What is a Competency Assessment?

Assessing an employee’s capabilities is a cornerstone of any performance review process but measuring them against the specific needs and requirements of their role transforms that assessment component into a measurable practice called a competency assessment. 

What is a Competency Assessment? 

Competency is defined as the application of knowledge, skills, and behaviors used in performing specific job tasks. Usually, it is one of the key attributes being assessed when you are measuring an employee’s performance. A competency assessment, however, is the assessment of an employee’s capabilities against the requirements of their job. The goal of competency assessment is to identify any problems with an employee’s performance and to correct those issues before they affect work quality or customer care.  

The actual requirements of a role that a competency assessment relies on are outlined in what is called a competency model. A valuable competency model provides an overview of the key tasks and skills most critical to success in the role, not an outline of every activity being performed in the job. This more thorough description can be provided in a traditional job task analysis.  

In order to define an employee’s proficiency level, a competency assessment is performed on the tasks and skills identified in the competency model, for which a rating is selected based on how well the employee performs the task. Simply put, a competency assessment measures how (behaviors) an employee does the what (task or skill). When the individual’s proficiency level has been defined, it can then be compared with the target level, helping employers recognize proficiency or skill gaps for each relevant task and skill. 

The Benefits of Conducting a Competency Assessment 

While one of your top priorities should always be to keep an eye on how your employees are working and monitoring any potential skill gaps that could cause issues in the future, there are several key benefits to introducing competency assessments into your regular performance review strategy. Some of these include: 

1. Quantifying the Size of Skill Gaps.

It can be hard to miss skill gaps when they are causing extreme detriments to business, but most organizations are unaware of the actual quantity and size of all the skill gaps that can exist in their workforce. They can know they have them, but not have the means to recognize just how large or widespread they are, meaning they can’t use them to inform organizational plans, strategy, and priorities. 

As a leader, the decisions you make guide the future of your company. But when you don’t have competency assessment data or skill gap analyses to inform those key decisions, you can never confidently aim towards future successes. A competency assessment sheds light on those areas you might be missing, helping you fully understand your organizational capability and make the best decisions you can for the business. 

2. Informing Future Action.

If your role centers around learning, talent, and effectiveness, a competency assessment can help eliminate the data void and establish a culture of learning so that upskilling and reskilling can happen continuously. Ensuring all individuals have the necessary skills required to do their current and future jobs should be a given, but it is impossible to navigate, and then mitigate, any existing skill gaps effectively if you have no skills assessment data to inform that overview. 

Recognizing which individuals possess the required skills, and which don’t, enables individual learning and development programs to valuable employees to close those gaps. With the data accumulated from a competency assessment process, you can also pair high performers of one specific skill with others that have a skill gap in that area, closing gaps quickly by leveraging task-based mentoring as a learning strategy. In addition, a competency assessment system can also improve your talent acquisition strategy, since you can identify the areas of skills the organization lacks in and hire new employees with those skills accordingly to fill in those gaps.  

3. Driving Consistent Improvement.

A solid performance review strategy involves more than a single assessment approach. Especially today, organizational change is occurring at a faster and faster rate, to the point where sometimes the moment an employee is upskilled or reskilled, some of their newly learned skills have already become obsolete. 

The future of the business world is beginning to centre around a notion of continual skill reinvention, and consistent competency assessments gear towards that future. Driving capability within your organization begins when you create a cycle of assessment, ongoing development, and reassessment on those skills and tasks you have already worked on, providing you with a constantly updated current picture of capability at any time. By transforming your performance review process into a culture of ongoing, lifelong learning, leveraging skill-specific competency assessments, you can drive real growth within your organization.  

How to Complete a Competency Assessment 

For a competency assessment to be successful, you first need to have three key elements: 

1. A role-based competency model to assess individuals against. 
2. A competency assessment system that will facilitate the scaling, privacy, and capability analytics of the process. 
3. A personalized learning plan to create and promote individual reskill and upskill action plans for employees.  

It is possible to implement a competency assessment with only one of the first two elements but having all three in place before proceeding will produce the best results. The key takeaway, however, should be the importance of having a solid system of assessment itself. Historically, using basic tools such as spreadsheets or manual filing run a much higher risk of a breach of privacy or a lack of global control. Especially for larger companies, the volume of skill inventory data will be significant, so you need a system that can streamline the analytics for you and create data visualizations for the results.  

SpriggHR’s Performance Review Tool is a good example of a modern, streamlined approach to competency assessment. An element of the performance review tool includes a customizable Skills & Competencies section, where you can identify the specific skills and tasks required for a role and assign the relevant competencies to individuals working in that role. You can then measure the position-specific skills, knowledge, and behaviors against the employee’s actual performance, simplifying your competency assessment process and drawing out the key results for you without getting lost in the minutiae.  

The other key takeaway is, evidently, the critical nature of establishing learning plans that aim to expand the skill set of an individual through the building and execution of action plans. While the first two steps help you to capture competency data, you can’t address skill gaps without a concrete plan of action. 

In Summary 

Organizational growth depends on individual progress, but for employees to be able to do their jobs as well as they need to, they need to have self-awareness over the areas they are lacking in. By having a process in place that can systematically highlight those skill and task gaps, employees are much more likely to buy into the fact that there is action they need to take themselves should they wish to progress within the company. By leveraging a method of performance review that continuously provides the tools necessary to upskill and reskill employees in the right ways, and aligning their competencies with the needs of the business, you have a chance to set each person on a path toward continuous learning and growth.   

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28 Important HR Metrics to Measure

Strategic HR is a practice that is ever-growing in popularity among businesses around the world. Perhaps one of the biggest indicators of that growing popularity is the increased focus on the use of HR metrics as a key component of an organization’s overall business strategy. 

But, what are HR metrics? And if executives are beginning to value them much more, how can a company go about improving their data analysis game to meet those increasing expectations? If you want to make a real impact on your organization, you need to have a thorough understanding of the basics of HR metrics, and which ones in particular you should begin measuring today.  

In a hurry? Take our HR Metrics white paper to go! 

What Are HR Metrics? 

Human Resource metrics are the measurements that help organizations track key areas in their HR data. More specifically, they are the metrics that track an organizations human capital, and measure how effective their Human Resources initiatives are on the overall success of the business. HR metrics can be broken down into three areas, each with their own set of key HR metrics associated with those areas: 

1. Organizational Performance

• Turnover percentages 
• Percentage of regretted loss 
• Statistics on reasons for personnel leaving 
• Absence percentages, and absence behaviors 
• Recruitment statistics (e.g. time to fill, number of applicants, recruitment costs) 

2. HR Operations

• HR efficiency (e.g. time to resolve HR self-service tickets)  
• HR effectiveness (e.g. perception of service quality) 

3. Process Optimization

• Changes in HR efficiency and effectiveness over time, which are used to re-engineer and reinvent the nature of HR in the organization, optimizing its delivery process for the future.  

These specific examples will be fleshed out in further detail later but recognizing the three overarching areas of HR metrics is critical if you hope to keep your tracking system organized and efficient.  

