What?  Can you imagine your company rewarding your hard work, great results, and ability to positively contribute by giving you two tickets to the Superbowl?  That is employee engagement if I have ever seen it.  Does it really take all of that to develop employees?  Of course not.  Can we afford to be creative and unpredictable when it comes to rewarding our Top Performers?  Absolutely.

Lane Jarvis, Chief Human Resources Officer at Go Daddy.com shares some critical points for establishing employee development plans for all employees (see the video through the link below).  This is an important part of the employee performance appraisal discussion. 

70/20/10 Rule

Lane Jarvis shares Go Daddy’s career development philosophy:

• 70% - Employees learn from on the job work experiences
• 20% - Employees learn from feedback (Mentors, Coaches, Managers)
• 10% - Employees learn from classroom experiences to support their career development

According to the video, Go Daddy created an in-house Performance Management System.  At BullseyeEvaluation, we can save you development time and resources.  Our best of breed, proven Performance Management Software provides excellent user friendly functionality with a seamless implementation. 

Need to know who your top performers are at any given moment?  Employees become engaged when the Performance Appraisal System has value, relevance and, most of all, documented conversations, coaching, and career development activities to improve their contribution.

Don’t get stuck on creating your own tool.  Partner with us and you can focus on developing your Superbowl Performers!

Listen to the great story of Go Daddy and their 2012 HR Initiatives!

Looking for a system to make Performance Management a strategic advantage?  BullseyeEvaluation offers a web based solution to help shift the culture of expectations for your company. 

At Bullseye Performance Management Systems, we believe HR Professionals are operational and strategic partners when managing an organization.

Visit our website at www.bullseyeevaluation.com and let us show you how to focus on the employee relationship and not just the form.

Take a deep breath because it’s our favorite time of the year…. annual employee performance appraisals!  I think HR professionals would agree that unless you have implemented some innovative ways to connect with employees, this is not the time when HR is the most popular.  Unfortunately, this practice has negative connotations like, “it doesn’t mean anything”, “it’s a waste of time” and “HR made me do it”!  If these are common phrases that your leadership teams share, it is time to get your performance appraisal system off life support!

As HR leaders, we must believe in the performance evaluation value in order to connect this process to company success. If you haven’t made changes to your employee performance evaluation process in over three years, you are long overdue.  So how can HR get a new perspective to this critical, talent management process?

1.      Ask For Employee Feedback

Don’t be afraid to hear things that need to be fixed.  Much like product development, we must keep in touch with our consumers in order to continue the relationship.  Ask your leadership team and employees what they like and want for improvements.  Conduct a couple of focus groups and facilitate an open discussion of the perceptions and challenges.  Don’t defend the process, listen for areas of improvement.

 2.      Lead the Commitment to Talent Management vs. Appraisal Process

Performance Management initiatives must be incorporated into the overall “Talent Management” values of the organization.  HR can lead discussions with top management to replace the “old” perceptions with new language. Begin to describe your process with similar phrases like:

 “Evaluating our internal talent pool; Recognizing our “go to” players who get things done; Identifying employees who exhibit behaviors that support our company value; Know our employees who create company success through the daily execution of their accountabilities.” 

Imagine the anticipation managers would have to formally identifying their game changing employees.

 3.      Define Talent Management as a Competitive Advantage

Companies have prioritized their hiring and on-boarding processes.  They are very proud of the candidate and new hire experience.  It is time to continue those best practices to include the entire career cycle of an employee.  After the orientation process is complete, companies are at the mercy of the employee experience to determine if the resources dedicated to new hires are invested well or are the employees disengaged and preparing to walk out the door to a competitor?  What gives talent management strategies a competitive edge?  Personal development plans, Career development plans, succession planning and rotation programs.  These valuable approaches to talent management give talented employees exposure to multiple areas of the company.

 4.      Evaluate the Take-Aways from the Past Two Years of Performance Evaluations

How has your company used the performance appraisal system feedback to develop your employees?  Do you know who your top performers are and do they have a plan with their managers to take on more challenging projects?  Do you know which supervisors develop the most productive and successful employees? Last of all, do you sit down with your leadership team to evaluate how the organizational talent is performing and contributing to the success of the organization?  Are you rewarding the employees who demonstrate the behavior that drives the success of your company?

Performance appraisals host a wealth of information about the status of company employees.  Overall employee performance, strengths and development areas help the organization to know if employees are ready to take the company to the next level.  HR must be free up from primarily being a “Transactional” department to a “Strategic” leader.  Once HR processes are completed, it’s not over until you have identified training, resources and development plans to keep your internal talent.

Make the commitment for 2012 to be different.  Strike a couple of traditional HR program descriptions and use some innovative approaches to identify, develop and keep your best talent.

