How To Get All You Can Out

Of Your Employees Essay, Research Paper

Imagine you are the CEO over thousands of employees whom you depend on to make your business successful. Would you be satisfied if all of your employees did just a satisfactory job, just enough to get by? Probably not, you most likely would want the peak performance out of each employee, which would maximize the efficiency of the business. However getting people to do what you want them to do can be difficult. One way to improve the performance of your employees would be to implement a performance management program.

As the CEO you should first think of your current or past efforts to increase performance in your company. You should ask yourself a few questions. (1) Do you have a performance management system in place in your company already; and if so how effective has it been to date? (2) To what degree could employees improve their performances and maximize their productivity if they had the right training and performance interventions. (3) Are all employees motivated to perform at their peak at all times? If not, why or why not? (4) Do all the employees possess the proper and necessary skills to dazzle and delight customers at all times? (5) How much would productivity increase if employees were more motivated and experienced less job stress? And (6) how much would productivity and performance improve if you could identify the behaviors and mental strategies of your star performers and then transfer them to your other employees to make each of them star performers in their own right? Answering these questions first can give you an idea of whether you need a HRD program to enhance performance, and if so what the program should focus on.

A performance management program is a system that is created and implemented to ensure the employee performance required by the organization is identified, selected, developed and rewarded. It is a systematic approach to identifying the performance levels required of employees to help companies meet their organizational goals and objectives; then creating and implementing programs that close identified performance gaps and ensure measurable performance improvements and lasting behavioral changes so the business goals are achieved that help companies achieve their business goals. A performance management program is used for creating an implementing programs that close identified performance gaps and ensure measurable performance improvements that uses gap analysis, performance profiling, and behaviorally enhanced skills training to create measurable performance improvements, lasting behavioral changes, and help people and companies achieve their goals.

There is a distinct process in coming up with a performance management program that must be followed to ensure its effectiveness.

* Identify goals and objectives.

*Identify factors that affect performance, such as work environment, hours and compensation.

*Describe the current performance state in terms of behavioral preferences, motivational tendencies, mental strategies and technical skills that are required.

*Describe the current performance level in quantifiable terms.

*Describe the desired performance level in quantifiable terms.

*Describe the desired performance state in terms of behavioral preferences, motivational tendencies, mental strategies and technical skills that are required.

*Describe the performance gaps and the causes of those gaps.

*Describe the behaviors needed to close those gaps and achieve the desired performance state.

*Describe the evidence and results of a successful implementation.

*Create and implement a behaviorally enhanced skills training program that will help the person or people achieve the needed behavioral skills, motivational tendencies, mental strategies and technical skills to perform at the higher level.

Following this simple process will maximize productivity by turning ordinary performers into extra ordinary performers. Which in turn will cause increases in sales, customer retention rates, customer repurchase rates, employee motivation and morale, ability to perform under pressure, and greater organizational value to stakeholders.

The issue of a performance management program in organizations has been both a boost and a bust. While many senior managers extol its virtues and the potential benefits the organization will accrue from an effective performance management program, such as increased productivity and greater employee retention, many of the line managers never get to see it work. In fact, some managers and supervisors don’t even know their company has a performance management program in place. Others have never been trained on the concepts and procedures so they view the process as tedious and just another interruption in their already busy day. Still others believe that the dreaded performance appraisal process is their performance management program. These are just some of the reasons companies are not getting the results they desire from their performance management programs.

I believe there are other reasons for these failures and they have to do with the traditional focus of performance management programs. Current programs focus on human resources issues such as selection and recruitment, job descriptions, standards of performance, performance appraisals and feedback, goal setting, coaching, the work environment, and incentives. No one doubts the importance of these factors in fitting the right person to the right job and hopefully getting that person to do the job better. But there is still something missing from this approach.

Let?s take a look again at the list of things most companies include in their performance management programs: job descriptions, standards of performance, appraisals, compensation, incentives, etc. The list includes activities and processes with very few end results. There is something missing here.

What the typical approach leaves out is attention to the person, the individual, and the performer. In order for a performance management program to truly work and be totally effective, we must first focus on the person. We must pay attention to everything the person brings to the job: motivations, desires, knowledge, skills, abilities, ( KSA.s) performance strategies, behaviors and attitudes. After all how can you improve a person?s performance by trying to influence everything around the person without working directly with the person? When you look at it this way the traditional approach seems lacking doesn?t it? A human being must be treated like a person , not an object, in order to flourish in an organization. Yes, the traditional components of a HRD program is needed, but without getting in touch with the individual, working directly with them, the program will fail. Let?s take two new born babies for example. Of course we know all babies need the essentials such as food, water, sleep, and exercise. If you give one baby the bare essentials sure it will survive, but if you give the other baby the essentials plus spend time with the baby and show that the baby is cared for the baby will develop quicker than the baby who is just given the bare essentials. So you see it is just part of human nature that if attention is given to an individual that individual will be more productive.

