More On Benefits-Based Performance Management
Our proprietary benefits-based performance management approach to performance reviews focuses on clearly communicating the benefits that can accrue to the employee if they elevate their performance. It represents making a subtle change or addition to the performance review process. Our recent white paper provides more detail on what this approach entails. Click here to download your free copy of that document.
The white paper focuses primarily on the impact on employees and doesn’t really address in any detail the impact benefits-based performance management has on managers. Managers are sometimes reluctant or apprehensive about completing performance reviews because in many cases low ratings or negative performance comments have to be included and then discussed. We all know that some managers don’t like to deliver bad news.
What benefits-based performance management allows the manager to do is reframe comments normally viewed as negative into more positive statements. Those statements are intended to convey to the employee how making performance improvements related to specific competencies will benefit them directly. This alone allows the manager more freedom to put a more positive spin on the behavioral changes required to enhance performance.
Of course, this doesn’t relieve the manager of clearly and concisely communicating to the employee what the performance issues may be. But it does provide managers a tool that will help them feel that they are coaching the employee at a more compassionate and thorough level through their ongoing feedback and the formal performance review processes.
It gives the manager a stronger comfort level and makes them more at ease because they understand that they can consistently display a level of concern about the employee generally absent during coaching involving performance issues. Let’s look at a quick example.
Suppose the manager is faced with dealing with an issue regarding an employee’s ability to work well with others. A comment on the employee’s performance review relative to the competency cooperation might look something like this:
“Jim has had a difficult time relating positively and appropriately with co-workers. This has been a relatively recent development. During his first year with the company he appeared to be a positive team player and cooperated well with his team. During roughly the first 9 months of this year he continued this same level of cooperation. However, over the past several months, there have been instances when Jim has had outbursts of frustration and anger during team meetings and other members of the team have reported that Jim has been making negative comments about the team and the company in general. Specifically, during a meeting on July 25th, Jim raised his voice and told a team member that her idea was “idiotic and short-sighted”. And again on August 1st during a project update meeting, he sat silent during the meeting and made repeated negative non-verbal gestures such as eye rolls and shaking his head in disagreement. Jim has not come forward to address any specific concerns he might have. In fact, in a conversation with me on August 11th, he was asked if anything might be bothering him and he indicated that ‘everything was fine…no problems’. It is imperative that Jim correct this negativity and work hard to become a true team player who displays a high level of cooperation on a consistent basis.”
This is typically where a manager would leave things lie in terms of written comments. But benefits-based performance management encourages and creates a framework for offering specific statements about how the employee will benefit from changing work behavior. In this case, some possible additional statements might look like this:
“Increasing your level of team-orientation and cooperation will help your fellow team members begin to embrace you as a part of the team again. Having their support is important to your success.”
“Being highly cooperative and supportive of others and the company will better position you as a leader and as someone who understands that teamwork is important to advancing the team and its work. Good leaders display cooperation and support even when they do not necessarily agree with certain things. They voice their disagreement in a professional and positive manner.”
“Making your interactions with fellow employees more pleasant and more productive will help diffuse talk about your negativity and, over time, will help position you as someone who can assume more responsibility.”
The list of possible benefits is much longer, but these few examples provide an idea as to how adding these statements to review comments allows the manager to reframe the negative into more positive final comments. This helps leave the employee with a more positive feeling about the comments and the ratings they support, but equally important is the fact that the manager can share positive outcomes of enhanced performance. It gives the manager a way to coach in a manner that is more comprehensive as well. Not only is the employee getting the information about what is wrong, but he is getting the information about what is in it for him if he improves. This approach makes both the employee and manager feel better about the entire process.
Yes, this approach seems logical and a matter of common sense doesn’t it? Some would suggest that many managers already do this. We would argue that most don’t and, in fact, many struggle with what to write as general comments to support ratings. Assistive features such as our comment suggestion tool and the benefits-based statements generator are just two of the tools that ReviewSNAP is providing to managers to create more fruitful performance reviews and to provide more effective coaching.