Perfect Performance Reviews
As you’ll have read in my journal, I keep running into HR problems. However thankfully our stores are busy selling over Christmas and New Year so my manager Chris has suggested that a good project for me to take on over the December and January period is to redesign the performance review process. The fact we have lots of managers saying they have poor performers could mean our system isn’t working.
What do we need the system to achieve?
For our Funky Town retail stores the system needs to be really simple and quick to use. We do have mystery shopper reports and store standards in place, and 7 steps of selling that all need to tie in. Our incentive scheme is linked to sales only, but our performance review system should be capturing what people’s strengths and areas to develop are.
For our Head Office we have a huge variety of roles – finance, marketing, the buyers, IT and of course HR. Some managers in Head Office have set some goals for employees but they are not SMART and not enforced.
Then we also have our Distribution Warehouse that pick and send out stock to the stores. We haven’t had any performance system in there at all before.
I’m not really sure where to start. What systems are out there I could use? Do I have different systems for different areas of the company? What goals should we use? We have some skills and experience listed in our PD’s but should be reviewing people on these? Arrgh I need help!!
Post your advice as a comment below. In the February issue of the HumanResources magazine we’ll publish the best answers and see what Flora does.
Performance Reviews can be a seamless process that is very transparent to all parties once you have achieved the following tasks:
Position Description to every employee
PD Clearly sets out Job Spec, Primary Objectives, Key Accountabilities, Key working relationships, KPI, KRA, KRM charted, Company Values, Training, Person Specification – includes skills, experience, competencies. Scope of position.
These can be kept simple and short, but its important all employees know what is expected of them from their employer before they begin their employment.
Once you have this a fair and reasonable performance review process can be written. Quarterly meetings are interactive & keeps the employee engaged and your discussions current. Performance issues should be discused immediately when they happen and only summarised at quarterly meetings if necessary, as hopefully you will be discussing the persons improvements by then. I dont believe Annual reviews work as the period is far too long for employees to remember positives as humans generally dwell on negatives given time. Training should always be discussed and reviewed quarterly to enable the employer to evidence support and tracking of progress and the employee achievement.
Senior employees predominantly should have their own business plans which drill down from the Companies Strategic Plan. This way their performance is purpose based on achieving the companies goals. PDs for these positions can be developed in accordance with the company requirements, goals.
A system that engages the employee to prepare for quarterly meetings, this can either be on a templated system or invite the employee to raise any points they wish to discuss. The templated system does provide guidance to most employees and they like this. Additional comments are offered to invite additional dialogue.
It may sound involved but once set up is a very easy quick process. The reviews should always be conducted by the direct manager. This is particulary important for middle managers who struggle in these areas, as it assists in their personal development and should be part of their own KPIs.
A company is far better to invest time in reviewing performance regularly for two reasons. 1. Regular reviews assists managers to keep up to date with the employees performance and progress which is encouraging to both parties. 2. It makes the employee feel important and not forgotten about which generally demonstrates long periods of employment and loyalty.
What you invest in your people you gain in your profits, image and brand. You reduce your profit margin greatly by 1. employing the wrong people and 2. no managing their performance or making them feel part of the company. You will always spend alot more time and money managing people out than you ever will managing people fairly and productively.
Hi Donna,
I completely agree with many of your points and I know in a lot of companies this doesn’t happen as you’ve described even though the HR team are trying to make it happen!
We do have position descriptions and there is a strategy for the retail network.
Do you (or anyone else) have any suggestions on what we include in the quarterly review or the format? It has to be quickish as we can’t have people off the shop floor for too long. It can be longer for the Head Office roles.
Hi Flora
I also agree with Donna’s comments.
I have recently lead a project to establish an performance review system that moved a paper based system to an online , web based system that we have found is fun & funky!!
It is used across all departments and at all levels from senior management to shop floor workers, so the system used is the same across the entire business. It covers both performance goals ( 5 different categories- people objectives, process objectives, quality objectives, financial objectives anbd customer objectives) & measures as well as competencies for each job family. The objectives are taken from the PD as well as the strategic/business plan. So for an Accountant role the financial objectives would be different from the distribution staff’s financial objectives and so on across all job families. The job families are then cascaded to each individual enployee’s role. There is a development plan feature as well. The system features self assesment, manager assessment and can also incorporate 360 assessments. A manager can look at their team acrosss various parts of the business and also across branches. Reviews can be conducted as per a company’s requirements.. we are doing 6 monthly reviews. Goals can be re set annually to meet the changing business objectives.
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