| Creating an environment where there is no place to | | | | take to quantify and close the Employee Performance |
| hide poor performance: | | | | Gap: |
| After many years of reengineering, downsizing and the | | | | 1. Identify the success factors and desired results for |
| use of endless performance enhancement initiatives, | | | | each position. |
| most businesses are still inefficient. One of the most | | | | 2. Establish and communicate meaningful standards of |
| effective ways to increase business performance and | | | | performance excellence. The standards should guide |
| profit is to increase the performance of employees, | | | | behavior to achieve desired results. Communicating |
| from the lowest levels of the organization to senior | | | | effectively with customers is not a performance |
| management, and little has been done in this area. | | | | standard. Establishing a goal of 98% customer |
| Raising the level of performance of the weakest | | | | satisfaction as a result of effective communications |
| performers in each job category can have a dramatic | | | | and other positive behavior/actions is the kind of |
| impact on the profit of any company. While many | | | | meaningful, measurable standard we are talking about. |
| companies are rightfully focusing on technology and | | | | 3. Measure staff performance based on the |
| strategic solutions to expand profit margins, other | | | | performance standards. |
| opportunities to increase staff performance are | | | | 4. Share the results of the ongoing performance |
| frequently overlooked. | | | | measurements with staff on a frequent and consistent |
| Employees are the most important asset of any | | | | basis and use the measurement results to define the |
| organization. Fielding a winning team is critical to the | | | | areas of performance that need improvement. |
| ability of any company to compete effectively and to | | | | 5. Conduct employee satisfaction surveys and |
| thrive, and top performing employees are the | | | | employee engagement surveys and take action based |
| foundation of winning teams. | | | | on the survey results. |
| The Employee Performance Gap: | | | | 6. Provide positive leadership and management. Many |
| Employee satisfaction survey and employee | | | | employees perform poorly at least in part because |
| engagement survey comments received from | | | | they report to weak or abusive managers. Consider |
| employees at all levels of organizations include | | | | conducting leadership surveys. Leadership assessment |
| complaints about some employees that are minimally | | | | surveys are 360 surveys that provide feedback to |
| productive and other employees that are disruptive. | | | | many of your company’s leaders, managers and |
| There is a huge gap in performance between the | | | | supervisors at the same time. It is a highly effective |
| strongest and weakest employees performing the | | | | way to identify strong and weak managers and to |
| same or similar jobs in most organizations. We call this | | | | identify what needs to be done to strengthen |
| performance differential the Employee Performance | | | | managers and significantly reduce your company’s |
| Gap. The Employee Performance Gap is typically | | | | employee performance gap. |
| 25%-100% in simple jobs and as much as | | | | 7. Design jobs to be broad and flexible. This will help |
| 500%-1,000% in complex and high-responsibility | | | | facilitate teamwork and enable you to get more done |
| positions requiring broader and higher-level skills. To | | | | with fewer employees. |
| illustrate this point, the Chief Information Officer of a | | | | 8. Provide training to ensure that all team members |
| leading company told us that "my best programmers | | | | have the required skill sets to succeed. |
| produce ten times as much code, of better quality, | | | | 9. Make it clear to the staff that individual performance |
| than my least-effective keepers." He then added | | | | and teamwork is critical to the success of the team |
| "there is little correlation between what our | | | | and the company. |
| programmers produce and what they are paid." | | | | 10. Before hiring, promoting or transferring staff, make |
| Closing the Employee Performance Gap can provide | | | | sure there is a high probability they can succeed with a |
| breakthrough increases in profit at most companies, | | | | reasonable amount of training. |
| even if their profit is already at all-time high levels. | | | | 11. Tie compensation closely to performance. |
| Managers and the strongest employees often spend | | | | 12. Place employees first, customers second and |
| much of their time fixing problems caused by the | | | | shareholders third. Satisfied, competent staff will |
| weakest performers. This creates an enormous drag | | | | ensure that customers and shareholders are taken |
| on organizational performance and serves to | | | | care of. |
| de-motivate top performers, a situation few | | | | 13. Strengthen the recruiting and hiring process to |
| organizations can afford to tolerate. | | | | increase the odds of hiring strong performers. |
| An effective way to assess and identify employee | | | | 14. Use a defined probationary period (typically 90 |
| performance gap issues is to conduct an employee | | | | days) to evaluate new hires and cull out the weak |
| survey. Employee engagement surveys and employee | | | | performers before they become permanent fixtures. |
| satisfaction surveys measure how engaged and | | | | Many companies have probationary periods; few use |
| satisfied employees are, and identify what needs to be | | | | them. |
| done to increase employee satisfaction and | | | | 15. Start now to identify the weakest half of your staff |
| engagement. Employees that are more engaged and | | | | and to increase their performance. Some employee |
| satisfied work harder and smarter, they get more | | | | will respond well to clear expectations and feedback |
| work done and their enthusiasm rubs off on other | | | | on their performance. Others will need more training. A |
| employees. | | | | few individuals may need to be prodded occasionally |
| Closing the Employee Performance Gap enables | | | | to keep their performance on track. There are some |
| organizations to get more done with fewer staff and | | | | employee that will not bring their performance up to |
| to significantly improve quality and customer service. | | | | the required level, period, no matter what is done to |
| For many companies, the bottom line impact of the | | | | help them. Following your company's performance |
