I happened to run an online search on Google with the keywords ‘performance management trends’. Surprisingly, the search results were quite welcoming. Terms like fixing, re-designing, reshaping performance management, ditching the bell curve, transforming the workplace and more are floating around.
Today, performance management is all about transforming the workplace by doing away with the age-old practice of rank and yank. I still remember interviews I would give in the past, where the moment I mentioned my area of interest and expertise as Performance Management, I would invariably be asked: ‘How do you do the calibration exercise?’
But today, the scenario is different. When I tell them my area of responsibility, I get asked, “So, how did you manage to bid goodbye to the bell curve and do away with calibration?”
Yes, calibration is an exercise, and is famous for being branded as a mammoth, challenging one. While it is not ‘the wrong way’ of doing a performance management, the debate rather is whether it is an ideal way.
While we all talk about being part of dynamic business environments, dealing with changing project needs, keeping pace with the changing times and working together to achieve objectives on one hand, we stick to rigid time cycles for evaluation, non-editable goals, and stack ranking employees across geographies and projects on the other.
Doing away with the bell curve is a bold step that a few organisations have taken, and will be the trend going forward. In later half of 2015, Infosys took the leap by eliminating the bell curve, which stemmed from feedback received from its employees. Considering the size and scale of the organisation, the approach it adopted — to move to a renewed performance management — was surely a revolutionary one.
Addressing the concerns
So what’s new and renewed? According to me, it is about addressing the pressing concerns which seemed to hold back the success of performance management process.
Concern 1: The goals that are set at the beginning of the cycle are not in-line with what I actually do on-the-ground throughout the year
During self-evaluation, quite a few employees realise that the goals set earlier during the year and the work done by them aren’t the same. Hence, evaluation closures are delayed and termed irrelevant.
As the needs of the project change due to the dynamic environments we operate in, the performance management process should permit the addition or omission of new goals on the system, which are more relevant and meaningful to the work done by the employee. The goals that managers set, need to be aligned to the actual work done and the goal setting cycle should be open throughout the year.
Concern 2 : My performance being compared to that of my peers discourages me more than it encourages
This concern has a two layered view:
~ When you know you are being compared with your peers who are doing a different sort of work in different projects, servicing different clients, placed in different geographic locations, you wonder how the comparison can be possible in the first place — it’s like comparing apples to oranges.
~ When you know you are being compared with your peers who are doing same or similar work, have common clients and based out of the same region, you wonder why you should work together with your peer when your rating has taken a beating because he/she excelled when compared to you, and occupied the top spot.
In both these views, the employee is not motivated to give his/her best. If the performance management process does not aid or encourage one to do better than before, then it needs to change.
The idea of performance management is to motivate employees to excel and promote collaboration such that employees come together as a team and achieve joint goals . The rating given to an individual should be about his/her performance and performance evaluation should be about what he/she has done against his/her own benchmarks.
Concern 3 : The feedback I receive (or don’t receive) from my managers during the evaluation discussion makes me wonder what is being talked about
Why wait for a year or six months to give constructive feedback to the employee when you can give it instantly? If the expectation from the employee is for him/her to change the way work is being done, then feedback should be immediate. Managers should keep the feedback loop more continuous and real-time, rather than save it all for a day or not give it at all. Incorporating feedback from peers and relevant stakeholders is also part of the renewed approach.
Concern 4 : My appraisal is all about my past performance, but I want to know how I can improve and develop in the future
Often, appraisals become all about how the past cycle performance was, what went well, what fell-short, what was not done well, and so on. But the renewed performance management is about renewed focus on development goals — competency based assessment of capability and potential for future growth. It is not only about past performance but also preparing for the future.
Concern 5 : It seems like my manager can’t manage the process — he doesn’t know what goals to set for me; he doesn’t evaluate my performance with data points, he avoids giving me feedback and the system generated mail discloses my rating, rather than my manager telling me
Employees encounter this challenge of being tagged to managers who are not aware of their role in the performance management process, or those who shift the blame onto the bell-curve for awarding a lower rating. Managers executing this process in an inappropriate fashion, creates more dissonance.
A renewed performance management process will not yield positive results unless areas around enablement of, and adoption by, managers is focused on. A lot of time and effort needs to be invested enabling managers to ensure the philosophy, process, and system is well-understood. Softer aspects such as giving and receiving feedback, managing negative reactions of employees, and having developmental conversations, should be covered.
Whilst new themes emerge in the renewed performance management process, there are some underlying principles that can never be overlooked or compromised such as high performance work culture and differentiating performance. During the move to a new performance management process, Infosys learned lessons along the way and ploughed it back to enrich and enhance the process.
Moving to a new performance management is rightly considered a journey, not a destination. Being a part of this transformational journey at Infosys was not only exciting but challenging too. The greater impact of moving to a renewed process will unfold in due course, and it will surely grab the attention of other organisations, and get them to follow suit.