The performance appraisal season is approaching at the end of the year. A young friend said that he was once a newcomer in a foreign company, his performance appraisal was very good, and he also received a generous bonus. But in his current company, his supervisor usually doesn't talk to him about his work performance and has never conducted performance interviews. He doesn't know whether he meets the expectations of the company and his supervisor.
He always tried his best to complete the tasks assigned to him, but unexpectedly he was at the bottom of the performance evaluation and could not get the year-end bonus. After asking around with his colleagues, he found out that the company's culture was such that newcomers always got the lowest scores in performance appraisals, which made him feel extremely unfair.
From my many years of coaching experience, I have discovered that many companies often make omissions when implementing performance management, which prevents performance from motivating and leads to brain drain. Here are 3 common misunderstandings:
Misunderstanding 1: Unclear goals or lack of two-way communication
When many companies set performance goals at the beginning of the year, there is no two-way communication and no consensus, resulting in the inability to conduct evaluations based on clear goals at the end of the year. Or there may be a consensus on the target number, but the definition and calculation method of target achievement are unclear, so at the end of the year, the supervisor and subordinates each hold a number that is beneficial to themselves, and there is no consensus.
Misunderstanding 2: Newcomers or those who are about to leave often end up at the bottom due to forced distribution of performance.
In order to clearly distinguish rewards and punishments, many companies use the performance-based forced distribution (Force distribution) proposed by Jack Welch, the former president of GE Electronics, emphasizing that each department must use 20%, 70%, and 10% performance to distinguish the best performance. Best, average and worst employees.
Supervisors are in a difficult position during evaluation, so they have to sacrifice newcomers or those who have already submitted their resignations and assign them to the 10% of the worst employees, resulting in more people leaving or bad money expelling good money. Enterprises should consider the company's overall performance and adjust allocations based on actual performance. Uniform equality is not suitable.
Misunderstanding 3: Ignoring the supervisor's ability to conduct performance interviews
According to MAP (Managerial Assessment of Proficiency) management talent assessment, 100,000 pieces of data from around the world show that the global ranking PR value of Taiwanese managers in "assessing subordinates and performance capabilities" is only 37%. When supervisors don't know how to conduct performance interviews, they often ignore them and hand over their performance evaluation scores directly to the company, causing subordinates to resign due to dissatisfaction. Or choose to treat all employees equally and give moderate ratings during performance interviews. But this will lose the most important meaning of performance management: motivating employees to grow and providing clear rewards and punishments.
In addition, some supervisors are afraid of hurting morale and only say nice things, making subordinates think that they have performed well and expect generous bonuses. As a result, the gap between reality and expectations is too big, and they leave in anger.
If the company's operating performance is to be good and individuals want to achieve good performance, they should work together to achieve the following points:
1. Concrete the performance target formula
For example, the revenue growth rate can be defined as (current year's revenue – last year's revenue) ÷ last year's revenue x 100%. In the calculation, factors such as the timing of payment and invoicing, stocking up, and returns should be taken into account; another example is : The employee turnover rate KPI formula should also include the calculation of the number of voluntary resignations and new employee resignations. These details should have a consensus between the company and the supervisor, and specific standards should be clearly defined to avoid performance disputes and disadvantages.
2. Clarify core functions and behavioral indicators and classify them
In addition to considering quantitative goals when establishing a performance culture, it is also necessary to formulate qualitative core functions (core values/spirit) to prevent individualism caused by performance goals.
For example, team spirit is the core spirit of the company, and its definition may be "helping colleagues succeed" or "unconditionally assisting colleagues". Next, the degree of assistance must be evaluated based on the achievement rating. This part requires a professional division of labor, with an external consulting company constructing a customized performance mechanism to clarify rewards and penalties and reduce the loss of talent and other losses caused by improper performance management.
3. Performance should emphasize development rather than assessment
The goal of the performance mechanism is to motivate employees to perform and contribute. If performance appraisal is done just for year-end bonuses, it will often cause injustice and dissatisfaction. Employee cultivation, training and development are the key points, so the performance mechanism design should focus on the growth of colleagues, coupled with training plans, to transform the negative views of performance appraisal into positive growth and contribution, and establish a good performance culture
Finally, don't let performance management become a tool for subjective judgment, popularity score, or settlement of accounts. An effective performance mechanism should be customized based on professional experience to reduce the loss of management finance and talents. Create high-performance organizations.