Leadership priorities have shifted following changes in the labor market and economy. Organizations are buckling down and homing in on performance management, frequently using words like efficiency and effectiveness to describe the shift.
To improve efficiency and be more effective, organizations have implemented things like task tracking and return-to-office initiatives to track badge scans. But do those activities actually improve performance?
No. They do not.
To drive performance, organizations must shift their focus from superficial initiatives to research-backed performance management best practices that work.
The trending performance and productivity efforts aren’t aimed at fixing the real problem of improving performance. Organizations say they’re concentrating on performance, but they’re going about it the wrong way. While organizations and managers have good intentions, these efforts may be doing more harm than good. Here are three initiatives we’re seeing in the market and why they’re not effective.
When the world went remote during the 2020 pandemic, organizations focused their efforts on supporting employees to be productive with increased flexibility.
When the pandemic ended, many organizations tried to go back to what they knew before. Not because the direction they were going during the pandemic wasn’t working. But because it’s what managers knew, and what organizations were more comfortable with. That has led to measuring things that aren’t necessarily connected to performance. One of those metrics is tracking badge scans to make sure employees are in the office. Which could lead to employees coming into the office for “coffee badging,” or being unproductive while in the office.
Gartner research on return to office mandates shows that performance and inclusion do not improve with in-office work. Organizations that push employees back to the office may also deal with lower intent to stay.
That’s not to say that every return to the office mandate is faulty. But it’s aimed at the wrong issue. The bigger focus here may be flexibility. When employees describe flexibility, that’s not always remote work. Flexibility can include work schedule, tasks, or teams.
During this shift in the workplace, I’ve reflected on my time as an HR practitioner. And I feel like one of the mistakes I’ve made was focusing too much on what other organizations were doing and not what my organization needed for employees and the organization to be successful.
So, while we see some organizations call employees back to the office, that doesn’t mean that return to the office is a good practice for every organization.
We talked about focusing on the wrong measurements when it comes to return to office measures. But badge scans aren’t the only metric that doesn’t inspire high performance.
When we think about measuring performance, we want to make sure that we’re measuring the right things. Tracking tasks and setting goals are different things. Task tracking is more about counting the number of widgets made in a time period, rather than setting a bigger picture goal like improving widget quality or improving customer satisfaction while making widgets.
Deloitte discusses this in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and empowerment. By focusing employees on outcomes, challenging the ways we collaborate, and trusting employees to get work done, organizations can improve productivity.
Some of this is connected back toward return to the office efforts. If we’re tracking attendance, what does that do for the organization? Does attendance equate to productivity? If we ask employees to create 100 widgets, that doesn’t mean that they’re good widgets.
Goal setting and alignment are crucial to focusing performance conversations. To do this effectively, we need to reframe the focus from outputs to outcomes. For example, professional services organizations may track employees clocking and clocking out. But is that the most important metric? Other metrics like billable hours or relationship management might have a bigger impact.
Not all hours worked are exactly the same. It’s best to look at the output of the work that’s being done rather than the number of hours someone is clocked in, in the building, or sitting at their desk.
Almost 2 in 3 employees have formal performance conversations annually. The annual performance review itself isn’t a bad thing. The problem occurs when this is a check-the-box, siloed exercise instead of an engaging, connected conversation that helps employees improve performance.
Performance reviews that only look backward aren’t set up in a way that gives employees what they need to improve. If someone gets all good feedback, that might feel great initially. But it may not help drive their performance forward. When performance reviews are not supported by data and context throughout the year, employees can feel like one wrong move before their annual review can drop their ratings.
Our research shows there’s a big difference between effective and ineffective performance reviews. And when performance reviews are done well, they can not only inspire employee performance, but also drive engagement. An effective performance review:
One organization I coached was getting a lot of pushback with 1-on-1s. They felt time-consuming and managers never knew what to discuss. It felt like a check-the-box exercise or a formal event. We set out to change that.
The HR team helped employees understand that these weren’t “extra” conversations. They were touch points integrated into the flow of work to discuss goals, opportunities, obstacles, and decisions. Once 1-on-1s were reframed, employees could wrap their heads around the purpose—to make sure that everyone has what they need to do their best work.
Badge scans, task tracking, and backward-looking performance reviews are band-aids on the real issues behind performance management. The wasted time and resources on initiatives like these don’t drive performance long term or contribute to business success.
To truly manage performance, whether it’s face-to-face, hybrid, or remote, the organization and managers need to understand what good performance looks like. They need to understand it well enough to measure and assess it. That means going back to what research says will work.
Quantum Workplace research can help guide your efforts to boost productivity and performance. What does an effective performance management strategy look like? Start here.
Managers are the most vital part of inspiring impact. They’re involved in almost every aspect an effective performance management framework.
Part of an effective performance review is giving an employee what they need to continue contributing to the organization. Employees need information to improve their performance, if that’s what is needed. Feedback helps employees understand where they stand.
Organizations tend to focus a lot on the manager to coach employees. But often, managers themselves don’t always know enough details or aren’t trained well enough to effectively coach employees to higher impact. Organizational leaders and HR need to ensure managers have the information needed to effectively drive performance in a way that will have the most impact on the organization.
What makes an effective performance review? Employees say it’s more than just reviewing data. Effective performance reviews include actionable advice, career growth discussions, conversations backed by data, and recognition of accomplishments.
A great performance conversation has the ability to provide understanding and coaching about performance over a period of time. But there is also the opportunity to inspire excitement and engagement around organizational, team, and individual goals heading into the next month, quarter, or year.