Performance management programs have been applied throughout all levels of sports and athletics for years. The teams with the best programs are the ones that win. Take the Chicago Bulls basketball team of the nineties for example. Phill Jackson as head coach implemented a program that led the Bulls to six world championships, then he took his program to the Los Angelos Lakers and has already won a championship there. Another example of a great performance management program is Florida State University?s football team under the head coach of Bobby Bowden who also has been dominant in the nineties. Here, the focus is on the psycho behavioral aspects and mental strategies of performance as they relate to the performer and the performance requirements (job competencies). In the business world as in the sports world, we must know the following about the person whose performance we want to improve:

*Initial skill set related to current performance objectives.

*Desired skills set related to elevated performance objectives.

* Behavioral preferences of the performer.

*Motivational tendencies of the performer.

*Information processing strategies of the performer.

*Mental performance strategies.

*Performance gaps between star performers and average performers.

*Training requirements to improve performance and close performance gaps.

*Relationship between the performer?s personal goals and the company?s goals.

*Relationship between the performer?s activities and the feedback received.

When we have this information, we can expand the standard human resources-based models of performance management programs being used today. This allows us to account for the job itself, the work environment and the performer?s personal characteristics to better match the person to the task they are to complete. In sports, players are trained to perform at certain positions based on both physical and mental characteristics. In business, there is often a tendency to focus on the physical and technical skills of job performance and neglect its mental aspects and psycho behavioral requirements. Yet we all know that it is the attitude and intrinsic motivation a person brings to the job that often affects skill levels and determines the level of performance. Why else, to use another sports analogy, would a high motivated team with inferior skills upset a demotivated team with superior skills? The answer lies within the performer. Specifically, the mental strategies and tactics that performer uses to engage in the activity account for the unexpected result and the high level of performance.

Here is the approach that should be followed when starting a performance management program. You should review the job descriptions and standards of performance, then conduct the typical competency-based gap analysis and identify areas for improvement. You should also identify the star performers and the average/poor performers. Then, you should focus on the psycho behavioral aspects of each individual?s performance, compare that to the same aspects of one of your star performers or the skill set that is needed to perform at a higher level, and create the appropriate training programs to help people achieve higher levels of performance.

Following these guidelines will help create a comprehensive performance management program for the organization that improves performance, maximizes productivity, and turns your ordinary performers into extraordinary performers. This is what you must do about performance management and how you must go about it in order to make performance management work.

References

1.

Lynch, Daniel C. Historical Evolution. In Internet System Handbook http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0201567415/acmcrossroadsstu. Daniel C. Lynch and Marshall T. Rose, eds. Addison- Wesley Company, Reading, Massachusetts, 1993.

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Wiggins, Richard W. The Internet for Everyone: A Guide for Users and Providers http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0070670196/acmcrossroadsstu. McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, 1994.

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Dern, Daniel P. The Internet Guide for New Users. McGraw- Hill, Inc., New York, 1994.

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Zakon, Robert. Hobbes Internet Timeline v1.3a. Published electronically: available at http://www.amdahl.com/internet/events/timeline.html.

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Leiner, Barry M. Globalization of the Internet. In Internet System Handbook Daniel C. Lynch and Marshall T. Rose, eds. Addison-Wesley Company, Reading, Massachusetts, 1993.

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1.

Lynch, Daniel C. Historical Evolution. In Internet System Handbook http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0201567415/acmcrossroadsstu. Daniel C. Lynch and Marshall T. Rose, eds. Addison- Wesley Company, Reading, Massachusetts, 1993.

2.

Wiggins, Richard W. The Internet for Everyone: A Guide for Users and Providers http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0070670196/acmcrossroadsstu. McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, 1994.

3.

Dern, Daniel P. The Internet Guide for New Users. McGraw- Hill, Inc., New York, 1994.

4.

Zakon, Robert. Hobbes Internet Timeline v1.3a. Published electronically: available at http://www.amdahl.com/internet/events/timeline.html.

5.

Leiner, Barry M. Globalization of the Internet. In Internet System Handbook Daniel C. Lynch and Marshall T. Rose, eds. Addison-Wesley Company, Reading, Massachusetts, 1993.