Performance Log: Key to Performance Management

08/20/08

The reason most performance appraisals don’t do the job, HR consultant Paul Toth believes, is easy to understand: Most managers wait until the end of the year to discuss performance with employees.

“What’s worse,” says Toth, principal of HR Resolution in Ferrisburg, Vermontwww.hrresolution.com, “is that managers focus on performance for the past two to four weeks, because that’s all they can remember. Employees know this. So, like kids who are extra good in December to ensure a good haul from Santa Claus, employees perform especially well just before appraisals.”

This is no way to manage performance, maintains Toth. You need to provide feedback that’s specific, actionable, and especially timely. “What if you touched a hot stove,” he asks, “and your hand started to hurt half an hour later? It would take you a long time to learn not to touch a hot stove if you learned the lesson at all.” Performance management is the same, says Toth. “We learn best when we get immediate feedback.”

Set the Right Foundation
Managing performance to achieve the highest productivity requires a good foundation. At the beginning of the year, sit down with employees and come up with agreed upon goals that are objective, specific, measurable, observable, challenging, and attainable.

Then, says Toth, “Explain what a job done well looks like.” In manufacturing, this may be as simple as setting numerical and quality goals. In the white collar world, describing a desired outcome may have more to do with meeting project deadlines or milestones, displaying teamwork skills, keeping customers happy, etc.

Employ a Performance Log
It’s after setting goals that many managers stumble, because they don’t provide feedback. Says Toth: “I can’t tell you how many employees have told me, ‘I guess I’m doing OK, because they haven’t told me otherwise.’ Usually, they are not doing OK, but the manager is afraid to tell them.”

A performance log is a useful focal point for sitting down and talking with employees on a regular basis. A log is simply a place to write down things you observe or hear about an employee, both good and bad, at the time you observe or hear them. While you can buy a software program to log employee performance, Toth is a fan of a clean sheet of paper in a manila folder.

Whatever form your log takes, schedule regular meetings with employees to go over its contents. (Such meetings are also a good time to catch up on goals and find out what’s keeping an employee from reaching them.)

For example, you consult your log and say, “You did a great job with that tough customer last Friday, Fred. I’m proud of you and would like to see that kind of behavior again and again. It’s exactly what keeps this company one of the best in the industry.” Or you say, “I saw that you had a tough time with that customer last Friday, Fred. Maybe we should talk about ways you might have handled that differently.”

A conversation like this depends on having a log. Otherwise, in the onslaught of daily events, you’ll forget what happens.

The Value of Paying Attention
“Performance improves,” says Toth, “When you pay attention to people. Employees say, ‘Hey, somebody cares.’ As a result, they’ll be more engaged and motivated to do a good job.” “Besides,” he concludes, “You owe it to your employees to give them an opportunity to succeed.”