Get the Book Today
Get your copy of Gen Y Now and start learning how to be a better leader. If you need one copy for yourself or many copies for your team, we can accommodate your needs.
Performance Management: Is it “All or Nothing”?
Written by Buddy Hobart on August 17th, 2009
The other day I had a client ask about my comment regarding improving their organizations performance management system. They had some specific heartburn around my comment that they need to be more accessible. They felt that being more accessible would cut into their productivity and that people would take advantage of their time. After some conversation we realized she, and her organization, really had an “all or nothing” attitude. In other words, if they truly had an open door policy, then they were available 100% of the time.
While it is true that time is a finite resource, it is also true that how we INVEST out time is critical. We had our client talk to her managers and discuss these two points.
1. Do you believe “being flexible” shows a lack of discipline?
2. Do you believe that being accessible will cause you lost productivity?
We then asked her and her team to track, for one week, the amount of time they spent fixing issues due to miscommunications, lack of clarity, missed hand offs, etc. What we found was astounding. An enormous amount of time was wasted, not only by her and the team, but by all of the employees due to rework, etc.
For the next week we had her team be TRULY accessible to the employees. Their job was to offer clarification and guidance on a REAL TIME basis. We wanted them to have the opportunity to offer input while the project was moving forward, versus after completion.
The final result…..her team spent nearly 30% LESS overall time than before. Also, we did a quick survey of the employee before and after our experiment. There was a measurable positive shift in attitude and morale. Folks appreciated receiving course corrections DURING the journey, and not finding out they arrived in the wrong place after an unproductive trip!!
One final comment, our client’s workforce is mostly Baby Boomers and Gen X, with only about 25% Gen Y. Our survey did not show any difference between the groups…everyone appreciated it equally. Conclusion…..Gen Y demands what everyone wants. There is no need to treat them “special”. A good performance management process for everyone is special enough.
No comments yet.