Presented by

David FoxPrincipal

The HR Practise

Online Performance Management

Strategy PaperlessBusiness Partner

Transparency

What are the comments you have heard employees or managers say

about performance reviews?

Its too cumbersome

It’s just another HR paper pushing exercise

Its not relevant to what I do

My manager doesn’t take it seriously

Its not clear to me how it links to my salary or rewards

It’s a joke in our company

What is the current state of play?

“A mere 7% of employees today fully understand their company’s business strategies and what’s expected of them in order to help achieve company goals.”

Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, “The Strategy-Focused Organization,” Harvard Business School Press, 2001 from the creators of the Balanced Scorecard

“Studies have shown a dramatic increase in both worker and business performance when an organization effectively sets and closely ties individual employee goals to the company’s overall strategy”.

What are some of the typical problems with most

paper based reviews?

The need to chase paper and signatures

Having to manually enter results and be an excel guru to make sense of them so you can present some reports and graphs.

Harder to access the information in detail once the reviews are completed. Cant track changes in real time.

The old “pull it out of a drawer trick”

How SMART are the goals?

The Advantages The Disadvantages Mostly paper-less Ease of recording and

maintaining records Ease of entering

information with help from a library of useful comments (not all offer this)

Links your values, competencies and goals together in one place

Additional features such as 360 reviews and performance feedback from others

Transparency & Cascading of goals across the business

Risk of losing information if supplier’s computer systems go down

Risk of people not engaging with it and using it

Possible negative sentiment such as “big brother” is watching

Generic written comments must be tempered with actual feedback

May seem a lengthier process at first

Online Performance Management

Simms International is a leading supplier of IT products and services. Since our beginnings in 1995, we have established ourselves as a trusted member of the IT channel, forging relationships with world-leading vendors

June 2006 $30m business with 30 employees

August 2006 Attains Apple License by acquiring KH Distribution and overnight becomes 60 employees and $70m business

June 2008 Grown to a $120m business with 75 employees

July 2008 Review of Vendors for Online Performance Management

September 2008

Launch of Success Factors

December 2008

All goals loaded and reviewed in the system

May 2009 Training for all employees and managers on how to do Online Performance Reviews

June/July 2009 First Online Performance Reviews begin

Integrating our values into performance reviews

Comments from Directors

Comments from Employees

Comments from Managers

“Tying in Goal Setting/reviews and associated performance reviews online is a huge bonus especially now that a lot of management tools have gone digital”.

“With proactive goal setting and respective achievement tracking, staff feel a sense of personal development and satisfaction – and this will often lead to better productivity”.

“…is a great tool to keep track of information and allow us to update changes and progress on our goals/tasks. It also allow us to cascade tasks to the team members and ensure they are on track at all times”.

“Overall this is great tool to use but it can be time consuming if we need to update progress on a regular basis”.

“I like it and see the benefits to us and the business from utilising this tool.  One needs to confidently invest time into fully understanding it to fully reap the rewards.  Good solid training is necessary”.

“The system works if the company implements it from the top”

“It makes goal setting and tracking within a team very simple. (especially the “water falling features”)

“It makes performance reviews much easier and less admin intensive”

“The greatest benefit I have seen is that we now have a mechanism to capture and align company goals and employee goals. The ability to monitor progress through such transparency is invaluable” Danny Moore - Managing Director

“It did seem a bit time consuming to do the reviews, however that is a teething problem and people will make it their own and will become quicker at it in time” – Damien Spence - Finance Director

Lessons Learnt Setting the system up correctly takes a bit of time –

someone needs to be dedicated to keeping it on track or it will drag out. Having said that we launched in 3 months at Simms.

Merging existing competencies and gaining buy-in for any new ones requires working with managers and employees to develop and agree on them as they will be measured against these competencies

Getting people to think about SMART goals is probably the hardest part - regardless of paper or online

More Lessons Learnt … Follow up and support to those who may struggle

CEO/MD and senior management buy-in and use of the system

Timing – any other new systems being introduced or already introduced recently

Front of mind – gentle reminders to use the system and update goals

Be aware that the system does not become a replacement for managers meeting with employees

Q & A

"Since my last report, this employee has reached rock bottom and has started to dig."

Some actual performance management comments (apparently):

"Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap."

"This employee should go far - and the sooner he starts, the better."