://www.examiner.com/x-22397-Providence-Business-Headlines-Examiner~y2010m6d6-BP-Oil-Spill-Cap-helps-slow-Gulf-oil-spill)
  7. “Containment boom effort comes up short in BP oil spill,” Peter Grier, The Christian Science Monitor, June 11, 2010 (http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0611/Containment-boom-effort-comes-up-short-in-BP-oil-spill)
  8. “Steffy: U.S. and BP slow to accept Dutch expertise,” Loren Steffy, Houston Chronicle, June 8, 2010 (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/steffy/7043272.html)
  9. “Spill relief well draws scrutiny, fears,” Greg Bluestein and Jason Dearen, Associated Press, June 13, 2010 (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37674027/ns/disaster_in_the_gulf)
  10. “’Top kill’ fails to stop Gulf oil leak, new plan readied,” The Economic Times, May 30, 2010 (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5990458.cms)
  11. “The Tylenol Crisis, 1982,” Effective Crisis Management, 2002 (http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall02/Susi/tylenol.htm)

The New Thinking on KPIs, part 4 of 4

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Removing the lead / lag confusion

Many management books talk about “lead and lag indicators” which I believe merely clouds the KPI debate. Using this new way of looking at KPIs we dispense with the terms lag (outcome) and lead (performance driver) indicators. I have presented to nearly two thousand people on KPIs and I always ask “is the late planes in the air KPI, a lead or lag indicator?” The vote count is always evenly split. Surely, this is enough proof that lead and lag labels are not a useful way of defining measures.

Key result indicators replace outcome measures, which typically look at activity over months or quarters. PIs, and KPIs are now characterised as either past, current or future measures. The new concept called “current measures” are those monitored 24/7 or daily. You will find the real KPIs in your organization are either “current” or “future” measures.

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Past measures Current measures Future measures
(last week / fortnight / month / quarter) (24/7 and daily) (next day / week / month / quarter)
e.g. number of late planes last week/ last month e.g. planes over 2 hours late (updated continuously) e.g. number of initiatives to be commenced in the next month / two months to target areas which are causing late planes.

 
The lead lag division did not focus adequately enough on the timing of the measures. Most organizations who want to create alignment and change behavior need to be monitoring what corrective action is to take place in the future. In other words if quality improvements are to happen we need to measure the number of initiatives which are about to come online in the next week, fortnight, month. If we want to increase sales it is important to know what meetings have already been organised/scheduled with our key customers in the next week, fortnight, month.

Finding the critical success factors

Most organizations know their success factors, however few organizations have:

  • worded their success factors appropriately
  • segregated out success factors from their strategic objectives
  • sifted through the success factors to find their critical ones – their critical success factors
  • communicated the critical success factors to staff

Finding the success factors and narrowing them down to no more than five to eight CSFs is a vital step in any KPI exercise. If your organization has not completed a thorough exercise to know its critical success factors (CSFs) performance measurement will be a random process creating an army of measurers producing numerous numbing reports, and who often “measure” progress in a direction very remote from the strategic direction of the organization.

Next steps

  • Listen to the webcasts KPIs I have recorded on www.bettermanagement.com search “parmenter” using the search engine on the site
  • Acquire my KPI starter kit, available on www.davidparmenter.com
  • Engage an in-house or external public relations expert to help sell concept
  • Deliver a PowerPoint presentation to the SMT to get buy-in for your KPI / BSC project
  • Start the exercise to list all the success factors and then sort out which ones are critical – the CSFs
  • Link with an external expert who can contribute to brainstorming sessions designed to ascertain the CSFs for your organization

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About the Author

David Parmenter, author of Key Performance Indicators: Developing, Implementing, and Using Winning KPIs and Pareto’s 80/20 Rule for Corporate Accountants, is an international presenter who is known for his thought provoking and lively sessions, which have led to substantial change in many organizations. He is a leading expert in developing winning KPIs, replacing the annual planning process with quarterly rolling planning, accelerating month-end processes, and converting reporting to a decision based tool.

David’s work on KPIs has received international recognition with clients in Auckland, Wellington, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra, Perth, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Tehran, Prague, Dublin, London, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh. David is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales and has worked for Ernst & Young, BP Oil Ltd, Arthur Andersen, and Price Waterhouse Coopers.

David’s recent thinking is accessible from www.davidparmenter.com. He can be contacted at parmenter@waymark.co.nz or telephone +64 4 499 0007.

This articles is an extract from his “Implementing winning KPIs” whitepaper which can be downloaded from http://davidparmenter.com/how-to-guides)