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PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
by Graham Bush from THE BUSH KITCHEN………….food for thought!

So many managers run their business without a thought for the people who are actually running the business! Yip…”The workers”! It is vital that management of businesses both large and small instill a ‘Performance Management” programme in the business. So what exactly is Performance Management?

Quite simply,Performance Management focuses on both job content and the relationship between Management and Staff. Performance Management then, is a technique used to:

PLAN, DIRECT and IMPROVE the PERFORMANCE team members in line with the overall objectives of the business.

Performance Management is a process consisting of two components:

1. PERFORMANCE: Refers to effort a team member makes to deliver outputs, information or product on service. The focus lies mainly on the delivery of output.

2. MANAGEMENT: Refers to a certain function a team leader carries out for a specific purpose. These functions include planning, organising, and controls.

Thus, Performance Management is a process during which the team leader:

· PLANS:
A decision is made on which outputs are required and when and what steps they require.

· ORGANISES:
When and what resources made available.

· LEADS:
Observes Performance

· CONTROLS:
Performance of team members.

Performance Management is a continuous action. It does not happen only once per month but is a constant interaction between team leader and team members.


ADVANTAGES OF PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

* Formal approach to integrating personnel functions

* Improves communications

* Cost saving, prevention of errors

* Job Satisfaction

* Offers security measures within a boundary of Key Performance Indicators (K.P.I s) and Key Performance Areas (K.P.A’s)


CONDITIONS FOR SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION OF PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

· Establish the reason for the system.

· Management commitment

· Team leaders to develop and implement the Performance Management system

· Acceptance of ownership

· Company culture to be focused

Employee performance means outcomes from various activities that the employee undertakes in the organisation.


PLANNING FOR PERFORMANCE

INPUTS IN PLANNING

* Clean products or service delivered according to standards

* Output to match organisation structure and company plans.

* Start at the top and filters downwards - Buy in from all.

* Team leader responsible for delivery.

* All members responsible in delivery of outputs.


COMPILING PERFORMANCE PLANS

* Document for each team member explaining how each task is carried out.

* Feedback on performance should be based on performance plan. This plan could also serve as a base for output evaluation.


THE FOLLOWING HEADINGS SHOULD BE COVERED IN A PERFORMANCE PLAN:

JOB MISSION:

· The goal of the job.

· The priority, which distinguishes the job from any other.

· Give reasons.

· It should be discussed as a challenge.

KEY PERFORMANCE AREA:

· Areas of responsibility within the job.

· Ideally these should be 3-5 KPA’s per job description.


KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS-TASKS:

· Specific tasks.

· How, where, when and what should take place.

· Task statements should start with a verb to emphasise the action.

· Ideally 1-3 tasks per KPA.


OUTPUTS:

· Each task statement should have at least one output.

· Output = specific product service to determine whether the task has been carried out.


TASK REQUIREMENTS:

It is advisable to specify knowledge, skills and attributes necessary to complete tasks.

· Knowledge = Theory


What should be known?

· Skills = Practical

Ability to do something and to apply knowledge

· Attributes = Contribution of a Person.

NB: This information is also important for the recruitment and selection process.

LEADERSHIP STYLE:

The team leader and team member agree in the case of each task on the amount of guidance and support the team leader has to provide.


WEIGHT (IMPORTANCE):

Not all tasks are equally important. Team leaders and team members must agree on weight of team task.


EVALUATE COMMENTS:

· Performance Management is a continuous process.

· Team leader must meet with team members to discus progress. (Suggest quarterly). Prior to the meeting team leader should write down and evaluate comments on the essence of performance for each task.

· Comments should be specific and based on set standards.

· What is important is that the performance will be appraised against the planned outcomes and standards and not against another set of criteria or based on manager opinion in general.

· Team leader and team members should agree on the content of the performance plan. A performance plan can be changed, as long as it has been agreed upon.


In essence these things determine the fundamentals of performance:

· Employee Competence

· Employee Motivation

· Work Environment


NOTE: When deciding the KPA’s and KPI’s remember to use the SMART principle:

SPECIAL: MEASURABLE: ACHIEVABLE :REALISTIC :TIME DEFYING


THE OUTCOMES OF STRATEGIC PLANNING:

· Shows way and direction for the future.

· Process of setting organisation objectives and deciding on comprehensive plans of action to achieve objectives.


PERFORMANCE STANDARDS

The only way to improve the performance output of any employee and therefore the organisation is to communicate the performance standards with all employees. If standards are recorded as the norm, it allows the employee and teams to set optimistic performance objectives exceeding these norms. If they achieve them, it is recognized as being superior performance and won’t go unnoticed or simply discarded as being what was expected.


