Performance Management

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A cross-case analysis conducted by Goh, Elliot, and Richards (2015) discussed additional perceived limitations from organizations that varied in degrees of success in regards to the implementation of performance management. Among the organizations involved, the majority had perceived organizational structure and alignment as significant barriers to implementation.

From several of the organizations’ perspectives, alignment of organizational goals and objectives were an issue. All of the organizations had difficulties with achieving and maintaining horizontal alignment; the different divisions within the organizations were shifting their focus towards their own individual unit and ultimately overlooking their contribution to the organization’s overall goals and objectives (citation). The other concern was vertical alignment. In this case, all of organizations had experienced difficulties translating their higher overall performance goals into operational objectives for organizational units. It presented an even greater challenge passing this on to employees at the individual level (citation). All organizations within the study were also structured with their performance management system outside the organization. However, Goh et al. (2015) identified that the structure was not the inherent cause of the problem. Rather, it was because the organizations with less successful implementations had viewed their performance management system as separate entity with the mindset that it was “their” responsibility. As a result, performance management was not integrated into the organization’s culture and was not perceived to be something that was shared by the entire organization (p. 163).

In addition, Goh, Elliot, and Richards (2015) found that the alignment of the organization’s strategic goals was necessary for effective implementation of performance management. An organization can address the problems above by developing a performance management culture with the purpose of using it as strategic management tool (cita.). Leaders in the organization can reinforce the message by allocating resources to performance management initiatives. For example, assigning shared responsibility of alignment to a team of senior managers ensures constant attention and commitment to the initiative while adjustments can be made to achieve re-alignment across the organization. This integration of performance management practices into operational activities also helps build awareness across the organization (citation). At the same time, having it integrated into the culture of the organization tells employees that this is the way business is conducted. In regards to vertical alignment, organizations can improve by establishing specific expectations and a clear focus for the distribution of performance information. As described by in one of the cases by Goh et al. (2015), an organization collected performance information at the operational level, which was rolled up to strategic levels for senior managers (citation). The information flow was defined such that the level of information was aligned with the role the manager occupied. As these reports made their way from operational to strategic levels, lessons learned were extracted and considered in the light of current operational processes and resourcing strategies (citation).

For a new performance management, managers may not avoid all the design flaws at the beginning. Therefore, a continually monitoring performance is necessary. Monitoring well means consistently measuring performance and providing ongoing feedback to employees and work groups on their progress toward reaching their goals (Leanne,2004).This process is not only the way to give the feedback, but also a good way to let supervisors adjust evaluation methods and parameters in performance management. It may be possible to fix the flaws in design using this method.

Case Study

Adobe is a multi-billion dollar California based company founded in 1982, which specializes in digital creative and design oriented programs, including Photoshop, InDesign and Creative Cloud (Adobe Systems, 2015). Statistics show that over “90% of the world’s creative professionals use Adobe Photoshop”, and over “50 Billion PDFs were opened in Adobe products alone (Adobe Systems, 2015). They have an overwhelming market share in digital creation products, and employ over 13,000 individuals worldwide (Fortune 500, 2015).

To manage the performance of these employees, the company had instituted a “rank and yank” system, in addition to annual performance reviews (Fisher, 2015). In this system, managers were responsible for firing the employees who were shown to be the least productive on their team. Those with the highest ratings were rewarded with raises in their salaries (Fisher, 2015).

There were several problems with this system of performance management. As one would expect, the ranking system did not increase the cohesion amongst team members but competition (Fisher, 2015). The performance reviews were also problematic. Managers were not taking the appraisals seriously, often giving unthoughtful or general feedback (Baer, 2014). These meetings were often the only time employees had to receive feedback on their work, and they had to wait a year to have this sit-down time with their superiors (Hinds, Sutton, & Rao, 2014). Due to the sparsity in feedback, managers found it difficult to remember an entire year’s worth of performance in their evaluations (Hinds, Sutton, & Rao, 2014). Employees were also not given clear instructions on how to use feedback, or how to implement change (Baer, 2014).

In 2011 Donna Morris, then Adobe’s Senior Vice President of Global People Resources, recognized that the amount of time spent planning and implementing the system each year (up to nine months) was not correlating with improvements in performance (Baer, 2014). In fact, it was actually contributing to voluntary employee attrition. In a company with projects that often take well over a year to implement, losing team members annual was an especially large setback (Fisher, 2015).

To rectify these problems, the company’s HR team held months of brainstorming sessions, making sure that they used feedback from current employees in their solution. The end result of this idea-generating process was the development of “Check-ins”. The check-in system was designed to motivate managers to earnestly participate in the evaluation of the employee, and to help the employee find tangible ways to improve; it was focused on a three components: expectations, feedback, and growth (Hinds, Sutton, & Rao, 2014). The new process begins with setting yearly goals for each employee and manager and giving new hires