Value The Right Things
When it comes to evaluating employee performance, it’s flat out critical to make sure that you’re measuring what’s really important. This seems so logical, but we’d bet good money we could walk into most organizations and find examples of performance reviews with competencies that are missing from the review and competencies that are a part of the review that have no real relevance to the job in question.
A simple job analysis for each position within the company would be a great start in identifying the duties and skills required to do the job effectively. And keep in mind that identification of the competencies to be measured relate to the job and not the individual. Sometimes, review templates appear to be created around the individual(s) holding the position rather than the job itself.
There are cultural competencies and then there are job duty-specific competencies. When we think about cultural competencies, we think about things like interpersonal relationships, self awareness, team-orientation, etc. while job duty-specific competencies are those that relate directly to completion of the job tasks…..the “technical” skills if you will. This distinction is only made to illustrate the need to focus on both “soft” and “hard” skills and to place emphasis on valuing the right things when evaluating performance.
This all leads up to the question of what your company values when it comes to evaluating performance? Is there an overemphasis on the cultural variables and not enough on the job duty-specific ones? Or are the cultural competencies lacking in the evaluation process? Undervaluing or overlooking competencies that should be measured consistently can lead to problems because improper focus for the employees occurs. They need to clearly understand what they are being measured against relative to the job at hand and relative to the “cultural requirements” of the business.
There are certain competencies that would seem to be important to most jobs if the organization values interpersonal relationships, high levels of cohesiveness, and harmony among employees. When these competencies are missing from reviews there is a strong implication that technical job related skills are paramount to success while building a team-oriented and harmonious culture are not involved in overall success. Without appropriate focus on the cultural variables, various types of conflict often set in and can run rampant.
Some studies have shown that workplace conflict forces managers to spend 30% or more of their time dealing with it and as many as 50% of employees say they get less done while fuming about conflict that can arise. And in an environment where conflict seems more prevalent, more than 35% of employees became less engaged in their work. When employees aren’t evaluated against cultural related competencies in a way that makes sense, reduced productivity and engagement can be the result.
Selection of competencies to measure employees against speaks volumes about what an organization values. When you look at the competencies in play in your business, what seems to be valued?