I wrote a few weeks ago about a comment that had been written on my wife's blog.  The comment was highly encouraging and supportive.  Continuing an odd theme of my family's internet activities, I have an uncle with a photography website.  In talking with him at the weekend I was struck again how reliant we are on positive feedback.  The best feedback he gets is when someone purchases a photograph of his but more generally some comment or even taking the time to comment makes a massive difference.  We have a picture of his on the office wall and a recent visitor commented upon it and I passed this compliment on.

Positive feedback can sometimes be harder to give - or harder to remember to give.  Most of us focus on what can be improved and are never quite satisfied.  Note to self though - positive feedback whether as part of 360 degree feedback or as part of general performance reviews is highly powerful.

Brendan

Following on from Part 2, this is a look into the process of moving a customer's existing paper-based performance appraisal form into an electronic format, and the benefits that are associated with doing so.


Please state your objective...

Setting and reviewing objectives is a key phase of any performance review. Many customers find it useful to have some continuity on long-term objectives, revisiting those that were set in the previous appraisal.
In a paper-based workflow this would literally be a case of keeping the old form with the new one, and cross-referencing the relevant areas, or worse still, copying the objectives out onto the new form. Either approach is not user-friendly and saps time from the actual 'meat' of the process, reviewing and discussing the objectives themselves.
Electronically we can overcome these failings in several ways. Forms can be set up with the option of carrying over objectives of a particular type into the next annual appraisal form, or alternatively only incomplete objectives can be brought forward.
Either way, objectives can automatically be brought into a new performance review without any intervention by the appraisee or their manager, along with any accompanying notes or timescale information, allowing them to get on with the process itself.
Another option to encourage objectives from the appraisee is to set a minimum required number of objectives in each form. On paper, an instruction is possble, but online we can check and alert the appraisee if the mimum count is not met.

More to come soon.

Peter

I've heard it said so many times that nature is the best designer, there's something to be said for survival of the fittest. Natures designs that surround us are only there having fought off many other designs to be the best, granted there has been some evolution along the way.

I'm looking into the usability of our 360 degree appraisal and performance review tools and considering where our products need to evolve in order to meet the growing needs of our users, however, I'm now keeping in mind that some of our features have been around in some form or another since the beginning and have stood the test of time. So, maybe those features deserve to remain, albeit after some evolution of their own.

What are your thoughts? Are there features you just can't live without, features that are great, if only they had a little bit extra? Let us know!

David

Hearing somebody speak passionately about a subject can be so inspiring, regardless of the subject. Sometimes, however the subject is of importance and can have rather impressive side effects.

Bowland Solutions believes (passionately) in the value of quality feedback and it is this passion that has inspired the development of our performance review and 360 degree appraisal tools to capture this feedback and deliver it out in the best way possible.

Now, those of us of a geeky disposition are passionate about the software we produce, but we feed off this passion to both produce annual performance review tools that we are proud of and create the best environment possible for delivering quality feedback.

Our passion doesn't stop there though! People who believe in what they are doing inspire others, just as I have been inspired and hopefully, those administering the process are inspired by the tools they are using to deliver it into the organisation. People feed off this and, when driven with vigour, we see greater completion rates and I would hazard a guess that the quality of the feedback is improved also!

I guess I'm going to spend some time thinking about how we can make our tools more inspirational...not a small task I would think!

David

With three separate performance review projects I have been reminded of one of the great benefits of reviewing performance.  Often, performance appraisal projects focus on objective setting and development plans.  But, one of the key reasons that employee's want performance reviews is to give them the opportunity to discuss the past year and what they've done well.

There is a real tendency to skip over this - both in the performance appraisal meeting and in the documentation that supports the meeting.  But, is it too much to ask of a manager that they take a bit of time to review what has gone well and give praise where it is due?

In a recent exercise on working out the employee objectives for a performance appraisal process there was a passionate argument from those contributing to ensure that the opportunity to talk about what went well in the day-to-day job in the past year was recorded and valued.  To my own discredit it took a number of people saying this for the message to get home properly.

Brendan

Our performance appraisal white paper is now available. 

The white paper offers our thoughts on the options that are open to you as you look to implement performance appraisals within your organisation.  Rather than a prescriptive or opinionated view of what you should do the paper accepts that each organisation has different needs of the performance review process and simply looks to give our experience of what works well and the options you should consider.

You can access your copy of the paper by visiting this link.

Brendan

I have recently been investigating the functionality of our online 360 degree appraisal and performance review tools. We're looking into ways in which we can improve the overall process. This led me to question "What are we trying to do?".

At Bowland Solutions, we live and breathe annual performance reviews and 360 degree feedback, all day, every day. It would be wrong to think that most of our users do the same, though it can be all too easy to forget this. For the average user,  the quality is not in the system, but in the feedback they receive. So, to answer my own question, the goal of our online feedback tools is to get out of the way and allow the users to leave quality feedback unhindered and deliver this feedback to the recipient in a clear, concise manner.

