Helping your workforce strive for excellence through effective performance management

September 11, 2007

Pipeline - Victoria NemersonBy Victoria Nemerson, senior product manager, Ceridian Compliance Services
Being perfect, so I have heard, is exhausting work. Striving for perfection gets lost in translation as the operative word or emphasis always seems to be perfection, not striving. Without exception, perfectionism can doom us to failure, and worse. Way worse. And yes, there are worse things in life than to fail at something.

Reaching for excellence
In November 1966, Readers' Digest published an article by Paul Gallico entitled "The Dropout Who Made It to the Top." Gallico was a successful U.S. novelist (1897-1976), and short story writer. He is best remembered for his novel, The Poseidon Adventure. Gallico first saw "the dropout" in 1923 at Yankee Stadium where Gallico was working as a sports reporter. Looking down from the press box one day, Gallico noticed a new bat boy. About a year later the young kid had disappeared.

Years later Gallico figured out who the kid was. He was John Tucker Hayward, senior vice admiral of the U.S. Navy, president of the Naval War College at Newport, R.I. and one of America's leading atomic scientists. Hayward had learned early just how important opportunities can be. He was expelled from military school, ran away from home and by falsifying his age, wangled himself into the U.S. Navy. After only three weeks in the Newport boot camp, he was ready to run away again. Hayward was even more frustrated by life on the ship than in boot camp. One thing was certain: in his rebellion, he had grasped the bottom rung of the ladder.

Aboard ship, Hayward made a friendship with the chaplain, Comdr. John J. Brady and later the boy came to the priest with his frustrations and ambition to be a naval officer. Meanwhile, President Harding had signed a bill which, for the first time, made it possible for an enlisted man to take a competitive examination -- one of the stiffest series of college-entrance tests in the United States -- for entry into the United States Naval Academy.

"With your school background your chances of getting in are nil," the chaplain said. "But there is an outside chance. It'll be the hardest work you've ever done. If you have the guts to try, I'll help. If not, well, maybe polishing brass is a career, too." "I'll try, Father,' said the boy. The unequal battle was joined.

Family ties
I can still hear the voice of my grandfather, Admiral John Tucker Hayward, booming, "Press On!" On the wall in his office hung framed a precept of President Calvin Coolidge: "Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."

The achievements of my grandfather, former New York Yankees' bat boy and high school dropout, are proof that with hard work and persistence, a man who has looked failure in the eye can go far -- farther than he or anyone else ever dreamed he could go.

Driving performance
Likewise, your organization's workforce can also go farther than they have dreamed they can go. How, you ask? It's all made possible by engaging them through effective performance management. When I say "effective," I'm not referring to the old era of fixed, rigid models for evaluating employees. Today's model for performance evaluations not only acquaints employees with strengths or deficiencies in their performance, but also is used as a tool for progressive discipline, employee communication and compensation management and succession planning.

Quite simply, performance evaluations carry a lot of weight, and, depending on how they are administered to employees, can ultimately make or break the success of your organization. The following checklist provides some general guidelines to help ensure that your organization is maximizing the potential of its performance evaluation program:

  • Never refer to protected status or use stereotypes.
  • Set clear, measurable standards for performance.
  • Spell out specific competencies and how they are applied before assessing employees.
  • Base the evaluation on the typical performance of the employee during the entire period.
  • Do not overemphasize recent occurrences or isolated incidents that are not typical of the employee's normal behavior.
  • Base evaluations on accurate data obtained from written records whenever possible and/or from careful observation.
  • Compare the performance of the employee being evaluated with the performance of all individuals (without identifying particular employees) who have performed the same job, keeping in mind the requirements of the job.
  • Do not let evaluation on one factor influence evaluation on other factors.
  • Do not permit grade of job, length of service or previous experience to affect the rating -- consider only the performance of the employee in relationship to the specific requirements of the job.
  • Do not let personal feelings -- whether positive or negative -- bias evaluations.
  • Do not be influenced by a previous evaluation.
  • Guard against letting evaluation of factors fall into a consistent or routine pattern.
  • Do not make an evaluation based on vague impressions.
  • Do not evaluate too quickly -- take enough time to evaluate accurately.
  • Go on record with your honest opinion and not necessarily the one the employee wants to hear.
  • Avoid giving the best ratings to employees whose qualities and strengths most clearly resemble the evaluators.

I can remember hearing my grandfather's mantra "Press on!" as though it were just yesterday. By effectively managing your workforce's performance, you can help your employees "press on" by dreaming bigger, reaching for higher goals and leading your organization to a whole new level of success.

Victoria Nemerson, senior product manager, Ceridian Compliance Services, has 25 years experience as an accountant and attorney. She has a proven track record of proactively minimizing organizational risk and mitigating employment practices liability. A national speaker and trainer, Nemerson has presented compliance-related educational seminars at numerous HR-industry events, national conferences and symposiums.


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