HR departments across nearly all industries are constantly trying to improve systems and processes to help increase employee engagement, recruit and retain talent, and operate on a more efficient and cost-effective basis each day. Performance management software is one of…
Evaluations, Reviews & Appraisal
Evaluations Still Have a Place If You Do Them Right
Employee performance reviews are undergoing an evolution from annual evaluation to something else. It seems there are almost as many different schools of thought about the most effective way of grading an individual’s performance as articles written on the subject….
With Practice and the Right Approach, Feedback Can Be a Gift
Annual performance reviews are controversial. Some people praise them in public, but most hate them in private. For starters, they are a waste of time — that’s why many companies are ditching annual reviews. Also, research shows that they make…
Short Takes to Better Job Ads and Reviews
The following are selections from the Humetrics blog. Performance reviews made simple Performance reviews are a universally dreaded exercise. However, regular feedback is required to build an engaged and committed team. Here’s a way to skip the forms and awkward…
What If Everyone Had a Personal Coach at Work?
What’s better than a performance review? If you said a poke in the eye, you’d be right there with the vast majority of workers. Kris McGuigan says 4 out of 5 workers say their performance evaluations aren’t working. She didn’t…
6 Steps to a More Effective Performance Management Program
Traditional methods of managing performance aren’t working anymore. Companies are moving away from traditional performance management tools, like annual reviews, to new techniques that emphasize real-time feedback. You know the drill: managers and employees sit down once a year to…
Get Better Ideas, Higher Engagement and Even Improve Your Managers By Encouraging 2-Way Feedback
Every successful relationship works via a careful process of give and take. We need to learn how to express ourselves, our ideas, and our interests. Equally, though, we need to really listen. Proactive listening can prevent a lot of issues…
If Those Performance Reviews All Sound Alike, It Could Be ‘Decision Fatigue’
Decision fatigue refers to the deteriorating quality of decisions as one is forced to engage in more and more decision-making. If you’ve ever planned an event, re-designed a home or purchased a new car, you probably remember the exhaustion and…
5 Workforce Issues You Need to Focus On This Year
The HR department will need to innovate in 2018. With unemployment at a 17 year low, employers are struggling to find — and retain — top-tier talent with the right skills. Meanwhile, as the turnover rates suggest, workers are more…
Are You Bike-Shedding Your Feedback?
Bike-shedding refers to the act of spending lots of time on unimportant details while leaving crucial matters unattended. The term traces back to 1955 article in The Economist by C. Northcote Parkinson, a British naval historian and author. “Parkinson’s Law…
Best Practices In Starting a Continuous Performance Program
Ongoing performance check-ins are shaping the future of talent management. Held weekly between managers and their direct reports, these brief meetings – just 10 minutes or less – are used to track weekly goal progress, identify bottlenecks, and exchange feedback…
HR 101: What to Do When Performance Goes Bad
It’s time to pull your head out of the sand; you need to deal with poor performers! Sometimes it is uncomfortable to deal with things you would rather avoid, but there is no advantage to delaying the inevitable. If an…
Are You Ready For Feedback That’s Radically Transparent?
Here’s an actual email sent to Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, by an employee named Jim Haskel: Ray – You deserve a “D-” for your performance today in the meeting. You did not prepare at all, because there…
6 Steps to Great Talent Reviews
It’s great news that talent reviews have become almost universal in larger organizations, avoiding the fads that have overtaken HR processes like performance management. The fact that most companies do them, however, doesn’t mean that they’re done well. We often…
10 Commandments for Performance Discussions
I invested 38 years in the corporate world and my experience spanned a myriad of departments – to include human resources where I oversaw our leadership development program and played a critical role in personnel policy and practice. My time…
This Post Will Make You Think Outside the Box About the Language You Use
During performance reviews, you’ll need to cover a range of important topics such as SMART objectives, development objectives and training needs. It’s a time for clear, meaningful, natural conversation. No management buzzwords that confuse and frustrate employees. Anyone who has…
Individual Performance Is Not Enough; We Need a Way to Measure Teams
Employee engagement, aligning talent and business strategies; these are perennial problems for HR professionals. Here in the United Kingdom, as far back as 2014 they were among the top three priorities for CHROs , according to an ADP survey. How…
The Brazil Nut Effect Is No Way to Find Your Future Leaders
Ensuring a company’s long-term survival and prosperity is the underlying driver of any business; however, identifying and developing effective future leaders remains one of the most challenging issues facing companies today. Even when companies claim to have a well-armed lineup…
Here’s How to Evaluate Manager Effectiveness
As global markets push businesses to become more agile and responsive, it’s tempting to predict that management roles will virtually disappear from progressive companies. But even Holacracy (a self-management structure made famous by online shoe retailer Zappos) has some hierarchy: Instead of “managers,”…
Is Your Feedback Making People Tired?
People can’t fix what they can’t see. From time to time, it’s our job as managers to see for them. By providing eye-opening feedback, we eliminate some of the tunnel vision that keeps others from recognizing their personal or professional…