| Employee Performance Gap is huge. Ineffective sales | | | | management process, do everything possible as |
| calls translate into lost opportunities. Based on a wide | | | | quickly as you can to eliminate the marginal performers |
| range of consulting reviews, we have found that | | | | from your organization. Replace them only if you really |
| twenty to thirty percent of a company's staff cost, | | | | have to. |
| including management and employees, is spent fixing | | | | 16.Establish clear priorities and eliminate inappropriate |
| things, performing rework, correcting errors and | | | | conflict from the work place. Do everything possible to |
| handling customer complaints because something | | | | eliminate competing agendas. |
| wasn't done right the first time. Most of this excess | | | | Management's Role: |
| staff cost is due to errors produced by employee. | | | | In employee satisfaction surveys and employee |
| Even when the cause of a problem can be traced to | | | | engagement surveys managers frequently comment |
| a failure in technology, there is a great likelihood that an | | | | on their difficulty in finding the right employees, and their |
| error, lack of action or poor judgment on the part of | | | | inability to get the necessary support from their Human |
| employee caused the technology to fail. | | | | Resources department in dealing with poor |
| Picking a Winning Team: | | | | performers. On the other hand, HR often talks about |
| Imagine ten kids coming together to play a sport, any | | | | managers who are ineffective at selecting the right |
| sport. The kids know each other and have played | | | | employees and who avoid dealing with employee |
| together many times before. Is there ever a question | | | | performance issues at all costs. Human resource |
| about who the captains will be? Of course not, the | | | | managers sometimes point to the fact that they have |
| two best players will be the captains and everyone | | | | all of the necessary performance measurement and |
| knows who they are. When it comes to picking the | | | | pay for performance policies and procedures in place. |
| teams, about the only thing that isn't known is which | | | | They say that managers need to use these |
| captain will get to pick first. Once the coin is tossed, it is | | | | processes effectively. |
| clear as to which person will be chosen first, second | | | | There is an important role for both managers and |
| and so on down to the tenth player. Some of the kids | | | | human resources in increasing overall employee |
| may not like the order in which they are chosen, but | | | | performance. Working as a team, they can create and |
| they all know the selection process and accept that | | | | implement effective approaches to ensure that staff |
| they are picked based on their relative ability and value | | | | performance is appropriately measured and that |
| to the team. Depending on the particular players, there | | | | closing the Employee Performance Gap is a top |
| usually is a wide range of ability and performance on | | | | priority for everyone in the company. Ultimately it is |
| each of the chosen teams. | | | | management's role to measure and increase |
| Now let's think about the teams that come together to | | | | employee performance and to put in place a winning |
| make up our companies. A team may have seven | | | | team. |
| accounting clerks, twelve engineers, five cashiers, fifty | | | | Final thoughts: |
| customer service representatives, nine computer | | | | Companies can achieve sustainable profit growth by |
| programmers, eight sales employee, twenty-six | | | | strengthening the performance of their employees, |
| manufacturing specialists, eleven bond traders or any | | | | especially their least effective and marginal performers. |
| number of employee performing similar jobs. If the | | | | Closing the Employee Performance Gap can be the |
| teams have worked together for a while, the team | | | | next frontier for corporate performance improvement. |
| members all know each other's strengths and | | | | It really is possible to get more done with fewer |
| weaknesses, as well as whom the top, middle and | | | | employees and to do a better job when you field a |
| bottom performers are. | | | | winning team. Most importantly, customers will know |
| As in sports, corporate managers and team leaders | | | | the difference in employee performance and they will |
| should have a clear understanding of the relative | | | | act accordingly. Satisfied customers will buy more, |
| performance of each of their players. While some | | | | remain loyal and recommend your company and its |
| corporate managers know the performance of each | | | | products more often. |
| of their employee, many do not accurately measure | | | | For many companies, closing the Employee |
| and assess the performance of their team members. | | | | Performance Gap can mean the difference between |
| Of equal importance, those managers who have | | | | thriving and mediocre bottom line performance. For |
| performance measurements often avoid or have | | | | others, closing the Gap can mean the difference |
| difficulty using measurements as a tool for increasing | | | | between business success and failure. |
| the performance of their employee. | | | | Companies must create an environment where there |
| All managers should ask themselves every day, is my | | | | is no place to hide poor performance, and they need |
| team a winning team and do I have the right players, | | | | to manage knowing that peak performance of all |
| playing at peak performance to win? If the answer to | | | | employees is critical to the success of their company. |
| these questions is no, or I'm not sure, what can be | | | | Establishing meaningful standards for performance |
| done to increase performance of employee and | | | | excellence and measuring the important results factors |
| create a winning team? | | | | for everyone in your company will ensure that there is |
| Closing the Employee Performance Gap: | | | | no place to hide. Using performance standards and |
| There are a number of actions that can be taken to | | | | measurements to increase individual and team |
| identify and close the Employee Performance Gap. | | | | performance is the next step in closing the Employee |
| The most important step comes first, understanding | | | | Performance Gap and achieving breakthrough |
| that the Employee Performance Gap exists and that | | | | increases in company performance. This holds true for |
| management can take action to close the gap. | | | | companies of all sizes in any industry. |
| Following are fifteen action steps that managers can | | | | |