The Importance of Keeping Track of HR Metrics 

Measuring the types of information and data listed above helps organizations figure out their people strategy for the future, recognizing what is working well for the organization, what needs improvement, and what trends they can expect down the line. Both executives and HR professionals agree that measuring HR areas and monitoring its impact on an organization is critical. As a result, HR metrics are transforming from a business advantage to a must for any HR team that seeks to build up a solid, data-driven business strategy for their company.  

The 28 Most Important HR Metrics You Should Be Measuring 

The amount of data that can be tracked and measured in HR is astounding, but in order to gain the most from the HR metrics you gather, you first need to identify the key figures that will provide the clearest insight into how your company can grow and succeed down the line.  

HR Metrics in Recruitment 

1. Headcount: the total number of employees in the organization, or within the department you are tracking. 

2. Demographics: the characteristics of the workforce, including age, gender, education level, and length of service in the company. 

3. Time to Hire: the average number of days between when a job is posted, and when the candidate accepts the offer. 

4. Acceptance Rate: the number of offer letters extended by the organization, divided by the number of candidates who accept an offer. 

5. Cost per Hire: the average cost of hiring a new employee. This can be generated by calculating the sum of both internal and external hiring costs, then dividing that value by the total number of employees hired in a given period. 

6. Time to Productivity: the time it takes for new hires to become acclimated in the organization and start working at full productivity.  

7. New-Hire Turnover: the number of new hires who leave the organization within a set period of time (e.g. within their first year of employment). 

HR Metrics in Engagement and Retention 

8. Employee Satisfaction: the number of employees who would recommend the organization as a good place to work, versus the number of employees who wouldn’t. 

9. Total Turnover Rate: the number of employees who leave the company within a given period of time, divided by the average number of total employees. This is usually indicated in a percentage value, so this decimal is then multiplied by 100. 

10. Voluntary Turnover Rate: the turnover rate including only the employees who voluntarily leave the organization. 

11. Talent Turnover Rate: the turnover rate among the organization’s highest-performing and highest-potential employees.  

12. Retention Rate: the opposite of a turnover rate, in that the number of employees who remained in the organization over a given period is divided by the total number of employees. 

13. Retention Rate per Manager: the retention rate broken down by individual teams and managers. 

HR Metrics in Time Tracking 

14. Absence Rate: the average number of days employees are absent in a given period of time, not including approved PTO  

15. Absence Rate per Manager: the absence rate broken down by individual teams and managers.  

16. Overtime Hours: the number of overtime hours worked by employees in a given period of time. This can be calculated either as an average number, broken down by individual employees.  

HR Metrics in Employee Value & Performance 

17. Performance & Potential: a nine-box performance matrix where employees are categorized according to their performance and potential levels

18. Employee Performance: metrics as received through self-assessments, peer reviews, manager assessments, or a combination of all three. 

19. Goal Tracking: usually done so through a performance management software that include goal tracking, this metric monitors the goals employees have set, how they connect to larger organizational goals, the progress the employees have made on those goals. 

20. Company Performance: a comparison of how well employees are performing, versus how engaged and valued they feel within the organization.  

21. Revenue per Employee: the total amount of revenue generated in a given period of time, divided by the total number of employees. 

HR Metrics in Training and Development 

22. Training Expenses per Employee: the total cost of the organization’s training courses and programs, divided by the total number of employees. 

23. Training Completion Rate: the number of employees who complete a given training course/program, divided by the total number of employees. This value is then multiplied by 100 to get a percentage. 

24. Time to Completion: the amount of time it takes for an employee to complete a given training course or program. 

25. Training Effectiveness: this can be measured in several different ways, including running tests or assessments that generate a pass/fail rate for training programs.  

HR Metrics in HR Service & Software 

26. Ratio of HR Professionals to Employees: the number of employees in the organization per HR professional on the HR team. 

27. Cost of HR per Employee: the total amount the organization spends on HR functions and services, divided by the total number of employees in the organization. 

28. HR Software Employee Participation Rate: the number of employees who actively use the organization’s HR software, divided by the total number of employees in the organization. 

Begin Measuring HR Metrics Today 

The work to manage and measure the above-mentioned metrics in the Human Resources department is vital to any organization’s long-term success. However, when you aren’t measuring and tracking the key HR metrics that matter most, it becomes very difficult to pinpoint just how well your managerial efforts are working, or how you can best improve them for sustainable success. If your organization is not measuring any HR metrics right now, be sure to sit down with your executive and HR teams and identify the areas of data you need to start tracking. Especially for companies just starting out in the HR metrics practice, keeping it simple is key. There is no need to dive into hundreds of different reports right away. If your company is already measuring some HR metrics, ensure that all the data being collected is beneficial to your organization and is helping you to reach your company goals. 

Software tools such as SpriggHR can help streamline your HR metric tracking and measuring process, pinpointing the areas your company is succeeding in, and highlighting others that may need some improvement.  

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The Pros and Cons of Anonymous Feedback

The value of employee feedback is indisputable, and any manager will attest to it being an integral tool throughout business processes such as project management and business innovation. When it comes to understanding how employers go about collecting that feedback, however, and how they have chosen to best manage its collection and leverage its results, the advantages and drawbacks of anonymous feedback become more apparent.  

The Disadvantages of Anonymous Feedback 

Feedback is a vital part of any organization’s operations, with regular feedback results driving leadership and a company culture that remains lean, innovative, and high-performing. But the benefits of keeping feedback channels anonymous can sometimes be outweighed by the potential detriments it can have on your employees. 

The primary reasoning behind the push for anonymity is the elimination of the power dynamic that exists between the givers and receivers of harsher feedback. However, when anonymity is introduced and becomes the norm for feedback giving, the providers of that harsher feedback are usually much less specific, since details may risk them revealing their identity. The absence of context when it comes to providing feedback can undermine a company’s push for innovation and growth, since it discourages learning, openness, courage, and adaptability.  

Listed below are some other possible drawbacks of implementing an anonymous feedback system. 

1. Encouraging Dismissive Rationalization 

Even the most impartial and selfless candidate is not immune to thinking about their self-image when it comes to constructive criticism. It is extremely common for harsher criticisms to be minimized almost intuitively by their receiver. 

For example, if the source of feedback is someone you don’t think highly of, you may inherently minimize whatever it is they present to you. However, in these cases you can recognize rationalization and work past it to digest the truth. When the feedback is anonymous, it is much harder to develop that counter-narrative to dispute the instinct to dismiss whatever is being said. In order to increase congruence with how we perceive ourselves, we leverage the lack of context that comes from anonymous feedback to discount it entirely, and no learning can be done. 

2. Promoting Mistrust 

When constructive feedback is received anonymously, it is not uncommon for it to be met with disbelief and a questioning of the motive behind it. Without a clear sense of the source, employees and employers alike may jump to conclusions about why the feedback is constructive in the first place, including beliefs that may lead to mistrust among the workplace like the perception of intentional sabotage. Even when the constructive feedback is minor, its anonymity can still have the receiver thinking more about the source and why it couldn’t be shared in person, resulting in a gradual decrease in openness and trust. 

3. Delusions of Grandeur 

Just like critical anonymous feedback can be treated too trivially, positive anonymous feedback can be treated with too much significance. When someone receives positive feedback or praise, they are likely to elevate it as an accurate definition of who they are, telling themselves it is entirely correct. When this happens, the opportunity to adapt and grow further is lost, since the receiver of the feedback thinks they have reached their highest potential. 

