Tag Archive for: performance management
Why you need to unblock Facebook: Performance management and social media
At Cognology I talk to a LOT of Australian companies about best practice performance management. These conversations include the 250+ organisations using our talent management software. But they also cover a broad range of Australian HR professionals, consultants and executives.
Through these conversations, I get a good feel for the performance issues that are keeping leaders awake at night. And one of the biggest concerns I’m hearing today is about social media use (especially Facebook).
There’s a real concern about the amount of wasted employee time that’s spent on Facebook. Execs are concerned about the bottom line impact of the 22 hours each week that the average Australian spends on social media.
Banning social media has never been less effective
At the same time, I’m seeing widespread concern from HR leaders that banning social media is less and less effective.
Ten years ago blocking websites may have worked. Today if an employee wants to look at Facebook, they have a wide choice of devices. And most of these devices are owned by the employee.
Even if you ban social media, research shows that about 40% of employees will end up on Facebook during work hours. If they can’t use Facebook on their work computers, they’ll use their phone, laptop, or any other device they have.
Why Facebook isn’t the CAUSE of your productivity problem
I think there’s much more to the “Facebook is costing us millions in lost productivity” story. In the hundreds of business I’ve worked with, I’m yet to see an example where Facebook is the real cause of the productivity problem.
More typically, social media use problems are a symptom of deeper issues in how you measure and manage performance. In my experience:
“Facebook is costing us millions in lost productivity” usually translates to “we don’t know how to hold our employees to account for their output”.
The solution is to focus on managing output, not monitoring input
Facebook (and every other form of social media) are real and present distractions in the work environment. They’re not going away any time soon.
To be an effective worker today you have to be effective at dealing with these distractions (and many others). Delivering results regardless of distraction is a critical skill for the future of work.
Few managers would disagree with the importance of delivering results on time and on budget. And when you really dive in, all roles have results and output. Results might mean delivering projects on time, or delivering high quality content, or high client satisfaction.
Moving from measuring input to managing output
The key step in making the transition to managing output is to define well-specified goals and competencies. Real performance accountability means agreeing these goals and competencies with every employee. And it means regularly holding every employee to account for delivering on this agreement. Real performance accountability makes Facebook use irrelevant
The beauty of goals and behavioural competencies is that you can manage to these, rather than worrying about whether people are spending time on Facebook.
My own experience with this is that this transition can be quite liberating. All of a sudden you don’t have to watch people to make sure you are getting value. You just look at the value you’re getting as the goals you’ve set are achieved.
So if you think you’ve got a problem with Facebook, start thinking about how you can make the transition from monitoring input to managing output. Managing for output requires more work upfront and more hard conversations. But it also gives you the power to dramatically increase productivity, hit goals and reduce day-to-day management overhead. Sounds like a great deal to me!
How are you addressing social media use in your workforce? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Jump into the comments below and let’s start the conversation.
Image credit: Spencer E Holtaway Under licence CC BY-ND 2.0
How to waste $41 billion dollars on performance management
My open letter to Bill Morrow, recently appointed CEO of the National Broadband Network
Dear Bill,
Congratulations on your recent appointment as CEO of NBN. It’s a big job, even with your history of telecom turnarounds.
I read with interest the article in The Australian about your plans to fix the cultural problems at NBN. As an expert in performance management, I’ve seen cultural problems of all shapes and sizes. But it sounds like the mess you’ve inherited at NBN is truly something unique!
I’m amazed by some of the cultural and engagement problems. So I wanted to offer you some friendly advice and a second pair of eyes. Here’s my thoughts about your strategy to turn NBN into a high performance organisation.
Increasing workplace engagement
I know that the NBN has been a bit of political kick-ball. And that there’s been a lot of changes.
But you’re building a transformational piece of Australian infrastructure. The goals of what you’re setting out to do are very big (and very clear). NBN is almost the definition of a mission driven organisation. So there’s no reason that you should be dealing with an organisational engagement score of just 44%!
In my opinion, your workforce at NBN has to be inspired by a mission driven culture. Every employee needs to get up in the morning ready to shape the future of the country. And you can do this by giving them clear expectations that are directly connected back to the goals and mission of the organisation.
Setting clear expectations and holding people accountable
I can see that you’ve recognised the huge role that performance management has to play in fixing the culture. In fact, I know that you’ve “set about reforming the way the company measures performance”.
But I wanted to issue a word of warning. Measuring performance is typically only half of the challenge in a dysfunctional culture. The biggest problem is clearly setting out what high performance actually looks like in the first place.
In my experience, you get high performance when every employee can explicitly state what high performance looks like for their role, on a day-to-day basis.
And I bet this isn’t the case at NBN today. In fact, I’m going to make a wager that you have thousands of employees running round with unclear position descriptions and requirements. These employees have no real clarity around what they need to do to be successful. And as a result, they start playing the blame game.
Ending the blame game
The blame game that’s going on at NBN at the moment is typical of what I see in organisations with badly broken performance management. How it happens is clear from one of your quotes in The Australian:
“An independent assessment by KordaMentha and Boston Consulting Group cited a fear among staff of “being blamed for mistakes” that “generated a lack of willingness to accept responsibility in some functional groups”.
When you do performance management well, it’s clear who is responsible for delivery. The process ensures that your employees are deeply invested in their goals and objectives.
Remember that at heart, great performance management really isn’t much more than an organisational process for accountability.
I’ve seen the impacts of a ‘blame-game’ culture before. And I’ve got no doubt this is how NBN got to an engagement score of 44%. Because in the ‘blame-game’ environment, everyone is watching their back. Right now, your staff don’t have the time (or the energy) to care about their role in shaping the future of Australia.
Getting visible alignment
I think it’s great you’re working to show a more aligned culture by knocking down the walls. Every high performance organisation I work with makes effort to show how everyone is working together. As you said:
“If we really want to change this culture then we have to start at the top and drop this hierarchical feel. These things are minor in nature but they are symbolic. It shows us getting off our pedestals so we can align together and work together.”
Getting off the pedestal is important. And so is showing everyone that the mission of the organisation is more important than your harbour-view office.
People at NBN do need a symbol of change. And tearing down the office walls might help with that. But don’t confuse the quick win of knocking down the walls with the long-term change in behaviour that you need. You can tear down physical walls in a weekend, but good performance management and a culture of accountability takes hard work over many years.
You’ve got a big job ahead, so good luck
We both know this is going to be hard work. Cultures don’t transform themselves overnight. But with hard work, you can keep people accountable to delivering high performance at NBN. Here’s my four-step action plan:
- I’d remind every employee of the role they play in delivering the mission of NBN.
- I’d quickly get rid of those that don’t care.
- I’d make sure that for those that do care, the expectations of high performance are explicitly set out.
- And finally, I’d focus on making the connection between every individual’s performance and the mission of building a better Australia.
Once everyone can see how those expectations connect back to the big mission of NBN, you’re in with a fighting chance.
Good luck – I’m looking forward to seeing a very engaged team coming through my neighbourhood to connect us to the NBN soon!
Jon
Image credit: Bidgee used under CC-SA 3.0 License