With that in mind, maybe the question itself is wrong? Maybe it should be "What are we trying not to do?".

I'll keep you posted on my research in this area, but if you have any ideas or feature requests for either our 360 feedback or performance appraisal tools then feel free to drop us an email, we really do value the feedback!

David

I just read this blog post on 360 feedback that broadly concludes that it is a waste of time. 

I generally like posts like these because they make me challenge my own thinking.  But then, the first part says that 360 only confirms the manager's original prejudices.  Frankly that is simplistic nonsense.  First, 360 is for the recipient, not the manager.  Second, 360 normally challenges all readers of the report : the recipient, the debriefer, and of course the manager.  Finally, if a manager does have incorrect prejudices what do we advocate - ignore them and hope they go away.

The second point is worse.  It suggests that people should just be left be - hoping that their moment will arrive.  360 feedback isn't about driving people against hard targets and trying to get star performance every minute of the day - it is about looking at how people work and encouraging them to reflect on their behaviours.  Talking to people about how things are going, looking at the impact their behaviour has on others and developing them is a good thing surely?

And, why it challenges diversity is beyond me.  I can see a theoretical problem: we generate identikit employees by reviewing all the same behaviours, but really in practice I can't think of any instance because people are not identikits.  How they interpret a particular behaviour, respond to it, and look to deliver it is very different. 

I'll assume that this was just a controversial post to illicit interest - if so, then it worked on me.  If not, then I'll just move on.

Brendan

Performance related pay is an emotive topic.  It is sometimes argued that if you want to make performance appraisals really difficult then you should link them to pay.  But many people feel that linking pay to performance is just plain fair.  We often contribute to our client's discussion on these topics but we have to be very pragmatic here and work with our clients on their goals.

So, I started to draw up 4 outcomes that we could judge a performance related pay (PRP) implementation against.  That way, when we are working on a performance review implementation with a client - we at least have some objective measure.  This is what we came up with

• The PRP should lead to individuals motivated to achieve targets that will improve the organisation and meet the organisation strategy (it should deliver)
• The correct people should get the correct rewards (it should be fair)
• The PRP process should be efficient and deliver the benefits without using up those benefits in increased administrative burdern (it should be cost effective)
• The process should be robust and stand scrutiny from external parties particularly on equality (it should be legally sound)

I believe this is a great checklist for anyone looking at PRP.  It has become part of soon-to-be-published performance appraisal white paper.  If you want to receive a copy of that white paper please contact us via the blog our our website and simply subscribe to the newsletter.

Brendan

I've been working on analysing how our various marketing channels work for us.  It was a great reminder of the need to measure everything!  Its all very well having a feel for it, but a bit (or a lot) of data is very very useful.  The next trick of course is to have that data in an organised, simple, to-hand format that you can readily review and make decisions from.

Not hard to see the parallels with 360 degree feedback or performance review.  If I would like to discuss performance or development of an individual, some data (not necessarily numerical) is a great starting point.  Gut feel only gets you so far.

The work coincided with handing over a draft competency framework to a client.  We're putting a lot of effort in to asking the right questions of the client's managers.  They'll be using the framework specifically for a 360 degree appraisal process and it will be more than helpful if we get the measurement framework right first.

Brendan

Probably the most common section on a performance appraisal form is an objectives section.  Normally in two parts - review of past year, and setting of new objectives - and designed to get targets set against which the next appraisal can be assessed, I would say 90% of forms we see have this section.  But why?  A previous post on goal setting gives the background to how this section came to pass but we find a number of roles for which objective setting doesn't work that well.

There are two main categories of role that don't fit to the objectives structure.  First, are constant repetitive jobs.  Call centres, manual workers, programmers.  Most of these roles have their objectives built into the day-to-day role.  The objective is to do the day-to-day job correctly.  These jobs are better assessed by competence (can I do it) and key indicators (did I do it).  Objectives are useful for people who have a wider role within the organisation or have project work as part of their remit - which could of course include some of the examples I have given.

The second category is fast moving industry roles.  I once ran a call centre operation.  While I had an objective to answer 95% of calls within 15 seconds, frankly that was an hourly task not something I could achieve over a year - it was my job, not an annual objective.

I would rather see regular competency and indicator based assessments than force in an objectives section where it doesn't fit.  The key aim is to use the performance appraisal process to help people understand how they are performing, give guidance on improvement, and generate development plans that can be supported and implemented.

Brendan

One of my professors on my MBA was very concerned by managerialsm.  He had an ingrained suspicion of managers dictating what people should do.  He was scathing  on the topic of managers driving people's behaviours.  I always suspected that he saw much of what happened in business as a necessary evil.