4. Decreasing Moments of Encouragement 

Not only does positive anonymous feedback rob the receiver of a valuable learning opportunity, it also steals the chances for meaningful moments between colleagues to occur where they can openly encourage one another and have positive interactions. Dialogue amongst team members, as well as between an employer and employee, about their respective strengths can have tremendous effects for the organization. Anonymous feedback removes that opportunity, blocking off the channel towards success that is supportive relationships. 

The Benefits of Anonymous Feedback 

While anonymous feedback may not be the best fit for some organizations, it does not mean it is all bad, or only has negative results for business. In some cases, implementing anonymous feedback may be the best option when it comes to internal assessments. 

One of the largest arguments when it comes to the advantages of having anonymous feedback in place, is its potential to eliminate the internal struggles employees and employers undergo when they are forced to analyze and comment on someone’s actions. Feedback should be mutually beneficial for the receiver and the provider, but it has negative connotations for several different reasons, including: 

• The fear of being judged. The need to be liked is not exclusive to team members’ personal lives. People want to be liked and appreciated in their workplace, and especially by their supervisor since they hold ultimate power over their career and financial security. When feedback is not anonymous, people who hold high expectations for themselves and who worry about how their supervisor will perceive them can struggle significantly in overcoming that mental block and speaking their mind about certain issues. 
• The fear of losing your job. Similarly, an employee shying away from face-to-face feedback can be considered a form of self-preservation. By abstaining from sharing something that may be perceived as wrong to someone in a position of authority, they believe they are protecting themselves from a potential blow to their career or a suspension altogether. Although it is extremely unlikely for an employee to actually be fired over constructive feedback they provide to their superiors, people still register it as a risk, and play it safe rather than contributing in such a way that may harm their financial security.  
• The fear of being ridiculed. While some employees may worry about face-to-face feedback in the context of being disliked or fired for what they say, others simply worry that the feedback they want to provide will fall short of expectations. Just like the fear of being judged, the fear of being ridiculed is hard-wired into everyone. Social rejection is scary, with employees taking great care in how they choose their words so as not to be rejected by the people around them. This includes withholding potentially valuable constructive feedback. 

These mental barriers can seriously hinder the value a company can yield from their feedback process. When the providers of feedback are in the face of distinct mental obstacles, some of which are near impossible to eliminate, the results are inherently inferior than if the providers had said what was truly on their minds. Anonymous feedback provides employees the freedom to criticize and express their opinions without having to face those mental blocks, getting at the truth of their sentiments. And, when truth is at the forefront of feedback, managers can leverage that information to genuinely improve their workplace and drive better performance.  

Listed below are the key advantages that come from implementing anonymous feedback into your workplace. 

1. Employees Expressing Themselves Freely and Providing Valuable Insights 

If an employee can say what they truly mean and provide honest and constructive feedback without the fear of being judged, ridiculed, or labelled, they have no reason to not contribute to the improvement of their team or project. When non-anonymous feedback is the only feedback form available, only the superficial and non-threatening issues that affect the workplace will be mentioned, leaving the most important, underlying, and potentially uglier problems left unsolved. 

Feedback exists to improve the overall quality of a company in order to keep driving it forward. If the more controversial, important issues are not addressed as soon as possible, a company risks cultivating an unhappy workspace riddled with conflict and a lack of productivity. Anonymous feedback is the perfect channel to reign control over those key issues, since the person who brought it to your attention is no longer the focus, but its resolution is. That honest insight is a valuable asset for any leader. 

2. Building Trust 

Anonymous feedback has the potential to empower both employees and employers alike. While the potential risks that this emboldening could have should be considered, the subject pool is not necessarily one that is privy to rampant dishonesty or bias. At the end of the day, they are your team, a group of mature and responsible employees who can, and should be able to, express their opinions on the business freely. 

We have already discussed the risk that anonymous feedback has in promoting mistrust, but when leveraged correctly, it can actually have the opposite effect. Employees may perceive a forced non-anonymity as a lack of trust the employer holds in them, which will only secure those aforementioned mental blocks as opposed to eliminating them. Anonymous feedback channels can demonstrate to them that you trust them not to abuse the opportunity, and to provide feedback that is genuinely constructive, helpful, and as unbiased as possible.  

Anonymous Feedback: A Yes or No? 

The value of feedback is indisputable, but the implementation of anonymous feedback is highly debated amongst HR professionals. However, while it can potentially pose several risks for the effectiveness of the process itself, anonymous feedback is more often than not a key feature that is valued by the majority of companies. 

The data an organization can receive from anonymous feedback, versus non-anonymous, is significantly more beneficial. Real issues rarely come up consistently in non-anonymous feedback reports, but in anonymous feedback reports, managers receive genuine, constructive insights that they can use to improve the overall work experience of their team. When feedback is kept anonymous, employees are much more inclined to be truthful in their reporting, sharing valuable information and providing actionable observations and suggestions. 

There are several different ways to incorporate anonymous feedback into your organization’s assessment process, with SpriggHR seamlessly integrating optional anonymity into its Continuous & 360 Degree Feedback Tool.

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Creating a High-Performance Culture in 2020

While strong leadership and healthy discipline are two defining elements of managing the performance of your organization, they are not the only elements.  Creating a high-performance culture in your company requires a systematic approach to effectively managing the performance of both team and individuals, and the first step to achieving that is creating a roadmap for change. 

Organizations that focus on the performance and health of their teams are bound to be more successful and are much more likely to deliver better financial results. However, managing employee and team performance is much more than simply employing practices of good leadership. There are proven tools and techniques that can help you to establish a plan of action for instigating a change in organizational behaviour, and, ultimately, implement, promote, and sustain a high-performance culture.  

What is a High-Performance Culture? 

Culture, as a general term, refers to the learned assumptions upon which individuals base their daily behaviors and decision-making processes. Organizational culture is what drives the organization, its actions, and its results, in a direction relevant to those business-driven learned assumptions. It guides how employees and teams think, act, react, and feel – it is the operating system of the company. 

In order to lift your organizational culture into a state that encourages high levels of performance, you first need to recognize what it is that needs changing. When done right, transformational change within an organization’s performance culture can get employees excited about improving the success rate of the business. Measuring individual management practices against larger organizational outcomes is a good way of assessing the specific areas in your performance management approach that could stand to benefit from improvement. Some examples include: 

• Measuring the organizational outcome of direction against its driving management factors of a shared vision, strategic clarity, and employee involvement.  
• Measuring the outcome of innovation and learning against management practices such as top-down innovation, bottom-up innovation, and knowledge sharing. 
• Measuring leadership against authoritative leadership, consultative leadership, supportive leadership, and challenging leadership. 
• Measuring coordination and control against performance reviews, operational management, financial management, professional standards, and risk management. 
• Measuring motivation against meaningful values, inspirational leaders, career opportunities, financial incentives, and rewards and recognition. 
• Work environment against openness and trust, internal competition, operational discipline, creativity and entrepreneurial encouragement. 
• Accountability against role clarity, performance contracts, consequence management, and personal ownership. 