Performance management includes the ability to quickly identify key individuals in an organization to understand your bench strength.  Business initiatives change daily and you must know who can execute, reliably, based upon their past performance.

Looking for a system to make Performance Management a strategic advantage?  BullseyeEvaluation offers a web based solution to help shift the culture of expectations for your company. 

At Bullseye Performance Management Systems, we believe HR Professionals are operational and strategic partners when managing an organization. 

Our last post tied together how Employee Engagement is impacted by an effective performance management process. I ended with the question, “How do you engage your employees”? As I continue to do research on best practices for creating ideal performance management cultures, I couldn’t help but share this wonderful InfoGraphic from the National Business Research Institute, Inc. (NBRI) located in Dallas, Texas.

The power of visuals can underscore the importance of Employee Engagement and this InfoGraphic displays just that. NBRI highlights a couple of key areas that all company leadership needs to understand about their employees:

1.      Only 1 in 3 employees are engaged at work. Does your organization have a structured way to measure the contribution of employees and provide valuable performance feedback?

2.      The #1 reason employees leave a company is the lack of career advancement. How does your organization document career plans and identify employee resources for skill development?

3.      How do un-engaged employees spend their time? As your leadership team walks through the company building and participates in conference calls with employees, do they notice how many employees are giving 100%?

Employee engagement is an indication of “how “an employee approaches their work every day. Their individual mission can be ignited by the consistent communication with the supervisors, both formal and informal, to discuss how they are performing towards the goals and how to address any shortcomings.

Responsibilities for engagement are at all levels: Top Management, Supervisors and Employees. Everyone must have a sense of ownership to make certain the process to address questions and concerns is utilized. More importantly, a clear communication of the company goals, tasks and accomplishments provide the energy needed for the employee engine at work well each day.

Think about your interactions with your employees.  Do they want to keep pushing towards company goals or get away as soon as they can?  The leadership team makes the difference in shaping the culture.  Are you reinforcing, during your coaching sessions throughout the year, that your employees matter?  Do you look for ways to delegate responsibility to employees who expressed, during their performance evaluation, the desire to grow and move up in the company?  Most importantly, are YOU having that experience with your manager?  Many times we duplicate what we experience.

Need a great idea for your next supervisor meeting? Bring this InfoGraphic on Employee Engagement and begin the important dialogue on spending quality coaching time with employees. Imagine how meaningful the employee performance management process would be if each manager began their discussions with a review of this InfoGraphic. It’s all a matter of perspective for us to understand why providing feedback makes such a difference to the engagement level of employees.

Can Employee Engagement really make a difference in the quality of your performance discussions? Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

Does it make a difference to you?

About Bullseye Evaluation: Looking for a system to make Performance Management a strategic advantage?  BullseyeEvaulation offers a web based solution to help shift the culture of expectations for your company. At Bullseye Performance Management Systems, we believe HR Professionals are operational and strategic partners when managing an organization.

If you haven’t heard the two words, “Employee Engagement” lately, you have got to get out more.  As managers and HR professionals, we need to understand how our traditional systems can reflect one of the top management concerns today, Keeping and Engaging Talented Employees.  Check the multitude of workplace surveys today and analyze the results as it compares a non-engaged to an engaged workforce.  Simply put, engaged employees know how to make a difference every day they come to work.

So what does being engaged have to do with Performance Management……Talent Management? Everything.  The pendulum is swinging towards meaningful conversations characterized by coaching and mentoring employees.  When employees leave their performance evaluation with their manager, there are three ways to tell that “engagement” was a priority of the overall conversation.

1. The employee understands how their contribution fits in the big picture and how they add value.
   When a manager takes the time to give genuine feedback about employee performance, what they did well and how they can improve, it paints a visual goal of company connection.  Silo management is not an option.  Employees must know they are connected to each and every department, that each email they send or customer call they answer makes a difference in the boardroom.  No insignificant efforts.

2. Successfully completed development goals discussed with the employee are rewarded.
   If the previous conversation requested ways for the employee to gain additional skills and they had those experiences, new feedback and constructive comments, to get better, will be well received.  Employees will know that their personal investment in their skills and knowledge will allow them to be placed on special project teams or assume interim positions of leadership as a reward for completing their developmental goals.  They have confidence that management has kept their word.  Trust is invaluable.

3. The employee seems truly vested in company success by assuming personal ownership.
   Most employees want to do a good job and are willing to live up to the expectations managers set for them.  When employees take their roles seriously and demonstrate their drive to “Exceed Expectations”, you have a key player that will drive your company in the right direction. Employees want clarity so they can take smart risks to execute their jobs successfully.  More than my career, it’s my organization.