One interesting area is the assessment of values during a perfomance appraisal - is the individual exhibiting the desired behaviours of the organisation?  The managerialistic concern is that the organisation is trying to impose its behaviours on its people.  Some indentikit indivual is turned out with individualism frowned upon and positively discouraged.

In theory I share the concern.  Diversity is beneficial both as a public good and to an organisation.  Identikit thinking leads to mediocrity.  That said, most organisations espouse a set of values that most people can sign up to.  So, as part of the performance appraisal session it strikes me as a reasonable topic of conversation.  Indeed, should a manger feel that an employee is actiing in a manner that is outside of the values or is causing problems for others due to their behaviour then it is incumbent on them to raise the issue.  The trick is to ensure the values are not a straight jacket.

At an organisation level it is useful to know where the values are less embedded than elsewhere.  Training courses around values when done properly can ensure that the appropriate culture for that industry and this organisation are developed.

So, while I shared some of my former professor's concerns, my practical experience with performance reviews is that including a values section is useful for all concerned.

Brendan

Just before leaving corporate life I had implemented a new performance appraisal process and a new pay structure.  It was ok - nothing more and I was frustrated by its impact.  Not long after, as part of my MBA, I read Herzberg's work (that he wrote it over 30 years before I was making my mistakes was just a tad frustrating!) on motivation.

I know some readers will be familiar with his findings but they are worth being reminded of anyway.  Herzberg found that hygiene factos such as money, work conditions, company policy etc. would make people unhappy if they were wrong but were not motivational.  Once you had satisfied someone's pay demands they would not be motivated by more.

Instead, motivators come from factors intrinsic to the job:achievement, recognition, personal growth, responsibility.

Performance related pay offers an opportunity to create a fairer pay system - with a number of caveats.  But, it should not be seen as a motivational tool.  Rather if you introduce a fair performance related pay scheme then you are likely to not demotivate.

The flipside of this discussion is that when designing the performance appraisal process and performance review forms you have an opportunity to cover achievement, recognition, personal growth, etc.  So a well designed and implemented performance appraisal process can play a part in motivation and support managers in building a motivated team.

Brendan

One of the main elements of performance appraisals is objective setting.  Objective setting falls out of goal setting theory which states that people who are set specific, difficult goals outperform those that are not set goals at all or are set general goals like "do your best".

Where appraisal is linked to pay or where there are real consequences to performance appraisal whether in terms of tangible or intangible rewards it is of course in the individual's interest to have a lower goal that they exceed.  Goal bartering was a large part of my annual efforts in a previous role in a large corporate.  Knowing that bonuses (and sackings) were driven by whether we hit target, all directors and senior manager's put great efforts into trying to get a low target.  Unfortunately, our Chief Executive was all-knowing and master of the black arts and would invariably set a genuinely difficult but achievable goal.

If there are no consequences - positive or negative - to the performance appraisal process then it can be ignored.  If however, the consequences are strong then there is a tendency for all concerned to moderate their goal setting based not on whether the goal is a stretch but on ensuring it is achieved. 

One route around this is regular goal setting rather than annual goal setting as is often practiced with annual performance reviews.  If objectives are set annualy then in many organisations they are arbitrary.  If they are set monthly then there is excellent data on which to set the goal (current performance) and a realistic timeperiod over which to assess performance.

It may not always be applicable but it is regularly a better place to start than an annual target.

Brendan

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Clearly an outcome of our performance appraisal software is often a rating that our clients use for pay or bonus calculations.  This use of our services together with a strong personal interest in the effects of bonuses on people's motivations keeps me looking out for evidence on whether performance bonuses work and how they are perceived.

In the Observer (UK Sunday paper) yesterday there was a small article highlighting that particular government departments had paid average bonuses of £19,000 per annum to middle management.  Now the article was not linked to performance appraisals nor would you expect it to be but the thrust of the article was that in the current climate - both economical and politcal - these bonus payments were high.

The question for me is are they truly bonus payments - are they somehow linked to performance (individual or organisational) over and above the call of normal practice.  In a business, I believe it is right that if the organisation has a great year with great profits that everyone should share some of that financial success with a bonus payment.  Why should the shareholders get all of the rewards?  In the public sector this is harder to establish.  I suppose efficiency gains could be used but that appears a dangerous path - cutting costs is easy, but sustaining a service at the same time is harder.

My other concern drives from whether a bonus is truly motivational.  I suspect it rarely is.  In general people in the private sector have greater job insecurity and so higher risk which leads to some idea that a bonus in the good times makes sense but I believe it rately motivates them on a day-to-day basis.  In the public sector, those risks are reduced and a general bonus for all is less appropriate - if there is money around put it in the basic pay and then use management methods to ensure effective performance.

I have steered clear in the above analysis of individual's bonuses.  Performance appraisals often look to determine who should get what bonus but my experience is that organisational influences drive the majority stake in performance review bonuses anyway.