To build a detailed picture of your company’s organizational health, measuring desirable organizational outcomes against the management practices in use can help you to pinpoint the weak points in your performance management approach, and remedy them as needed. 

Any performance culture is based on discipline, but high-performance cultures have a foundation of discipline that strictly promotes decisiveness and standards of excellence that ensure direct accountability and success. This type of discipline means commitments and expectations are always clear, so performance culture shifts gear towards an expectation of consistent success, rather than a lack of resolves and sanctions that comes from a culture in which there is little accountability. In a high-performance culture, proactive performance management strategically blocks obstructive behaviors and practices, and supports, reinforces, and rewards constructive behaviors. As a result, all employees are truly engaged in the work they are doing, and in the business of the company.  

How to Achieve a High-Performance Culture 

The Necessary Building Blocks 

In order to instill a performance management style that is conducive to high performance from your employees, your organization needs to have specific qualities in place for the process to run smoothly. These include: 

• Openness and Trust: honesty is encouraged, and there is a willingness from your employees to speak what historically may have been the unspeakable. A work environment of trust and transparency with open feedback reduces defensiveness or friction should issues surface and encourages more honest reactions from employees. It also raises the frequency of employees asking questions and promotes spontaneity with individual comments and ideas. Any organization that has a workforce where employees feel they can safely speak their mind is bound to derive much greater value from its talent. 
• Managed Differences: conflicts are addressed appropriately, and unfulfilled commitments are addressed. Alternatives and options for solutions are examined with individuals expressing their real opinions. Issues generally in the workplace are resolved more expediently and effectively. 
• Simplicity and Focus: there is an intense focus on how the new performance management process will be implemented, with strong clarity and precision accompanying it to define what exactly needs to be accomplished, and how it will be done. There is a commitment from all employees and teams, at all levels, to remove complexity from the way of doing business. Striving for results and having fun are not perceived as mutually exclusive but are instead seen as codependent. When changes occur, so too do positive results.  
• Playing to Employee Strength: any good leader knows their people well and can effectively match talent with task. They recognize employee’s strengths, and how to best leverage them to achieve success. Both leaders and their people focus less on closing performance gaps, and more on improving and learning new strengths.  

Key Strategies to Achieving a High-Performance Culture 

Once these building blocks have been nailed down in your organization, you are ready to start putting into practice some key strategies that encourage a high-performance culture. In order to make the change sustainable and improve the chances of success, it is useful to refer to the earlier mentioned criteria upon which you assess the organizational health of your business. Plans of actions and strategies should address four critical elements of business: role modeling, communications, skill building, and reinforcing mechanisms. Leveraging new performance management practices to focus on these key areas, and encouraging a culture of consistently high performance, is critical to that sought-after sustainability.  

Some suggested strategies to achieving a high-performance culture in your business are: 

1. Train leaders and supervisors. 

Training supervisors and leaders to be effective in their communication enables consistent and clear dissemination of the new organizational vision to their staff, ensuring everyone at all levels is on the same page about the direction the company is headed. Once leaders have been trained in effective communication, and have alerted their teams of the vision, they can then sit down with their teams and clearly explain how their individual roles contribute to the company’s strategic goals.  

2. Reinforce effective behaviors. 

Effective behaviors that are conducive to high performance include collaboration, problem-solving, and customer focus. Managers that are trained in coaching and mentoring techniques are encouraged to offer in-the-moment praise or development advice to their teams, creating a culture of motivation and accountability. Employee achievements can also be celebrated in other formal and informal ways, such as places in internal newsletters or recognition in team meetings. 

3. Reform traditional performance appraisals. 

Traditional performance appraisals run the risk of draining valuable energy and time, and sometimes fail to produce accurate or actionable results. Rather than a year- or quarterly-end exercise, reform the appraisal process to transform it into an integral part of the performance and development system. A good way to do this is to reframe appraisals into a comparison between what is happening, and the things you would like to see happen from the employee. This includes ongoing feedback on observable or measurable performance outcomes, a focus on the strengths of the employee and the organizational or career future, and an engagement with goal setting and employee self-appraisal.  

4. Encourage a renewed focus on performance indicators. 

Encouraging a consistent focus on the importance of key performance indicators will reinforce the necessity of high performance from your employees. Discussing performance indicators at staff meetings and explaining exactly how their performance contributed to the financial and operational success of the company, is essential to encouraging sustainability in high performance.  

5. Develop tools and support mechanisms that ease the process of implementation.  

Making the new ways of working as straightforward as possible will reduce the risk of employees feeling the reformed performance management strategies are overcomplicated or futile. Streamlining meeting processes, adjusting methods of communication and information dissemination, integrative initiatives and check-ins into existing procedures, and assigning a single point of contact for employee questions and concerns, are all examples of tools and support mechanisms you can use to achieve a high-performance culture.  

6. Deal with performance management holistically. 

Rather than thinking of performance management as a day-to-day, problem-to-solution process, aim to connect the “what’s” with the “how’s”. Looking at performance management from both the strategic and operational perspectives, and at the organizational, team, and individual levels, will increase the chances of your performance management method embedding itself seamlessly into day-to-day operations. 

Completing the total performance management process can be difficult, especially for managers prone to seek out consistent, neatly wrapped up conclusions to their efforts. A good way to approach this is to roll everything up into a yearly snapshot, where expectations are set, ongoing feedback and coaching is provided, and progress and achievement are tracked. Recognition and rewards should be a critical component of this step, and so too should be the encouragement of professional development planning.  

In Summary 

Company culture is, at its core, the driving force behind what an organization sets out to achieve, and how they go about achieving it. Employee performance is integral to success continuance, the function of influences such as accountability, feedback, motivation, skills and knowledge, and rewards and recognition. All of these influences are interdependent, and it is the combination of these factors that results in the desired performance and the associated leadership behaviours that make up the organizational performance culture. Achieving a high-performance culture requires a systematic, thorough approach to managing performance at the organizational, team, and individual level with a robust change management process to support it. 

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20 Employee Engagement Survey Questions You Should Ask

Building a better, more productive work environment begins with a strong employee engagement survey. This can only be accomplished when you begin to measure what matters most to your employees.  

What is Employee Engagement? 

Employee engagement is defined as the extent to which a workforce, and all individual employees, feel valued and involved in their everyday work efforts. The dimensions that make up employee engagement are widely debated, but at its core, it boils down to whether an employee truly feels invested in their company’s mission and success. 

Even if you are making efforts to implement employee engagement activities it is still important to be able to measure those levels of engagement. Conducting an employee engagement survey aims at more than just measuring how happy your employees are – it identifies how well aligned their dedication is to the mission and outcome of your organization. Thus, measuring employee engagement is one of the most crucial points of maintaining the health of your business, since it streamlines the process of indicating the spots that need improvement.  

Why Are Employee Engagement Surveys Important? 

When employees are engaged with their work, they feel more fulfilled in what they are accomplishing and are more motivated to continue to achieve success. That ultimately leads to higher productivity. In a study conducted by Harvard Business Review, organizations with a high level of engagement report up to 22% higher productivity company-wide.

