Stop Measuring Employee Performance and Start Evaluating This 1 Thing Instead
Your performance reviews are doing very little to impact the results of your organization. Although they are an annual ritual in most organizations, the traditional performance evaluation of whether an employee "meets" or "exceeds expectations" or "needs improvement" is missing the mark. It's measuring the wrong thing.
Instead of measuring an employee's performance or effort against some generic set of competencies or how well they did in accomplishing their goals (which are almost always ill-defined or not completely within their control), we should be measuring the value they are creating and adding to the organization.
What does value look like compared to performance? Cy Wakeman's recent Forbes article sparked an interesting discussion with my leadership team this past week. She has an interesting perspective on what value creation looks like in today's business environment and I have to say I agree with her. The bottom-line is that adding value to the organization is much more important than meeting the minimum level of requirements in your job. Value is about delivering results that tangibly move your organization forward in fulfilling its purpose and mission. Value is about making you and your role indispensable to the organization, not just showing up to do a job.
Here are five practical ways you can move from just doing a job to truly adding value:
1. Adapt to change, don't resist it – What did you say? You don't like change? Get over it! The days of landing a job at a large company, plugging away for 30 years to earn your pension and a gold watch, then retiring to play golf or do needle-stitch the rest of your life are long gone. It's 2015, not 1955. Flexibly adapting to change is one of the most critical skills needed in today's business environment. What you're doing today may not be what you're doing tomorrow. The goals of the organization today may look different tomorrow when a new competitor enters the arena or economic conditions change suddenly. You have to be ready to adjust the sails and move in a new direction at a moments notice.
2. Keep improving your skills – Every day at work is a job interview. As employees, all of us should expect our employer to help develop us in our role, but career development should be seen as a privilege, not a right. Organizations have an obligation to provide the right training, tools, and resources to enable employees to maximize their potential in the job they were hired to do, but career development (promotions, moving into new roles, etc.) is a privilege and is not the employer's responsibility. Is it a smart thing for employers to facilitate career development in order to attract and retain key talent? Absolutely! But it's up to you to keep learning, to further your education, improve proficiency in your job, and develop new skills in alignment with the direction of your organization's goals and strategies. No one else except you is responsible for your career development.
3. Be easy to do business with – Results have to be delivered and you have a choice in how that happens. You can choose to make it hard or easy. Hard looks like staying in your box, not considering alternatives, and religiously adhering to policy and losing sight of the spirit behind those rules and regulations. Easy looks like creative problem solving, understanding the needs of your customer, and changing systems and processes that may get in the way of serving them effectively. Easy looks like developing a brand reputation of being a "go to" person, someone who will find a way to get things done in spite of internal barriers and frustrations. Easy to do business with also means you have a no-drama factor. In fact, your emotional contribution to the organization adds value rather than taking it away.
4. Deliver results – Adding value is about contribution, not effort. Many people work extremely hard in their jobs but don't necessarily contribute to the organization's bottom-line. Working hard is a necessary ingredient for success but it's not the end game. The end game is helping your team and organization succeed. Your hard work needs to translate into tangible results that contribute to the success of the organization. Delivering results means you're constantly looking for ways to improve systems and processes, both personally and organizationally. It means you're a problem solver and not just a problem spotter. Are you more valuable to your organization today than you were yesterday? People who focus on delivering results, and not just fulfilling the requirements of a job description, make themselves invaluable contributors to the organization whose worth grows day by day.
5. Have an ownership mentality – How would the value of your contribution be different if you acted like you own the place? Would you be more emotionally invested and passionate about the work you do? Would you produce higher quality products? Would you be a little more prudent or cautious with company expenses? Would you care a little more about the customer experience? People who approach their jobs with an ownership mentality care about these sorts of things. They view themselves as stewards of the company's resources and work hard to promote the success of the entire organization, not just their particular role, team, or department.
Measuring performance is a good start but we can't stop there. We have to move toward measuring value contribution and it's our job as leaders to help our employees see the difference. Most importantly, we as leaders have to see our jobs differently. We have to see our jobs as facilitators of value creation and not just managers of performance.
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