Managing Performance in Uncertain Times
This is a strange time for American workers. Some employees are still working from home, which had long been perceived as an employment perk. Yet, when Work from Home (WFH) comes as a result of a continuing pandemic, employees may wonder if they are out of the loop or if they will be left out of promotion opportunities, especially if some employees have returned to the office. At the same time, employees who have returned are wondering if they are jeopardizing their health. In this time of extended uncertainty and complexity, how do you improve your management of performance?
There are two key facets: clarity and consistency.
Clarity
Clarity is foundational. If expectations are unclear or conflicting, many employees will flounder and others may operate on the other end of the spectrum, with the “forgiveness rather than permission” philosophy. Performance and morale will falter. Because of the pandemic, you may have found the need to re-define expectations, and that is appropriate. Once clarified, the expectations should be communicated regularly.
We should clarify and communicate about:
• Vision, Mission, and goals—organizational, departmental, individual, and how they align.
• Roles, responsibilities and expected results. One revelation that has become apparent during WFH is that some leaders were measuring employees by activity rather than results. Pre-COVID, when people were all at the office, it was easy for some employees to look busy with activity. Remote work makes it difficult for managers to see how busy employees are, and the temptation to micromanage is fierce. But we need to re-think this. If we measure activity, we’ll get activity. Wouldn’t it be better to measure results or outputs instead? Have you defined and communicated expected results or outputs for your employees? Measuring performance through expected results and outputs instead of “checking on” employees’ level of activity frequently through the day will allow employees to be more productive, operate with less stress, and improve performance.
Consistency
Consistency may be the most “unsung,” underestimated quality for leading employees’ stronger performance; yet it is vitally important.
Several years ago, during June, I was asked to guide the planning and implementing of teams in a manufacturing plant. At that time, annualized turnover was around 50% and the location had one of the lowest morale measurement scores in the entire global organization. With turnover like that, before planning and implementing team structures to improve performance, we had to get the environment under control. An assessment revealed (among other things) that employees had no respect for the location leadership, and a large percentage of the causes revolved around lack of clarity and consistency around performance expectations, recognition, feedback, and accountability.
After analyzing and prioritizing assessment results, the core management group at the location clarified agreed-upon expectations and set clear, consistent processes and practices. Up to this point, each of the key managers at the location had his or her own ideas related to performance, promotion, recognition, and feedback and accountability; and the employees knew it and exploited it.
By the end of the year, this plant reduced annualized turnover to 9%, improved morale to one of the highest in the company and won a corporate prize for location improvement. How did they make such dramatic improvement? They clarified and developed consistency around:
• Performance: for each major job level and employee in the plant, leadership defined the expected outputs and results and how they related to departmental and plant goals and results.
• Promotion: for each job level/pay grade in the plant, they clarified what level of performance would need to occur for what period of time (and what other conditions, such as availability of the position) in order to be “in line” for a promotion to the next level.
• Recognition: for each job level/pay grade in the plant, they determined what behaviors or performance would need to occur for what period of time to get certain types of recognition from management (there were also peer to peer recognition opportunities).
• Feedback and accountability: for each of the three areas above, the leadership group determined how feedback and accountability would be handled with consistency across the plant.
After this step of the project, all locations leaders were on the same page and agreed to consistently communicate the standards to employees and then apply them. The employees’ uncertainty and perceived favoritism went away. The original goal of implementing team structures could proceed. Clarity and consistency work.
If these aspects were vitally important several years ago, how much more important are they now in most organizations navigating employee performance during the COVID response? In this current situation, setting clear expectations has become more complex and needs to be balanced against the realities of the WFH environment. Management teams need to evaluate prior expectations against the current realities: many employees have school children still at home with remote learning. Many daycare centers have not reopened. Creating clarity and consistency is more important than ever and needs to be balanced against the current situation.
These principles apply with individual managers as well: define clear expectations and communicate them frequently, create your processes—your ways of doing things, how you’re going to handle particular situations—and then do those things consistently, all the while communicating the “why” behind the expectations.
Regardless of the situation the process is the same: when leaders work to set clear, realistic expectations and define consistent, related, appropriate practices, performance improvement is the outcome.
If you or your leadership team would like assistance in developing clear expectations for employees and consistent processes for achieving them, please contact us at [email protected], [email protected] or https://www.linkedin.com/in/transformingorganizations/
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