“To win in the marketplace, you must first win in the workplace.”
- Douglas Conant, Former President & CEO of Campbell Soup Company
With millennials set to dominate
the workforce, companies have to
reckon with the strong wind of
demographic change to win in the
workplace. By 2020, millennials
are expected to comprise 50
percent of the global workforce,
and by 2025, this number will be
75 percent.
More importantly, here is a telling
revelation on millennials' approach
to work: phased over the next 10
years, millennials will leave their
current employers, and only 16
percent are expected to continue in their present organizations.1 Purpose, openness, transparency,
collaboration, inclusiveness and
flexibility are the Millennial
expectations that will shape
corporate cultures.
This has unleashed a
transformative era of culture,
attitudes, business models and work practices. An example of
this sweeping transformation
can be seen at the offices of a
leading North American bank.
The shift began as technology
employees joined cross-functional
product-development teams
to make the bank more
customer-focused. The business
team learned lessons of agility from
their IT colleagues while IT learned
the nuances of customer needs
from the business team. The bank
now thinks of performance
management in terms of teams
and not individuals.
Human Resources (HR)
departments are thus compelled
to create an ecosystem in which
'employee experience' rules. The
first casualty of such an
environment is the traditional
process of performance review.
HR teams are moving away from
a rules- and planning-based approach toward a simpler and
faster model driven by feedback
from participants.
With speed as the new currency of
business, rapid innovation is a
strategic imperative for most companies — and not just a subset.
To get the most of this opportune
moment, organizations turn to HR
functions to drive higher values.
The innovation-filled HR technology
landscape is, at present, a USD 15 Billion market2 — and growing
rapidly. Companies are developing
new-gen HR systems in
recruitment, social media analytics,
talent assessment, online learning
and other core systems. These
systems are transforming cultural
paradigms in people management.
Specifically, in the area of
performance management, the
ownership of developing careers is
shifting to employees.
Technology-enabled Cultural Shift
It is interesting to note how
performance reviews are viewed in
general, especially by millennials.
There is a near-unanimous opinion
that the traditional cookie-cutter
approach to performance
management will not work. Both
frequency and quality of feedback
are important to millennials.
Nuanced and individualized talent
engagement conversations are what
employees demand. Managers, on
the other hand, look for accurate
and real-time information, and the
tools to enable such dialogues.
In an attempt to move away from an
event-driven, 'five conversations' a
year approach to a model of ongoing
dialogue, Johnson & Johnson
offered its businesses the chance to
participate in a three-month-long
experiment. They tried out a new
continual-feedback process using a
customized app with which
employees, peers and managers
could exchange comments in real
time. At the end of three months, 46
percent of managers in the pilot
group had joined in and exchanged
3,000 pieces of feedback.
A technology-driven environment
led by platforms, tools and apps
enables supervisors to engage in
constructive discussions and
feedback with team members at any
time. Technology now allows
crowdsourced goal-setting, where
team members collaborate and set
their customized objectives
throughout the year. With real-time
visibility into each other's progress,
colleagues offer support toward
achieving the goals. The result is
seamless working between
networked teams.
Analytics-driven Engagement
Accurate data and insights are
crucial to a technology-driven
approach to performance reviews.
Analytical and automation tools
can consolidate and extract
insights from crowdsourced
performance data (structured
and unstructured) in real time.
This provides the openness,
collaboration and learning-driven
growth that millennials seek.
The right insights can be extracted
to decide on rewards, promotions
and other career progression
measures. It increases the trust
factor, enhances social connection
in organizations and enables
credible coaching and
developmental feedback.
When organizations add
machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI), it further
improves the quality of data
for better business outcomes.
Just the right recipe for all
employees, and especially
for millennials. In short,
technology has paved the way
for continuous conversations,
which, in turn, promotes
engagement in the performance
review process.
Agility in Reviews
A performance review process has
multiple stakeholders with different
expectations. Managers need
simple and practical tools to
engage with their team members
and provide clear goals that align
with the company's strategy.
Employees need intuitive interfaces
for soliciting both feedback and
guidance on their performance as a
logical step to career growth. HR
looks for powerful dashboards to
stay informed, and automated
processes to allow flexibility in
performance management tools.
An agile and technology-driven
performance review will, therefore,
have to include:
-
Quick and straightforward goal-creation
using the right criteria
-
Tools to link goals of matrixed
teams; easy updating and
visibility into the progress of
individuals and teams
-
Workflow clarity that enables
shared understanding of goals
and measurement
-
Tools to give, receive and request
feedback from anyone in the
organization
-
Ability to call for 'check-in'
conversations for direct
discussions between employees
and managers regarding
expectations, feedback and
career planning
-
Creation of individualized
review processes with speed
and ease-of-use
-
Mobile applications that allow
peers and managers to set,
share and collaborate on
goals online
-
Intuitive interfaces and
self-serve features for faster
adoption by users
-
Consolidation and delivery of
real-time feedback, even in
matrixed environments
-
Direct view on progress of
performance processes through
versatile dashboards
-
Integration with productivity tools
(such as Slack and Outlook) to
incorporate performance into
everyday work
Learning and Coaching
Proactive coaching should be a
natural follow-up to transparent
evaluation and motivating
feedback. Real-time survey
systems, data and sentiment
analysis software, and
Organizational Network Analysis
tools should come together to
achieve this objective seamlessly.
Incorporating learning tools into
the performance and development
cycle will complete the last-mile
growth loop of the 'performance
experience.' New micro-learning
platforms and Learning
Management Systems combined
with AI-driven recommendations
can be smart performance
support systems. Including a self-serve option that allows
employees to publish and share
learning content will further
enhance the experience.
Minneapolis-based Cargill Inc.
has deployed an 'Everyday
Performance Management' system
for their 155,000 employees
worldwide. It incorporates daily
encouragement and feedback into
on-the-job conversations.
Managers give forward-looking
feedback, and the company has
achieved measurable
improvements. Adidas
transformed its monolithic
performance review to a monthly
'feedback loop' that includes the
customer experience factor.
Performance is an ongoing
activity. And that is why
technology-enabled performance
management is the future of
workplaces. It provides the holistic
integration and perspectives
required for better talent decisions.
It sets the right foundation for
meaningful, continuous and
engaged conversations between
employees and managers.
Ultimately, businesses look
to enthuse their people in
performing their inspired best — and it is such
conversations that will have
true relevance and impact in
boosting the growth, capabilities
and revenues of both individuals
and organizations.
References:
1. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/About-Deloitte/gx-millenial-survey-2016-exec-summary.pdf
2. https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2014/10/15/the-top-ten-disruptions-in-hr-technology-ignore-them-at-your-peril/#24d7152a1fa8