WHEN SETTING STANDARDS THE FOLOWIING SHOULD APPLY:

· These standards must be unambiguous.
· The specifications must relate directly to the specific customer.
· The criteria should be concise and only describe essential aspects of which is being required.
· The criteria must focus on the successful completion of the performance.
· They must be accurate, reasonable, realistic, legal and complete.
· They should imply cost effective value added performance.

· The secret to effective performance appraisals is to do them at regular intervals in order to eliminate problems timeously.
· It must become a way of life as a logical step in keeping productivity up to date and should be experienced by the employees as advantageous to themselves and the organization.
· Weighting is also important as it measures to ensure that effective output takes place.


PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL:

Performance appraisal is not about judging people’s character, but about helping them to see whether their performance is on spec or not. It asks for open transparent communication with the intention of improving productivity and not to punish any individual.


PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT:

When there are performance shortcomings, it is important to establish the true reason for them and to do something constructively about them. The concerns are indicated by a relatively high weight value and a low rating value. In other words, the outcome is very important, and the performance is unsatisfactory. Don’t punish the employee, rather improve the performance.

If a proper Performance Management system is not in place, then often the causes for low performance are assumed, rather than properly explored. The result is that management spends most of their time reacting to negative events that occur in the workplace, treating symptoms of problems rather than finding their root causes. Often they are not even aware of performance deficiencies, as it is common for some companies to evaluate performance only once a year.

All corrective actions are focused on the person himself / herself. This is a sincere practice as most barriers reside within the work environment. As a matter of interest, research in the USA indicated that 3% of performance problems are due to personal barriers of the worker, 12% due to insufficient competence and 85% due to barriers that reside within the work environment. When an individual’s performance falls short, the cause needs to be known before corrective action can be taken.

The cause may be any of the following:

* Inappropriate individual performance plan.
* Vague performance plan.
* Lack of competence
* Inappropriate tools, equipment, conditions, leadership on other work environments issues.
* The talk on conditions becomes unacceptable to the person.
* Insufficient feedback


POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT PROGRAMMES

STAGE 1: Define behavioral aspects of performance and evaluate performance:

If a formal performance management system is not in use, this stage becomes extremely difficult. Usually performance is then rated on non-job related criteria and the programme could fail. This stage will give an indication of the areas, which could improve.

STAGE 2: Set performance objectives for each employee:

Use the performance management system to define performance goals for each employee. Be specific and TASK related, and make them optimistic but realistic. The purpose of the reinforcement programme is to motivate the employee to high levels of performance, not to find ways to punish him or her.

STAGE 3: Enable employees to keep record of their own
Performance:

This is where the main difference between Performance Management and Positive Reinforcement exists. With the latter the employer evaluates their performance on their own records in an appropriate format. The Performance Management system could be used for this purpose. This should be done at regular and short intervals to enhance the changes of success.

STAGE 4: Praise / Reward positive aspects of performance:

* Employee hands evaluation to manager (Team Leader)
* Team leader praises on all positives.
* Team member understands the downsides.
* Team leader will try and improve on negatives.


IMPLEMENTING A NEW PERFORMANCE

DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM-PDMS

Implementing a new PDMS would require the leader to focus on the following:

A. Initiating the Programme:

· Commitment to the programme.
· Must want change.
· Understand empowerment and timing.
· Commit to implementation.
· Sufficient financial/time resources.
· Led by top management (owner)

B. Diagnosing the problem:

· Locate barriers
· Diagnose problems (Productivity)
· Interviews with employees


SCHEDULING THE PROCESS

The success of organised change lies in the collective effort of change patterns of behavior.


CULTURE

* Establish trust, communication, infrared communication
* Team members must be willing to be on board.
* Establish a Performance Management culture.


MANAGEMENT SKILLS & ROLE CHANGE

* Management (Team Leader) must have Performance Management knowledge.
* Team leaders must understand and accept change & talks.
* Become the problem solver.


WORKER SKILLS & TEAM BUILDING:

* Teach team members how to use the system.
* Instill co-operation within the organisation


IMPLEMENTATION & MANAGEMENT INFORMATION

Running of the system becomes part of day-to-day business.

* Monitor closely- successes and failures.
* Must not be over done- don’t create a monster.
* Must be transparent.
* Must be simple and easy to use.


