Knowledge Infusion Center of Excellence: Consultant's Corner : Tags : performance

Consultant's Corner

3 Posts tagged with the performance_management tag

It's Time For Talent Management To Grow Up!

Posted by Andy Gebavi Apr 10, 2008

How "Mature" Are Your Organization's Talent Management Processes?

Many organizations we engage with view Talent Management like it's some kind of exotic new discipline. The reality is that the functions usually associated with Talent Management (Recruitment, Performance Management, Learning and Development, Career Planning, Workforce Planning, Succession Management, Compensation) have been around for a long time. New technologies are allowing organizations to tie all these processes together and get true visibility into the business impacts of these functions.

We can usually tell how "grown up" our client's are by asking some key questions around the following areas for each of their Talent Management processes:

What are the business drivers of the process? We're often met with a blank stare here.
How frequently do you perform the process? Once per year or is it a constant, ongoing process?
How standardized is the process across your organization?
What kind of visibility does the process provide into key measures and organizational trends?
Who owns the process? HR or the business - or both?
What technologies support the process? Technology is an enabler of increased standardization, visibility, and process integration
How integrated is the process with other talent management processes?
What metrics do you use to measure the effectiveness and business impacts of your process? Often, another blank stare here.

Obviously, in depth analysis is required to determine how to improve your organization's processes. But by asking key questions you can learn quite a bit about where your organization is now, and where you want it to be in 1, 3, 5 or 10 years.

So what is your organization? Toddler? Kindergartener? Adolescent? Adult?

0 Comments 0 References Permalink Tags: talent_management, talent-management, compensation, hcm, future_workforce, technology, hr, hr-technology, saas, successfactors, performance_management

Peanut Butter

Posted by Neil Jensen Oct 24, 2007

During a recent client engagement focused on the project kick-off for the implementation of a compensation administration application, I found myself in a room with several HR Generalists having a good laugh about the 'Peanut Butter' approach to merit increases. As the conversation went on, those in the room even made funny hand motions simulating the 'spreading' of a 4% merit budget across a line of business. The concept of differentiation was a hot point that provoked sheer cackling laughter from the group.

This scene is likely not too uncommon for most companies as they approach the merit planning season. The 'Peanut Butter' approach seems to be the norm with few companies mastering differentiation and true pay-for-performance. This begs the question why planning managers find it so difficult to differentiate performance and reward based on that differentiation? Is HR failing in getting the concept across and building the necessary tools and means to make it a reality? Is this message falling on deaf ears?

As organizations work to build a pay-for-performance strategy and enable it with technology, they need to remember to take into account the critical component of manager development in their efforts. It's not enough to state a pay-for-performance philosophy and publish salary increase guidelines to support it. Managers need development opportunities on how to manage performance and how to have difficult conversations with under performing employees and how to take the necessary steps to correct that performance or work those individuals out of the organization. Merit can be and should be a means to incent and retain true contributors in the organization. True differentiation won't be possible until managers are enabled to do the critical work beyond filling out the spreadsheet.

0 Comments 0 References Permalink Tags: talent_management, performance_management, compensation, pay-for-performance, hr

Designing Performance Management From Ground Zero - What does it look like?

Posted by Kim Heger Oct 18, 2007

If you had the opportunity to design a cutting edge Performance Management process and system from ground zero with no preconceived ideas of what is included or how it should work, what would it look like? What components or considerations would you like to see included in the final solution? This is your opportunity to think outside of the box, move away from the traditional approach of forms, annual reviews, rating scales, etc.

Take it a step further and define the best practices for virtual performance management. As we continue to see more and more employees working in non-traditional workspaces (home, Starbucks, airports, the beach, across the world), how do we effectively manage performance in a virtual world?