The gradual shift towards a more connected, collaborative workforce - and with it the need for key capabilities of social awareness, agility and flexibility - has resulted in Performance Management having a much broader focus. No longer purely concerned with individual tasks, and measuring output and quality, it now involves assessing the effectiveness of employees in the broader work environment.
This is happening more as organisations become increasingly aware of the fact that business performance is not just the sum total of the performance of each individual. In today’s highly-interconnected business world, the effectiveness of interactions between colleagues can no longer be seen in isolation from the performance of their overall environment and personal ecosystem - colleagues, peers, bosses, maybe even
clients - and their input to it. The more individuals improve performance, the better the overall performance of the business.
This new approach incorporates an examination of an employee’s impact on the organisation, and internal networks, in the widest sense, including enterprise collaboration, contribution to the performance of others through shared working and knowledge transfer, provision of feedback to peers, and the offering of skills and help to co-workers.
Best practice
A best practice example of this came from Microsoft (see case study) as people were encouraged to think about delivering results differently through teamwork, and seeing their own performance in terms of individual impact. This can be seen from increasing an employee’s footprint by leveraging others and contributing to others’ results, leading to a greater focus on collaboration over individual achievements.
The traditional Performance Management process often ranks employees by ratings in relation to other colleagues but this can lead to unhealthy comparisons and competition, resulting in disengagement and the undermining of collaborative efforts and teamwork. It is not surprising that these forced rankings are now becoming a thing of the past.
Alongside the shift towards the individual owning their development and goal setting processes comes a change in the way outcomes are evaluated. Instead of only checking the ‘rear-view mirror’ to focus on past performance and previous accomplishments, it is now crucial to also have a clear perspective of the ‘road ahead’. Individuals now want to know how they are performing in relation to their own potential and skills, and to their future capabilities.
With this changing focus in performance evaluation comes a similar evolution in the way companies gather input, reflecting a more hyper-connected, collaborative work environment. Employees increasingly interact with others and operate alongside (and directly visible to) their manager. Consequently, there is a growing tendency to incorporate feedback from multiple sources; perspectives from peers, other employees, executives and clients. It is already common practice for individual employees to provide input for their own performance evaluation - a practice conducted by 96% of participating Top Employers, whilst 70% of participants indicate that input from colleagues is consistently being taken in to account during the Performance Management process.
Recognition is often a good indicator of an effective culture, and 91% of participants rate the recognition of employees as a consistent, on-going activity that is an integral part of a Performance Management cycle. Peer-to-peer recognition is also key, with 70% of participants using input from colleagues as part of the Performance Management process.
Around 1 in 4 Global Top Employers also list ‘improving employee engagement’ as a core objective for Performance Management, and there is little doubt that a move away from a ranking system, together with increasing recognition of individuals and peers, is likely to help improve this area too.
Four key trends
‘Focus and collaborative evaluation’ is one of the four key trends we have identified in our Performance Management report. These four Key Trends are shaping the future of Performance Management, influencing the approach of many global businesses.
Each trend underlines a growing move towards performance being seen as an on-going process of learning and improvement rather than an annual assessment of an individual’s contribution and progress.
Download the full Performance Management report to learn all about the current trends and how organisations deal with these trends in their business processes.