In addition, strong employee engagement introduces a variety of positive outcomes that are beneficial both to employees and customers. Highly engaged organizations have double the rate of success of lower engaged organizations, and turnover rates drop dramatically. Higher-turnover organizations report 25% lower turnover when employee engagement is put front and centre, and lower-turnover organizations report up to 65% lower turnover rates.  

An engaged workforce can produce better results, put forward more consistent and successful work efforts, a more integrated company culture, and a more profitable organization. A study by Gallup even pointed to the outperformance potential of highly engaged workforces, with companies that prioritize employee engagement outperforming their competitors by up to 147% in earnings per share. 

The numbers do not lie. Instead, they go to show that not only should businesses always aim to measure employee engagement, sometimes, they can’t afford not to.  

20 Strong Employee Engagement Survey Questions You Should Ask in Your Next Survey 

Employee engagement represents the level of enthusiasm and connection employees have with their organization. It is a measure of the level of motivation that exists in every employee, and the degree to which they are ready and willing to put in extra effort for their organization. Evidently, this can be difficult to measure. Employee engagement depends largely on the actions of the organization, particularly those driven by leadership, managers, and people teams. This is why it is important to cultivate employee engagement survey questions that best suit your company specifically, and are best equipped to draw out useful responses that you can put into action to improve your organization’s overall employee engagement levels.  

Engagement Index Questions 

The Engagement Index section of your survey is the introductory section that aims to uncover the key outcomes of employee engagement. Understanding employee engagement takes more than one question, so providing a range of questions to start off your survey and measure an employee’s immediate thought process when it comes to examining their own satisfaction is critical. 

1. “I am proud to work for [company].” 

Also called the “barbecue test” – would an employee be proud to tell someone where they worked if asked at a barbecue? – this question gets an employee’s pride in the place they work. The scores on this question reflect levels of brand and mission affiliation and can provide a great insight into how your company’s external brand is viewed by people internally.  

2. “I would recommend [company] as a great place to work.” 

This is a common employee engagement question, but on its own, it does not provide a robust measure. Sometimes, people may recommend your company but be planning to leave or be unsatisfied in their specific role but would still recommend it because of pay or perks. Including this question amongst several other employee index questions is key, since it eliminates that risk of inapplicable responses. 

3. “I rarely think about looking for a job at another company.” 

This is a great example of an accompanying question to the one above. This gets straight at the present, existing commitment of an employee to your company. It can be a nice reality check for organizations that achieve a negative response to this question, when they have high scores on other engagement index questions. Employees who are truly engaged in their work often report that looking for a job elsewhere rarely crosses their mind, while on the flip side, employees who are less engaged will find it easy to answer negatively to this question. 

4. “I see myself working at [company] in two years’ time.” 

Like the previous question, this aims to analyze employee commitment, but with a specific time frame. Employees that aren’t actively looking for a job elsewhere still may not intend to stick around for another two years. These two questions give an overview of both present and future commitment, so you can then calculate an overall retention index. 

5. “[Company] motivates me to go beyond what I would do in a similar role elsewhere.” 

This discretionary effort question targets whether your organization is motivating people to their very best. In industries where long-term employment is low, such as a seasonal workforce, this question is even more important.  

L.E.A.D Questions 

There are four main factors that influence employee engagement: Leadership, Enablement, Alignment, and Development (LEAD). If you think of your employee engagement survey as an essay, these areas make up the body of the text. With a handful of questions in each field, you can measure your employee engagement levels based on a business-oriented hierarchy of needs.  

Leadership 

6. “The leaders at [company] keep people informed about what is happening.” 

For anyone to feel any level of engagement with their work, there needs to be a strong sense of communication. Keeping employees informed about what is happening builds a foundation of communication from leadership at the most basic level. 

7. “My manager is a great role model for employees.” 

Rather than targeting the specific relationship between the manager and the reporting employee, this question gears itself towards how employees see their manager within the broader context of the company.  

8. “The leaders at [company] have communicated a vision that motivates me.” 

If you want your employees to be able to answer positively to this question, they need to feel adequately informed about what is happening, as mentioned before. Boosting motivation, or a sense of connection to something bigger than day-to-day work, is critical to increasing employee engagement.  

Enablement 

9. “I have access to the things I need to do my job well.” 

This question assesses whether employees have all day-to-day things they need to do their jobs well and develop in the company. This is a critical ‘hygiene factor’ for any organization, meaning that without this, you cannot move forward. The modern workplace is not always necessarily focused around resources or tools, so this question can apply to any sort of ‘thing’ utilized by employees to get their work done.  

10. “I have access to the learning and development I need to do my job well.” 

This is a deeper look into the prior question, targeting the specifics of learning and development opportunities for employees. This can include training and information sessions, coaching quality, and even intellectual and emotional support from the organization. Learning and development is a proven driver of employee engagement across all industries, so a positive response to this question should be the goal. 

11. “Most of the systems and processes here support us in getting our work done effectively.” 

Avoiding the absolute ‘all’, measuring whether the majority of systems and processes in place helps employees complete their tasks is essential. No company is immune to flaws in their systems and processes, so reorienting the ideal of perfection to instead shift employee thinking to the overall picture helps achieve a more accurate gauge of how well your systems support your workers. The company-wide infrastructure has a tremendous impact on how well employees get their work done, and how effective the learning and development opportunities are at keeping employees engaged, so refining this area is essential. 

Alignment 

12. “I know what I need to do to be successful in my role.” 

In order to be in alignment with the company’s goals overall, an individual needs a thorough understanding of what they need to do to be personally successful. Otherwise, progress is impossible. This basic level of understanding must exist for employees to develop their alignment with the organization.  

13. “I receive appropriate recognition when I do good work.” 

Once an individual knows what it is, they must do to be successful, they should be appropriately recognized for their achievements. If people don’t receive any recognition when they are making progress or when they accomplish something for the greater good of the company, it is difficult for them to stay motivated. 

14. “Day-to-day decisions here demonstrate that quality and improvement are top priorities.” 

This is the most important area of needs when it comes to alignment. It is not uncommon for specific teams and fields of practice to have values around doing work that they’re proud of, and a company needs to align itself with those values and demonstrate a commitment to that kind of work as well.  

Development 

15. “My manager has shown a genuine interest in my career aspirations.” 

One-on-one level interactions with managers, or someone in management, help build the foundation for employees feeling that they can develop at their company down the line. When managers have technical competence and can teach those skills to their team, it can be useful. However, development should be focused more on its importance for employee success. Managers should aim to discuss employee development in one-on-one meetings if they hope to encourage engagement.  

16. “I believe there are good career opportunities for me at this company.” 

If results to this question are on the lower end of the scale, this signifies to the company that employee’s perceptions of career opportunities are low. While they may be present, they are not always apparent, making transparency and communication of development opportunities just as important as their very existence. 

17. “This is a great company for me to make a contribution to my development.” 

This question is geared towards the idea of a company making a contribution to the employee’s development in their craft or industry. This type of development extends beyond the parameters of the organization, so it does not have to relate to the bottom line or the organizational goals and values. 

Free Text Questions 

Free text questions aim at soliciting open-ended feedback and give employees a chance to provide general comments. Usually placed at the end of surveys, it gives employees the opportunity to address areas they felt were not covered in the scale-based sections. Responses to these questions tend to focus on more tangible aspects of employee engagement, such as workplace environment, but they can also be useful in receiving feedback on leadership and development. Some examples of great free text employee engagement survey questions include: 

18. “Are there some things we are doing great here?”  