Employees need to know when their outputs aren’t meeting expectations. That’s not all. We need to pair that with coaching on how employees can get to that point. Or if the employee is performing, growth conversations so employees are performing at an even higher level.
What technology supports managers in driving performance? Performance management software that integrates goals, performance evaluation, recognition, and 1-on-1s.
Too often, managers are expected to make magic happen. If we expect great management, we need to give managers the tools necessary to do all of the things we expect from them. This means training, technology, and time. Often technology can help free up time so managers can spend time where it matters most.
Managers need good performance data that can be fodder for performance conversations around what employees contribute, what the expectations are, and what it will take for the employee to reach those expectations. Organizations can do more to empower managers with technology that meets this need.
When compared to the perceptions of employees, managers tend to overestimate their ability to spot high performance. Training and an understanding of performance expectations can help.
HR practitioners spend a lot of time and effort putting together strategies and processes to drive performance. But sometimes we neglect to bring our managers along. Managers are the drivers of high performance. So we need to make sure we’re supporting them. They need the training, information, and capacity to manage the performance of their people and do it well.
Managers may have been hired from outside of the organization or promoted into leadership. In either situation, organizations need to invest in training managers in the tools, processes and expectations of leadership to align with the organization. I’ve seen plenty of examples of managers assuming they know how to handle something because of past experiences as a leader or just as an employee. Manager impact and behavior are too important to assume they know what they’re doing. Train them well and offer them continuous support.
Almost 70% of employees who only receive feedback twice per year or less say they want more. Managers and senior leadership are more likely to want more feedback.
Your performance management processes should help employees manage their performance. Sometimes that feedback is that they need to improve. Employees can’t improve if they don’t know there’s an issue. Sometimes employees are doing well, but they can do even better!
So how do we help them? How do we encourage managers to draw out really great performance in employees? We want employees to continuously improve. And employees, even managers and leaders, can do that with more performance feedback.
Feedback can feel scary. It can feel intimidating to not know how the receiver will react. Give managers the chance to practice. Ensure they are trained on tactics and methods of delivering feedback, both positive and constructive.
When it comes to coaching cadence, employees prefer weekly conversations with their managers. The frequency also depends on whether employees are in the office, hybrid, or remote.
Employees need actionable advice for how they improve their performance and how they can grow and perform even better. When we say actionable advice, we mean things like:
Employees need and want that information from their manager so that they can do something with that information.
In most cases, employees want to do well and organizations want their employees to do well because employee success leads to organizational success. The cadence may be different depending on the organization’s industry, pace of business, or other factors. That’s why organizations need to do what makes the most sense for their team. 
When employees have aligned goals, they’re 3.2X more likely to be engaged. Clear performance goals help employees feel connected to the organization and increases productivity.
Employees want to know what they should be focusing on. Without aligned goals and feedback discussions between employees and managers about where they stand, we can’t expect employees to be able to improve performance. Aligned goals gives employees focus for what is expected of them. And it helps them see how their work contributes to organizational success.
Organization-wide strategic goals can feel very abstract to employees. As humans, we have a need for connection and purpose. Many organizations I work with have and AHA moment when they realize that when we create an environment where people understand how their work contributes to the mission of the organization, they are more likely to be engaged.
All employees want more recognition for their work. Managers are most likely to say they want recognition for their contributions.
Recognition is a huge part of an effective performance review and feedback. It tells employees that their work is valued. And it also communicates to each employee what high performance looks like.
Recognition signals to employees what is valued in the organization. It can help them understand how their work connects to the broader strategy when done well. That may mean calling out a smaller team for a critical contribution they made that helped the organization meet a goal or saved the organization money.
To create high performance teams, organizations need to create an environment of employee success. Employees don’t join organizations with the goal of being the worst employee. They want to contribute to the success of the organization. And to do that, organizations need to inspire employees to have an impact.
Right now, research shows 52% of employees will tell you that their organization’s performance management processes don’t motivate them to improve their performance. 51% of employees say performance management processes are a waste of time.
But we know that employees are motivated to perform when:
Designing your performance management strategy can be small steps over time. You don’t need a complete overhaul immediately. And just because a process works for another organization, doesn’t mean it’s the right fit for yours.
I don’t think any leader wants performance management to be strictly punitive. Leaders want performance management to drive high performance. Employees need to feel like the processes they’re involved in help motivate them to improve.
So, how do you do that? One of the first things you can do is evaluate your processes. You need to understand what your organization needs and what constraints you have. Start by asking yourself these questions:
As you analyze your strategy, you want to make sure you’re connecting it to a research-backed approach. Whether you steer more traditional or more continuous is ok. There are more than two choices to performance management. And your evolving approach can fall somewhere in between traditional and continuous performance management.
The speed that you evolve your approach also has to make sense for your organization. Just because another organization transitions faster doesn’t mean that your strategy has failed.
A custom approach is important to create a performance management strategy that works for you. You can use one of Quantum Workplace’s Performance Pathways to get started and then adapt the approach to fit your needs.
These pathways include what employees need to be successful and high performing. With a combination of goals, manager coaching, performance discussions, and recognition, each pathway helps you take steps to improve your strategy.
Sometimes organizations focus on the wrong solutions when it comes to driving performance. By making sure employees have what they need be impactful, we set them up for success and achieve business results.
Published October 8, 2024 | Written By Teresa Preister