Brendan

Our software allows our clients to change the text within the system - and all of our clients have more than a preference about whether their process is called performance appraisal, performance review of performance evaluation.  I guess mostly it is history and people become used to a particular term.  But, just for a moment I was thinking through which one is the one I would use.

I concluded I didn't like any of them!  First I think they are all backward looking and that is only a part of the process.  Second, appraisal and evaluation are too hard - they make me, the appraisee, a subject of the appraiser.  Generally, they are limiting - not describing the whole of the process or document but just a small part of it.  

I actually like "performance discussion".  But, I suspect that is too soft and doesn't imply the importance (do tell me if this blog post sounds like something from Goldilocks.)

I'm off on a search for terminology around this document and process.  Is performance discussion the best I can come up with?

Brendan

Let's contrast Neil Armstrong, a sports person (footballer, baseball player), and a city trader and whether bonuses would work.

General idea of a bonus is that you get some extra money for hitting some sort of target (cheap jokes about bankers would be easy to write here).

But I often wonder whether they work.  I know they are nice to receive - but do they generate additional effort to get them?

Let's take our list

Neil Armstrong.  Now, I don't know whether he got a bonus for walking on the moon but I'd bet that he would have been no more or less motivated by a financial incentive.

A sports person.  Often sports people are paid win bonuses.  If they win a game they get a bonus.  Strikers in football are often paid more for scoring goals.  I've never understood that one.  Do you change the way you play for the bonus?  Perhaps in a meaningless end of season game, but really does it work?

A city trader.  Now, on a principle level I can see that a city trader's personal goals are likely to be money driven - and so a bonus is likely to motivate them.  But, motivate them to do what?  It needs to be a very well-crafted bonus system that does not drive short-term inappropriate behaviour.

I have rarely seen or experienced a truly motivational bonus structure.  In looking at performance appraisals, I'm starting to craft my thoughts on how a bonus system could work both for the organisation and the individual.  A performance review against objectives may form part of a sensible process.  But its taking a lot of thinking to really ensure that the organisation get what it wants and the individual is not manipulated away from better behaviours than the bonus is likely to generate.

Brendan

A continued research effort around our performance review whitepaper led me back to a model we work with to describe how performance related pay fits in with performance appraisals.  The model is built from a range of standard theories - Vroom's expectancy theory, Locke's goal setting, Porter/Lawlers views on intrinsic and extrinsic rewards and others.  Diagramatically it is represented as follows



The model demonstrates the basic "line of sight" required for performance related pay to work.  If I increase my effort, then my performance should increase which lead to rewards that are aligned with my personal goals.

To achieve the link between effort and performance we need : effective goal setting for alignment, we need the opportunity to deliver that performance (e.g. the external market allows it) and the ability (often where training plays a part).  We also need to be sure that our role is clear - we don't want to be doing the wrong thing!

That performance is then rewarded - either through a feeling of a job well done, or other intrinsic rewards or through extrinsic rewards such as pay and bonuses.  That reinforcement (think Pavlov's dogs) makes us want to do it again!  Finally those rewards need to be linked to something we are seeking - our personal goals.

When put like this it leaves me a little cold and has a large company imposing managerialistic processes feel about it.  But, if you are implementing performance related pay it forms a very useful checklist and model to have in mind as to why and how you link the sections on the performance appraisal form with the pay and bonus and of course why you are doing performance appraisals at all.

Brendan

I'm putting together a white paper on performance appraisals.  Together with researching it is a great opportunity to stop for a moment and think through the performance appraisal process.

Just to keep myself fresh as I approach the topic I've looked at thinking it through from the appraisee's perspective.  And drawing on my time in corporate life and experience with a variety of clients looked at what does the appraisee want to discuss.  I've come to the following conclusions on what I wanted and what I have observed others to want.

(Please note, I am currently thinking more broadly than some 1 hour annual appraisal)

• How am I doing?  I was always very self-motivated but I did want to know my managers' and the organisation's view of how I was doing
• Am I doing the right things?  I probably wouldn't have expressed it that way - but you do sometimes get these moments of doubt at work that you may be barking up the wrong tree
• What am I going to be doing next?  I hated stagnating - I always wanted to have something different to do and something challenging
• Is there any relevant training I can access?   Most of us want to learn.
• How are things going more broadly?  I always found the appraisal time a useful moment to check out how my manager was getting on, whether there were any changes afoot.

When I was in HSBC I also wanted to know my performance grade - but I only wanted to know that because I wanted to know my pay rise.  Frankly I used to dismiss the grade as a poor method of representing a year's work.

When I look at this list I notice that it is easy to fit these appraisee needs into the appraisal process.  And you can even design performance appraisal forms that hint and nudge the appraiser to give this information.

Not a bad perspective to have taken for a while - right, back to the research.

Brendan