19. “Are there some things we are not doing so great here?” 

20. “Is there something else you think we should have asked you in this survey?” 

Free text questions provide qualitative data in addition to the quantitative data you received from the previous sections, making your results more thorough and your analysis more multi-faceted. 

Start Crafting Your Employee Engagement Survey 

Collecting employee feedback is the best way to start shaping your company’s culture, making it conducive to engagement and overall motivation. Listen to the voices of your employees, then share with them what you have learned, and how you plan on moving forward together. Employee engagement surveys are a key tool in covering that cornerstone of modern business management.  

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Defining the Objectives of Performance Management

Performance management is defined as “an ongoing process that seeks to continuously identify, measure, and develop the performance of a workforce.” But, in order to successfully establish a system that works, you first need to understand the objectives of performance management. 

Objectives of Performance Management Systems 

Chances are that your organization already has a performance management system in place. But for many companies, the performance management approach itself has many gaps in both measuring and managing performance. This is typically due to a fundamental misunderstanding of the intent of performance management as a system. 

Here are the major objectives of performance management that you should consider when establishing, or reformatting, your performance management system: 

1. Setting and Defining Goals 

Goal setting has always been one of the most effective and consistent methods used to improve performance among employees. Setting and defining clear goals yields several key benefits, including: 

• Allowing employees to focus on what’s important. 
• Aligning individual objectives with business objectives. 
• Optimizing employees’ individual performance. 
• Identifying the key result areas and work upon improving them.  

Efficient performance management techniques and systems will always place goal setting as one of its most critical requirements. As a manager, it is your responsibility to set goals that are mutually beneficial for both employee performance and business performance. 

2. Setting Expectations for Managers and Employees 

Alongside distinct goals, a strong performance management system seeks to establish clear expectations from managers and employees alike. 

As a manager, setting manageable expectations for your employee is critical – don’t expect a poor performer to start yielding great results from the get-go, or an excelling performer to stay consistently at the top every week. Similarly, holding managers to unmanageable standards runs the risk of bringing in poor management decisions.  

In order to set expectations that yield solid results, try to follow this succession of stages for expectation setting: 

• Define the expectations in clear terms. Let your employees know exactly what is expected from them and provide clarification when needed. 
• Explain how the expectations established will help in fulfilling the overall business objectives; draw the line of sight between their contribution and the business achieving those objectives. 
• Document the expectations.  Establish a process that clearly defines and measures what to do and who is responsible for each task. 

Only when employees (and managers) have a clear understanding of their own roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities, that they are likely to be more consistent in their results and productive in their work efforts.  

3. Establishing Effective Communication 

Especially today, when so many workplace dynamics are shifting to meet new demands or to respond to external circumstances, communication is essential.  When an organization has a culture dedicated to strong, effective communication, it results in a workforce that is engaged and has aligned its individual objectives with the overall business objectives. 

Part of effective communication involves transparency – team members should have a clear understanding of what other active projects their teammates are engaged in.  A team that lacks communication, ultimately lacks the synergy that is required for any high performing team.  

In order to build a communication active environment, consider the following tips: 

• Team leaders, or managers, should take sufficient time to indulge in one-on-one interactions with their team members; regular touch-points and contact. 
• To build a workforce with varied skills, that fosters further career development, continuous feedback and coaching are critical. This can be done through performance reviews, or 360-Feedback resources. 
• Set and conduct regular team building activities (there are some great online activities). 
• Promote and encourage collaboration and communication among team members, and as an essential part of the workplace culture. 
• Use appropriate and helpful business communication tools. 

4. Setting Performance Standards 

Arguably one of the most critical objectives of performance management, setting performance standards for employees can make or break the results of your performance management system. Any good performance management system should always have a set of performance standards, and performance plans, that streamline employee performance evaluation and improvement.  

Every role in a company has a certain performance standard that comes along with it, and a failure to accomplish performance standards can mean the following for your business: 

• A lack of effort on the employees’ part. 
• Setting even more unrealistic standards for the job that is failing to reach its existing standards. 
• Not having enough resources to complete the new demands. 
• A failure of cooperation or collaboration from the team and manager. 

It is impossible to identify reasons for failures in an individual’s performance without a performance management system. Performance management systems highlight gaps in contribution, while bringing attention to the areas that note progress.  

One of the greatest objectives of performance management is to identify the strengths and opportunity areas of your organization, which become more evident and therefore easier to identify and improve upon with the established performance standards to measure against. 

5. Establishing Individual Training and Performance Plans 

The final and essential objective of performance management deals with individual development – that is, to identify the training and development needs of employees, and implement a well-designed development plan. 

Establishing personal development plans helps employees acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to advance in their individual careers. A well-executed performance plan builds improved competency and value add to one’s position, and ultimately organizational value. 

To create an effective employee performance plan, that fosters individual career development, follow these steps: 

• Identify the position-specific skills, training, or courses required to optimize success. 
• Establish a training plan and budget. 
• Determine how the new training skills can be applied in key result areas and prioritize based on their necessity. 

Objectives of Performance Management – Summary 

A well-designed performance management system can drive strong business results. However, the only way to achieve success in your system, is to have a thorough understanding of the key objectives of performance management itself. 

The overall objectives of performance management are: 

• To align and build individual objectives along with the organizational objectives of the company. 
• To enhance the skills and personal development of employees, largely with the help of managers and leaders. 
• To encourage work and working systems that help all employees in fulfilling their business goals. 

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Top 16 HR Books to Read in 2020 

The field of Human Resources is constantly changing, and like any industry, employees who work in Human Resource Management (HRM) must make the effort to continuously educate themselves on the latest trends and best practices. Being aware of the most relevant HR books is a great way to do so. 

Staying up to date with the latest information on how to best succeed in a Human Resources department is more important than ever. From driving industry-leading employee engagement, to what the workforce of the future will look like, there are many important topics that HR professionals can benefit from studying. 

In this article, we will list 16 great Human Resource Management books that will help any HR professional do their job better, whether they are an experienced employee or just getting started in the field. 

Top 16 HR Books

1. The Power of People: Learn How Successful Organizations Use Workforce Analytics to Improve Business Performance

By: Nigel Guenole, Jonathan Ferrar & Sheri Feinzig 

Authors Nigel Guenole, Jonathan Ferrar, and Sheri Feinzig are all respected consultants in HR strategy, workforce analytics, and organizational transformation. Guenole consults with some of the world’s most successful organizations, working to improve their organizational performance through psychological science. Ferrar is listed as one of the global Top 50 HR Analytics Influencers, as well as being one of the 15 HR and People Analytics Experts to Follow. Feinzig has used her expertise on successful projects relating to employee retention, engagement, performance feedback, and organizational culture. 

In The Power of People: Learn How Successful Organizations Use Workforce Analytics to Improve Business Performance, these three HR professionals dissect workforce analytics, discussing how organizations can leverage analytics to inform decision-making, improve communication, and drive performance. This is an excellent primer for workforce analytics, showing how it can be used to predict outcomes and improve on organizational capabilities.  

