It used to be a common view that the Human Resources department in large companies was more sophisticated, more professional and more forward-thinking than what you would expect to find from HR in smaller companies.
We all presumed that the “big guys” knew what they were doing.
But current thinking among some practitioners now challenge that presumption.
The pendulum of thought has begun to swing the other way. Indeed, sophisticated has become cumbersome,professional has become bureaucratic and forward-thinking has created a chasm of credibility between philosophical concepts and the practical realities that managers deal with every day.
Remember the K-I-S-S principle (keep it simple, stupid)? Many large organizations seem to have forgotten that common sense caution as they saddled their reward programs with ever more forms, procedures and bureaucracy.
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The Evolution of Performance Appraisal
A good example of HR systems gone wild is the difference between a small company performance appraisal and the convoluted processes often followed by large companies. Herein lies a stark contrast not only of styles, but of methodologies and core beliefs that a more complex better way will increase the effectiveness of employee reward programs.
This growth of complexity is commonplace; by the time an organization achieves a certain population size HR feels compelled to complicate their processes – usually in the name of increased employee sensitivities and streamlined procedures. What worked well before (when the business was smaller) is suddenly suspect, deemed somehow less effective, less desirable.
What began as direct cause and effect, performance followed by assessment = reward, suddenly becomes much more complex, more confusing to some, more aggravating to others. Communication becomes critical, but is often flawed and ineffective as both employees and managers question the additional complexity.
What follows is a brief comparison between how small and large companies approach the critically important performance appraisal process.
The Small Company Experience
§ The employee’s performance is assessed against what is expected of them.
§ Performance discussions usually take place on the anniversary of either employment or promotion.
§ Forms are basic, even simple. They may not be standardized, and one or two pages are usually enough.
§ The process doesn’t take a lot of time. Meetings tend to be short and focused, so both parties can get back to work.
§ What the boss says is what is going to happen. The approval chain is abbreviated; messages from the performance meeting are typically what actually happens.
§ The money discussion (pay increase) is front and center, a cause-and-effect dialogue. You have performed thus and so, and your salary will be changed from “x” to “y.”
How Large Companies Tend to Operate
§ The employee’s performance may be assessed against other employee’s, as much as against what is expected of them based on their job description.
§ Performance discussions use a Focal Point strategy, where everybody is reviewed at the same time. For managers with more than two or three subordinates, this represents a challenge in terms of time spent and quality of assessments.
§ Managers are often required to use intricate, multi-part, multi-page forms designed by a specialty section within HR.
§ Employee performance as a group may be viewed against a desired bell-shaped curve of results. Individual assessments may later be modified to fit the expected/budgeted shape of the curve.
§ The boss makes upward “recommendations,” which may or may not be approved. Thus, the conversation with the employee ends on a “we’ll see” basis where money is concerned.
§ Other topics like developing future performance, improvement strategies/action plans, and “where are we going?” discussions may predominate. Sometimes talk of a pay is deferred, raising the question of whether performance actually relates to reward. Meanwhile, the employee wants to hear about a raise.
§ Employees could feel lost in the bureaucracy, a faceless ID number trapped within a huge spreadsheet. For them, cause and effect becomes a pep rally concept, with little connection between individual performance and reward.
So what has been lost as the organization grew larger? Has it become more impersonal, forms-centric, process controlled and standardized? And is that better than before? Perhaps more has been lost than gained.
How did the organization evolve itself into something potentially less helpful, less effective? Perhaps the poking and prodding of systems and procedures in the name of improvement went too far, until they created a convoluted and twisted version of their desired state.
Perhaps we’ve let specialists over analyze the psychology of a boss rewarding a good performer. We’ve exchanged hard decisions with real impact for a muted “everyone deserves something” approach. The following scenario is common.
§ Sub-function specialty groups are created within HR, be they Training, Management Development, Succession Planning or a host of others popularized in prevailing industry jargon. Each group has advocates that push an agenda of change.
§ These specialty groups must justify their existence to validate the worth of their profession and their mission. The result is additional layers of forms, procedures and extra time constraints for managers to struggle with.
§ Over time, these experts lose sight of the managers they should be trying to help. They don’t understand the beast they’re trying to tame. By pressing their own agenda, they tell management how to assess performance.
§ Ultimately these groups become blockers, getting in the way of a smooth-running operation. Objecting managers tend to respond with a campaign of passive resistance.
So can we make our large companies “feel” smaller when dealing with employees? How do we reverse the model of increasing complexity and confusion?
When the state of affairs has gone off the tracks, how many times have you heard – or used the phrase, “let’s get back to basics?”
Perhaps that thought could be useful today, no matter what size organization you hail from. Simply return to the fundamentals of performance management, where performance is assessed, which in turn leads to reward.
It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.
K-I-S-S
