Workplaces are full of conversations between employees, employees and customers, and employees and vendors. The most difficult conversations are between managers and their staff because a new element is involved: power. A manager has the power to hire and fire, promote, approve for career development opportunities and approve or disapprove a host of employee requests.
Whenever one person has authority over another, honest dialogue can be difficult, especially during a power-driven process like an annual performance review. It is difficult from both sides too. Neither the employer nor the employee is comfortable doing performance reviews, so it loses its effectiveness as a tool for recognizing and motivating employees and as an employee engagement process.
Moving from Fearful Performance Review to Engaging Dialogue
Gallup research found that a mere 14 percent of employees strongly agree they are inspired to improve by traditional performance reviews. The reason is pretty simple. The annual reviews are not really designed to improve performance. They are meant to document the reasons for increases in pay or to discuss job goals. They are not good for having an honest dialogue because someone is in charge and someone is afraid of what will be rehashed or feels like the performance review is a "day late and a dollar short." Whatever was accomplished over the review period should have been praised at the time. Whatever needed improvement should have been addressed, also at the time.
Managers need to have honest dialogue with employees throughout the year if they truly want to help staff members improve their performance, advance their careers or have opportunities to share relevant feedback. The key is to assess potential hires and follow-up with periodic assessments to pinpoint the specific areas for discussion – whether building on strengths or working on areas needing improvement – and then talk about the employee's successes and needs at the time. It is the way to keep performance aligned with organizational goals and to help employees assume their share of responsibility for their engagement, in addition to creating opportunities for continuous performance improvement.
Having conversations throughout the year also relieves the stress that naturally accompanies an annual performance review. There is a psychological concept called "negativity bias." The cognitive bias says that people will dwell on negative information more than they will positive information. It is believed to be a reaction hardwired in the brain as a self-protection process.
The implication is that any situations or comments that are processed as negative get the most emotional reaction and attention, meaning praise gets less attention. It is one reason managers dislike giving negative feedback and often skim over "areas needing improvement" to avoid potential conflict. The employee thinks his or her performance is good in every aspect, while the manager is thinking she will deal with performance deficiencies later.
"Let's Talk About it Now"
Avoiding this situation is possible through regular employee assessments. First, the assessment identifies specifics of performance the manager can use to give feedback with meaning. A periodic assessment covers a shorter time period so feedback is relevant to the current work and job performance. Based on the assessments, managers can have conversations that are objective and specific, instead of a review that often depends on the manager's memory and biases.
Also important is the fact employee assessments enable timely feedback that gives the employee the motivation and guidelines to improve. It is the way great employees are hired and nurtured. A once-a-year performance evaluation with any negative information is more likely to cause resentment rather than motivation to improvement. How many employees have walked out of performance evaluation thinking, "I wish he had told me six months ago I needed to improve in this area. I could have asked for advice."
The Engagement Institute™ is a joint venture of The Conference Board, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Sirota-Mercer, ROI Institute, and The Culture Works, and it conducted a deep dive study of employee engagement. In DNA of Engagement: How Organizations Can Foster Employee Ownership of Engagement researchers reveal how motivations, incentives, expectations, and personalities drive employees at every level to engage or not engage. One of the findings is that companies that give employees new tools for managing engagement will develop a committed workforce. Assessments are one set of tools that can drive the elements of engagement which the study found are high trust relationships, well-designed jobs and a compelling mission.
Performance Dialogue Instead of Performance Evaluation
Helping employees leverage their strengths and minimize their weaknesses is the goal of a performance dialogue. Assessments drive continuing performance improvement. For example, pre-employment simulation assessment of a new hire for the call center indicates the person is strong in service orientation but weak in sales orientation. The manager knows upfront the employee needs training in identifying and following through on sales opportunities.
A quarterly assessment indicates the call center employee is improving in sales and should now work on strengthening a medium score in multitasking after assuming additional responsibility like sales. An assessment in problem-solving, multi-tasking (PSMT) can drive dialogue on specific areas, like decision-making, critical thinking and problem solving in a fast-paced environment.
An employee who continues to develop and improve and expand on job performance may be targeted to enter the leadership pipeline. An assessment to measure culture-alignment and an assessment of interpersonal style can predict success. Once selected, additional assessments can identify the development courses that help the employee continue career progression by addressing leadership topics like adapting to change, managing projects and communicating persuasively.Focusing on ImprovementThe Engagement Institute study mentioned earlier says that specific steps to re-engage employees should be taken. There are numerous strategies that are suggested, and two suggest connecting work to the organization's mission and recognizing employee contributions. Assessments are key tools for doing both because they promote dialogue between the employer and employee that is informative, relevant and focused on improvement. Talking about performance should not be a fearful experience.
By using employee assessments, the employer and the employee both improve because they learn from each other, rather than spending job performance reviews in fear and avoidance of talking about specific job performance matters. Having regular dialogue with employees does not mean formal performance reviews are necessarily tossed out the window. In fact, assessment analytics and regular feedback conversations can strengthen an annual performance review process by documenting the facts of performance and, in the process, strengthen employee engagement.