2. Human Resource Management

By: Gary Dessler 

Author Gary Dessler is a pioneer in terms of Human Resource Management literature, and his scientific work Human Resource Management is arguable one of the most read and studied HR books out there. The latest edition, no. 15, covers all the key aspects of HR. It includes a practical, step-by-step explanation of the key cornerstones of Human Resources. Dessler breaks this down into five parts: recruitment, placement & talent management, training & development, compensation, and employee relations. 

3. HR on Purpose: Developing Deliberate People Passion

By: Steve Brown 

Steve Brown is an acclaimed writer, speaker, and thought leader in the field of HR. His career efforts have all been aimed towards constructing and connecting a global HR community, facilitating monthly roundtables and running online messaging boards for HR professionals. 

In HR on Purpose: Developing Deliberate People Passions, Brown draws on real-life examples and insights in order to encourage all HR professionals to rethink their approaches to the practice itself. He emphasizes the need to let go of any preconceptions of what HR should be, and instead focus on what HR could be.  

4. Standout HR: Transform Your Company’s Human Resources from a Generic, Low-Value Commodity to a Strategic System That Fuels Business Results

By: Vero Vanmiddelem 

Working as a professional in the industry for over 25 years, author Vero Vanmiddelem teaches, writes, and speaks about many HR topics, and is dedicated to helping HR leaders broaden their horizons and embrace the “people side” of their profession.  

In Standout HR: Transform Your Company’s Human Resources From a Generic, Low-Value Commodity to a Strategic System That Fuels Business Results, Vanmiddelem outlines what it takes to redesign an organization’s HRM strategy in order to produce value. She emphasizes how standout HR paths should pave the way to a targeted and customized HR strategy, guiding readers to build a “company-original” HR roadmap for organizational success. 

5. HR from the Outside In: Six Competencies for the Future of Human Resources

By: Dave Ulrich, Jon Younger, Wayne Brockbank and Mike Ulrich 

Dave Ulrich is a university professor, author, speaker, management coach, and management consultant. Working in the HR industry for decades, he and his colleagues have written over 30 HR books that have helped shape the profession, defined organizations as capabilities, and shown the impact of leadership customers and investors. Jon Younger is a fellow HR thought leader, teacher, and early-stage investor, who contributes tremendously to the production of HR textbooks. Wayne Brockbank is a Professor of Business at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, as well as a co-faculty director and core instructor in the school’s Advanced Human Resource Executive Program. 

In HR from the Outside In: Six Competencies for the Future of Human Resources, Ulrich and his colleagues list the key competencies of the modern HR professional. They outline the importance of an HR professional’s capability building, technology proficiency, championing of change, their ability to innovate and integrate. They go on to argue that one of the most important roles of an HR practitioner is to be a credible activist, both for the employee and for the business as a whole. HR from the Outside In frames the modern HR professional within a larger, strategic context, making it a must-read when it comes to modern HRM. 

6. Bring Your Human to Work: 10 Surefire Ways to Design a Workplace That Is Good for People, Great for Business, and Just Might Change the World

By: Erica Keswin 

Author Erica Keswin is a workplace strategist and business coach, who has spent over 20 years consulting, speaking, and writing in the HR industry. Her book Bring Your Human to Work: 10 Surefire Ways to Design a Workplace That is Good for People, Great for Business, and Just Might Change the World, offers ten ways HR professionals can transform their workplace. She argues that this can be done by applying one simple truth to all HR efforts: Smart companies honor relationships. 

Bring Your Human to Work reminds readers that despite the digital age we live in, we cannot forget the value in real, human connections. Keswin provides helpful insights to inspire HR professionals to continue building meaningful relationships in the workplace. 

7. The Essential HR Handbook: A Quick and Handy Resource for Any Manager or HR Professional

By: Sharon Armstrong & Barbara Mitchell 

Authors Sharon Armstrong and Barbara Mitchell are experienced writers, speakers, consultants, and thought leaders in the HRM industry. In the fully updated 10th edition, The Essential HR Handbook: A Quick and Handy Resource for Any Manager or HR Professional covers several trending topics in the current HR industry. Armstrong and Mitchell discuss topics ranging from recruitment through social media, to training a diverse and multigenerational workforce.  

The newest edition of The Essential HR Handbook is a must-read for HR professionals looking for a thorough discussion on the time-honored techniques and newest trends in the field of Human Resources.  

8. Investing in People: Financial Impact of Human Resource Initiatives

By: Wayne Cascio and John Boudreau 

Wayne Cascio is an American economist and a Distinguished Professor and the Robert H. Reynolds Chair in Global Leadership at the University of Colorado Denver Business School, previously the President of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. John Boudreau is widely acknowledged as a breakthrough thinker on human capital, talent, and sustainable competitive advantage in business. His research focuses on the future of the global HR profession, HR measurement and analytics, decision-based HR, executive mobility, HR information systems, and organizational staffing and development. 

Cascio and Boudreau’s work Investing in People: Financial Impact of Human Resource Initiatives takes a highly structured and data-driven approach to solving common HR problems. The book, though technical, does an excellent job of explaining the foundations of solid measurement in HR, continuing to explore a multitude of case studies. Topics include absenteeism, employee turnover, engagement, and much more, all of which are approached structurally and in detail, with tools being offered to the reader to assess the cost and measure the impact of interventions. This is a highly valuable read when tasked with HR measurement or other quantitative challenges in HR.  

9. HR Disrupted: It’s Time for Something Different

By: Lucy Adams 

Lucy Adams is the CEO of Disruptive HR, an agency that focuses on renewing outdated HR practices. In addition to this, she is a prominent writer, speaker, and thought leader in the world of complex HRM change and the disruption of HR itself. 

HR Disrupted argues that the HR industry itself has lost its way and needs to find a new direction, encouraging HR departments to take a renewed approach to their efforts, eventually working towards changing them completely. This book offers a refreshing perspective on the modern HR industry, sharing useful, eye-opening tips and tangible solutions. 

10. The HR Scorecard: Linking People, Strategy, and Performance

By: Brian Becker, Mark Huselid and Dave Ulrich 

Brian E. Becker is a Senior Associate Dean Professor in the Organization and Human Resources Department at the University of Buffalo, as well as a prominent author in the field of HR. In The HR Scorecard: Linking People, Strategy, and Performance, Becker and colleagues explain how people, strategy, and performance can be linked and quantified through HR efforts. 

HRM has never been regarded as a strict science. For many HR professionals, aligning HRM activities with the organization-specific strategy, and measuring their impacts on the workforce, can be a challenge. However, when done well, it enables HR departments to quantify impacts and measure the effectiveness of their efforts.  

11. Data-Driven HR: How to Use Analytics and Metrics to Drive Performance

By: Bernard Marr 

Author Bernard Marr is a best-selling author, acclaimed keynote speaker, strategic advisor to companies and governments, and recognized by LinkedIn as one of the world’s top give business influencers. He has produced a number of books relating to big data and analytics in business, contributing frequently to the World Economic Forum. 

In his book Data-Driven HR: How to Use Analytics and Metrics to Drive Performance, Marr outlines the ways in which data analyses can contribute to organizational success, driving performance, optimizing processes, and improving decision-making in HRM. He encourages HR professionals to leverage the data available to them. This book is a great resource for any HR professional looking to embrace innovation through data and technology. 