THE CHARACTERISTICS OF PERFORMING TEAMS:

Purpose
Empowerment
Relationship
Flexibility
Optimal performance
Recognition
Moral

It has been demonstrated that pets learn more quickly if the described behavior is reinforced immediately with praise. (This does not mean that you must treat your staff like dogs!!) In the same way, positive feedback can motivate you to obtain goals.
Throughout life, others and you evaluate your actions. Self-education is a way of giving and receiving feedback that helps you assess progress towards your goals. Feedback from others gives you perspective in areas that may be blind spots to you. Since the beginning of time, management and motivation have been bound together in a complex yet direct relationship. Management itself is defined as a process of accomplishing predetermined objectives through the efforts of others, and this definition most certainly indicates the necessity for Moving people to Action.

A WORD ABOUT INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

For the leader the basic requirement for motivating others is the recognition that individual differences do exist and that people unlike machine parts, are not usually interchangeable. If employees were all the same, the problems of motivation would be simple; unfortunately this is not the case. Honestly speaking it would be a dull existence if this were the case. Our first step then is increasing motivation skills in recognising that people are different and that there is no such thing as a total or complete solution to the manager’s job of accomplishing predetermined objectives through the efforts of others.

“The purpose of any organisation is to make ordinary people achieve extraordinary things, but in reality most organisations allow even extraordinary people to achieve only ordinary things”


A MODEL OF HUMAN MOTIVATION

Two principles of human behavior should always be considered:

Human behavior is not incidental – there are reasons why people do or don’t do things.

No two people are the same, as people differ: they have different behavior patterns. Even when people do show the same behavior it may not be for the same reasons.


THEREFORE ALL BEHAVIOR IS MOTIVATED

Human behavior stems directly from human needs. If one or more of a person’s needs are not satisfied, he/she acts in an attempt to satisfy such needs. An unsatisfied need makes a person feel that something is wrong and that they should try to put it right. In other words, the person develops an urge to satisfy the need.

The motivation process is not physically perceptible because it takes place unintentionally. However, management can perceive the behavior displayed by an employee and deduce the individual’s motivation from it. It is not easy to motivate employees, but management can give negative or positive incentives.

Employees join organisations because they wish to justify particular or diverse needs. However this is not the only reason why people work. Besides earning a salary, work plays an important role in the development of self-respect and a sense of identity. In modern times, people’s jobs largely determine their status in society, where they stay, with whom they associate and who is associated with them. Furthermore it is an important criterion by which people assess themselves and others.

Working satisfies a wide range of human needs. The most important needs include a need for affiliation, a feeling of competence and success, authority, confidence, pride and status. Knowing employees needs and developing motivation strategies for their employees on the basis of their needs is a major challenge for management. Therefore it is important for management to be aware of human needs and theories of motivation.


MOTIVATE THE DEMOTIVATED STAFF

Low pay, high stress levels, affirmative action, lack of promotion, long hours, increasing crime are only some of the reasons for de-motivation. Undoubtedly no miracle or quick fix method for changing attitude overnight exists.

However, we would like to propose some tips for laying a foundation of trust and support in order to motivate a de-motivated staff member. Motivating an entrenched de-motivated staff member is a tough job to tackle. There are a number of options available to enable managers to turn the situation around. First, however, you must lay a foundation of trust by doing some of the following.

1. Take stock of the situation.
2. Create job description for each team member.
3. Employ team members to perform the work they are responsible for and hold them accountable.
4. It makes no sense to give staff responsibilities without giving them some degree of informal authority.
5. Create a positive environment.
6. Approach team members on their own social level.
7. Provide reference material on a regular basis and do timely follow-ups.


It is clear that motivating the staff is essential to the efficient functioning of the company. While the presence of motivation does not guarantee performance, the absence of motivation undoubtedly guarantees long-term performance problems.


FEEDBACK: THE KEY TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE

Each team member is entitled to receive feedback on performance and it is the responsibility of the team leader to provide feedback. Feedback involves the team leader’s interpretation of the team members compliance with the performance standard set out in the performance plan.

The purpose of giving feedback is to give recognition for good performance and to take corrective steps if necessary, thereby encouraging the team member to even better performance.


GUIDELINES FOR GIVING AND RECEIVING FEEDBACK

1. SOLVE PROBLEMS
2. AVOID PERSONAL ATTACKS
3. ACT PROMPTLY
4. MUST BE RELATIVE
5. MUST BE SPECIFIC


So, at the end of the day, by installing a Performance Management programme in your business changes your mindset from running your business to running your people, after all, it is them who run your business!
Until next time.
Cheers,
Graham.