Providing Feedback is the third component of a comprehensive performance managem

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Providing Feedback is the third component of a comprehensive performance management plan.

Communicating information on their performance to employees is another critical part of the performance management process. As discussed in the previous section, employees need accurate information to improve and sustain their performance and to grow. Therefore, this part of the plan needs to determine the methods and the frequency for feedback. For example, some plans may involve measurements that are numeric and are collected daily, weekly, or monthly, so employees may have that type of feedback frequently. Other measurements may be more “subjective” and will need one-on-one discussions. The plan should indicate how the employees will receive each of these types of feedback. Will they just receive their numbers or stats or will you sit down with them periodically and review progress? How often will each of these activities occur? Most employees will tell you that they want more feedback about their performance—they want to do a good job and contribute, and some possibly want to move up in the company. However, in talking with employees about feedback, often they will tell you the way they receive feedback often determines how receptive they are to it especially if some of the feedback is not positive. Most people will tell you that they are open to improve and open to hear about the areas that they need to improve. However, they are usually more receptive if they believe that the person giving them the feedback is genuinely concerned about their growth and wants them to succeed.

The other area that is critical in giving feedback is focusing on the behavior not on the person. Telling someone he or she has a bad attitude is not constructive even if that’s the real problem. Usually, the person will be defensive and will shut down communication at that point. Even telling the person he or she has a good attitude is not constructive either. How do they know what you like about their behavior so they can continue it? Instead, try to give feedback based on behavior. What you need to look for is a change in their behavior. Let’s use the example of the person with the “bad attitude.” What is the evidence that you have that leads you to conclude that the person does have a bad attitude? Maybe this person rolls her eyes whenever you ask her to complete a task, or perhaps he makes snide comments in meetings and doesn’t complete his tasks on time. Another indication might be that she constantly complains to everyone around her. These various behaviors have led you to label the person as having a bad attitude. The behaviors are specific; the labels are not. And, although the labels may be accurate, the people cannot change the labels; they can only change their behavior. Talking in terms of evidence and behaviors often takes practice on our part. We are accustomed to using labels; they simplify our lives. We have people in our lives who are “good friends” and other people who are “reliable” or “unreliable” or “flaky.” In each of these cases, we have based these labels on our experiences over time with these people.

Take a few minutes to think about the behaviors that you experienced with these different people that led you to the labels you have for them, both positive and negative. As you begin to prepare for feedback with your employees, try to think in terms of behaviors you would like them to either continue because they are positive behaviors or to discontinue because they are negative behaviors. This technique can apply to other areas of your life as well (think about children, friends, family, and significant others).

How does this part of the Performance Management Process operate within your workplace or an organization that you are familiar with?

Explanation / Answer

I have included the Deloitte organization, one of the reputed management consultancies in the world. Being a consultancy, they try to inculcate cutting-edge performance management practices in their firm

Previously Deloitte used to conduct feedback sessions once in a year. Objectives are set for 65,000- people at the beginning of a year; the after each project the manager rates his team members and offers comments. After consensus meetings, a single year-end rating is arrived at

But Deloitte felt that such long intervals between feedback are becoming less valuable. Also, the process was too tedious and inefficient consuming around 2 million hours a year for completing the ratings and holding the meetings

They now simplified it with no once-a-year reviews and no 360-degree-feedback tools. Now it is focused on constant learning and feedback. Instant of 360 degrees only the immediate team leader is asked to give comments about a member. The questions asked, to the team leader, are about the future actions with respect to the member. They don’t ask about the skills rating of their team member or their perceptions about the team member. They ask what they would do with each team member instead of what they think of that individual

Example of one among four such statements

“Given what I know of this person’s performance, and if it were my money, I would award this person the highest possible compensation increase and bonus”

These data points are collected over a year continually and weighted according to the duration of a given project. Then each quarter the data is assessed to review a subset of employees

Also, the new design expects team leaders to check in with each team member once a week

Also, the snapshots of performance are not kept open to avoid the team leaders and members from getting biased

In short, Deloitte has moved from just using numbers via ratings, in feedback, to capture the abstract factors and behaviors in an employee performance. It has simplified the capture of past performance and communicating with them. It has also increased the number of feedbacks per year - by increasing the number of evaluations through an increased number of check-ins. This also leads to increased conversations and frequent immediate feedbacks resulting in instant results

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