Think about your interactions with your employees.  Do they want to keep pushing towards company goals or get away as soon as they can?  The leadership team makes the difference in shaping the culture.  Are you reinforcing, during your coaching sessions throughout the year, that your employees matter?  Do you look for ways to delegate responsibility to employees who expressed, during their performance evaluation, the desire to grow and move up in the company?  Most importantly, are YOU having that experience with your manager?  Many times we duplicate what we experience.

As you complete your performance evaluations of your team, think about what you are reinforcing.  Remain on the effective end of “Engagement”.  Don’t sugar coat feedback, that doesn’t help.  Be meaningful, be respectful and be sincere.

After all, engaged employees are much easier to manage and that makes a happily engaged, You!

Do you have some tips on how you Engage Your Employees? – share some thoughts with our readers.

About Bullseye Evaluation: Looking for a system to make Performance Management a strategic advantage?  Bullseye Evaluation offers a web based solution to help shift the culture of expectations for your company. At Bullseye Performance Management Systems, we believe HR Professionals are operational and strategic partners when managing an organization.

Watching sports is one of the greatest ways to see a group of individuals from diverse educational, economic and family backgrounds come together for a common goal.  Winning is the ultimate paycheck, but playing smart and leaving their heart on the field makes a player hold their head high….. are there any applications to today’s workplaces?

Employees at Zappos get it.  If they were playing in the NFL, they would no doubt be in the playoffs each year.  What’s the difference?  They know how to create an environment that invites creativity, risk taking, ownership and feedback. Excellent combinations for building a strong team

Companies don’t start off on day one doing it all right; they grow and learn from their mistakes.  So what type of coaching environment are you creating as a leader in your organization? 

Great company coaches have a wonderful opportunity to showcase the employee talent of an organization, no doubt, one of the most important company assets.  If each day you manage your staff was like watch a team practice, what would it say about your coaching skills? 

Top Skills of a Great Coach

1.  Vision – A coach can watch a player demonstrate a strong desire to be a winner.  The coach knows that with the right type of drills and instruction, the raw talent is there and the player will go far.  What do you see in your employees?  Do you see their potential?  Can you see the fire in their eyes to make a valuable contribution to the company?  Everyone isn’t a star, but everyone is a team member.

2. Proper Assessment – It takes a team of coaches to run the drills and give each player multiple chances to exercise their skills.  An honest assessment of a player’s strengths and development areas puts them in the best position to help the team.  How often do you take the time to observe your employees to deliver a proper employee evaluation?  Are you willing to tell your employees if they are in the wrong “spot”?  Can you point them in the right direction when they are open to feedback about the performance?

3. Challenge Stations – In order to take players to a higher level, stations are changed to make them step up and do things they didn’t know they were capable of doing.  Coaches expect mistakes and during that time, they guide the efforts until the higher standard becomes the norm.  When was the last time you looked around to challenge some of your best employees and gave them a stretch performance goal?  Fostering an environment where employees can take calculated risks and learn from their mistakes benefits the entire organization.  Every grows tired of the same performance evaluation that says “exceeds expectations” on each category.  That says one thing, “I am not growing my skills”.  Help employees seek out tasks and projects that will develop new skills valued by the company.  Be there to clarify the expectations and techniques and your team stock has improved tremendously.

4. Builds Bench Strength – All players can’t play at one time, but all players must be ready and confident to play.  Are you rotating special assignments and delegated tasks to build your whole team?  Do you demonstrate a commitment to each team member and not just your “favorites”?  When employees know their time is coming, they can be patient.  They will execute the daily tasks with a desire to tackle greater responsibilities in the future.

It may seem a bit idealistic to believe each employee comes suited up to win every day….but what do you expect out of your employees?  Do you expect their personal best?  Do you brag about your team?  Are you waiting for the formal employee performance evaluation period to let them know how they are doing, or do you stop by at a random employee’s desk for five minutes in the morning to let them know you appreciate their efforts.  Do you have a “gotcha” mentality or an environment that let’s your employees know that you are all working together towards the same goal?  Great coaches really want the players to win as individuals, doing their best.  When you take care of the individual player, teaching respect, values and ownership to the team, the score at the end of the game takes care of itself!

Creating a coaching environment is a daily commitment, it’s a mindset of value and it works.  Get fired up, give great feedback, take time to give meaningful coaching during performance evaluations and be recognized for having the best team!

About Bullseye Evaluation: Looking for a system to make Performance Management a strategic advantage? Bullseye Evaluation offers a web based solution to help shift the culture of expectations for your company process. At Bullseye Performance Management Systems, we believe HR Professionals are operational and strategic partners when managing an organization.