Performance Management Blog

January 19, 2012Is your whole organisation under-performing – including you?It’s that goal setting time of year again… and I just had a quick review of the goal setting research – gave myself a shock reminder! People who ‘do their best’ consistently under-perform against those who have challenging, demanding goals.  So if goal setting is weak, ineffective or non-existent at your place of work, then […]

November 18, 2011Your rating scale says a lot about your organisationHad several discussions this week with clients looking at their overall rating scales.  Usually the discussion starts with ‘shall we have 4 points or 5’? It might seem a technical issue – but the choice of scoring scale, and the split between positive and negative scores sends a powerful subliminal message to the workforce about […]

October 7, 2011Tough Business Conditions expose failure in performance managementCEOs are turning to HR to support numerouse transformation projects (now), drive performance improvement (yesterday) and find the next generation of leaders (fast). These demands are exposing weaknesses and even failure in performance management in many organisations. Its all leading to senior HR and OD professionals urgently reviewing their performance management processes and practice. Working […]

June 6, 2011Things I love about setting goalsGoal setting is one of those perennial issues that challenge HR teams.  How on earth can managers be persuaded to complete the goal setting process effectively & efficiently? Infact that’s the trouble with much goal setting:  a reputation for being a pointless chore undertaken for the benefit of HR. Yet I really love setting goals, […]

March 21, 2011Bite the bullet – scrap the bonusBonuses don’t work, except perhaps in the most menial of piece work activities where there might truly be a genuine link between how fast/hard I work, and the number of tasks I complete. February’s issue of People Management carried a Duncan Brown Blog quoting some research cited in The Guardian. Here’s the link to the […]

March 18, 2011I want to fire him, but I don’t know how!This is not perhaps the prime purpose of performance management, but it was a desparate statement from a frustrated manager in a recent client workshop. It wasn’t the lack of HR policy, it was the fact that without clear performance measures it was impossible to tell this particular employee ( who seemed to be spending […]

March 9, 2011SMART – just why don’t managers use it when setting goals?Really interesting open workshop about setting goals last Friday. The delegates talked to us about the challenges of SMART goals – why is it that most managers know what they are but fail to set them? The real challenge seems to us to be a question of time and effort. Its easy to write fairly […]

March 1, 2011We have Moved!Enjoying our new offices for the first time today – we’ve moved a few hundred yards and now have our own front door, and a great view over Henley Town Square. We learnt a few things on the way too .. for example, just because an organisation has 20,000 employees, it doesnt mean they will […]

January 25, 2011Managing Performance when they know they are leavingSpent yesterday at an NHS conference. The unerlying subject on everyone’s mind was how to manage people when they know their organisation will be gone in two years. Companies in mergers and acqusitions face the same challenge. At the very least, senior people will have to compete for their role with their opposite number in […]

November 19, 2010I love appraisals!‘I love appraisals’ has been our campaign theme for the autumn.  Its been our most succesful campaign ever, with more people opening emails, attending showcases and booking work. Why? Well we think its because of the irony – how could anyone love appraisals? – coupled with a wish that actually the whole appraisal business could […]

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