12. Agile People: A Radical Approach for HR & Managers (That Leads to Motivated Employees)

 By: Pia-Maria Thoren 

Author Pia-Maria Thoren is the founder of the Agile People movement, specializing in agile HR and leadership and consulting for some of the largest international companies in Sweden. 

Her work Agile People: A Radical Approach for HR & Managers (That Leads to Motivated Employees) outlines the ways that HR professionals can adopt flexible, fluid mindsets, creating a structure and workplace culture that is geared to meet future challenges. Thoren emphasizes that the key to motivated and successful teams is in HR professionals’ ability to become agile, stepping outside of their comfort zone and adapting to newer ways of thinking. 

This HR book is a must-read for any professional looking to become an agile leader. It is a thorough guide to embracing an agile mindset, one that can help drive cultural change in the workplace and prepare the organization for future challenges. 

13. Victory Through Organization: Why the War for Talent is Failing Your Company and What You Can Do About It

By: Dave Ulrich, David Kryscynski, Wayne Brockbank and Mike Ulrich 

Another work by Ulrich and colleagues, Victory Through Organization: Why the War for Talent is Failing Your Company and What You Can Do About It takes a closer look at the function of HR itself. The discussion in this book is founded on an HR competency study involving over 30,000 HR professionals, business leaders and associates. 

Based on this research, Victory Through Organization provides its readers with everything they need to know about how HR can add the most value to an organization. It outlines how value can be created for HR, the employee, the business, investors, owners, communities, and line managers. It also discusses the HR activities that are rated best, and which add the most value. Themes like employee performance, integrated HR practices, HR analytics, and HR information management are also explored. 

14. Build It: The Rebel Playbook for World-Class Employee Engagement

By: Glenn Elliott & Debra Corey 

Author Glenn Elliott is an award-winning Entrepreneur of the Year, acclaimed CEO and prominent growth investor. He is the founder of Reward Gateway, making him a category leader in employee engagement technology. His colleague Debra Corey possesses over 30 years of experience in senior HR roles at many well-known, global organizations. 

Their book Build It: The Rebel Playbook for World-Class Employee Engagement outlines a model for building company value through sustainable employee engagement. Discussing what they refer to as “The Engagement Bride”, the book emphasizes the key areas that leaders should assess in their organizations in order to build an engaged company culture. This work shares a unique and useful approach to the construction of an engaged workforce, drawing on case studies and offering actionable tips to help HR professionals transform the workplace. 

15. On Fire at Work: How Great Companies Ignite Passion in Their People Without Burning Them Out

By: Eric Chester 

Author Eric Chest is an award-winning author and speaker, and is also a Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), a prestigious credential awarded by the National Speakers Associated. He is also a member of the Speakers Hall of Fame, a title of which only 5% of professional speakers around the world share. 

In his book On Fire at Work: How Great Companies Ignite Passion in Their People Without Burning Them Out, Chester compiled exclusive interviews with over 25 company founders and CEOs. The book is a practical guide that can help any company build an engaged and successful workforce. Chester lays out a roadmap for creating an inspiring work culture that employees will love, serving as a handbook for attracting and retaining exceptional talent at any organization. It is a must-read for any HR professional looking to inspire the modern workforce. 

16. Predictive HR Analytics: Mastering the HR Metric

by Kirsten & Martin Edwards 

Dr. Martin R. Edwards is a leader in HRM and Organizational Psychology and King’s College in London, and has worked for a number of years as an HR consultant. Kirsten Edwards is an analytics professional, working in HR and management consulting and also as a visiting lecturer at Kent Business School and King’s Business School. Their book Predictive HR Analytics: Mastering the HR Metric is often used as reading material for HR analytics classes. 

Predictive HR Analytics explores HR metrics and analytics in much more detail. Drawing on a multitude of case studies, the book explores the metrics and analytics related to diversity, employee attitudes, employee turnover, employee performance, recruitment analytics, and much more. While the above listed books help guide readers into what HRM is all about, and how these areas can be used to strategically support an organization, Edwards’ book shows how the progress in these areas can actually be measured. 

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Implementing an Effective Performance Improvement Plan 

If executed properly, an effective performance improvement plan can be the business tool that consistently resolves workplace productivity issues in your organization and can even work to help the most unlikely employee to succeed. 

The Performance Improvement Plan and Its Importance 

The impact of an under-performing employee isn’t limited to their manager and coworkers. Their behaviour can start a domino effect that can be felt by the entire team and company. As a result, company morale becomes tainted by frustration, wasted time, and exhaustion.  

Part of every manager’s working experience involves dealing with employees who are under-performing. Whether they are not meeting job requirements or are exhibiting behaviours not in line with company expectations, the manager will eventually reach a point where they have no choice but to act in order to change the situation.  

This is where a formal Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) comes into play. While, at first glance, firing the employee seems like the most logical move, HR and managers should first consider using a performance improvement plan to try and remedy the situation, providing the at-risk employee with the necessary directions for completing specific goals and working their way back up to success.  

A performance improvement plan is designed to facilitate constructive discussion between a staff member and their supervisor, aiming to clarify the exact work performance and behaviour that requires improvement. It is implemented at the discretion of the supervisor when it becomes necessary to help an employee improve their performance. 

The process involves identifying the root causes of poor performance, outlining the clear expectations for improvement, and giving the staff member a chance to remedy their shortcomings. Ultimately, performance improvement plans could not only save the time and costs that are lost in termination and re-hiring, but also can help to create a culture of performance accountability for employees and their supervisors.  

When Are Performance Improvement Plans Useful? 

The primary benefit of a performance improvement plan is its role in illustrating to an under-achieving employee that their current challenges and long-term goals are understood, and that the organization is there to take an active role in supporting them. Staff members are much more likely to be engaged, productive, and successful, when they have a clear understanding of what their organization expects of them and their work efforts. Performance improvements plans work to outline in detail the specific issues or behaviours that are causing problems for the employee’s success, and also stipulates the corrective actions they should take to improve, and which resources are available to offer support.  

PIPs are not exclusive to employees who are not meeting their current requirements. They can also be useful for staff members who feel unfulfilled in their roles altogether, increasing their overall mobility and allowing them to transition into higher-level roles or move laterally into roles that they will be more satisfied in.  

As a rule of thumb, performance improvement plans are the most useful and best implemented when you recognize that an employee is struggling. Whether their productivity has notably decreased, or they have begun to take more time off or seem less motivated and engaged in their communication, many managers are able to identify when an employee has become disengaged from their work.  

Performance improvement plans should be implemented when there is a clear trend in an employee’s poor performance, and positive change and improvement is necessary.  

How to Create an Effective Performance Improvement Plan 

The goal of any performance improvement plan should never be to document an underperforming employee’s performance in order to make firing easier. While PIPs can serve as useful records for employees, supervisors should always treat them as a provided opportunity for their struggling staff members to work towards success.  

Improving the Effectiveness of Performance Improvement Plans 

Maintaining open lines of communication in performance improvement plans is necessary, and the goal of seeking a suitable solution for both the organization and the employee should be regularly stipulated. Some strategies to improve the overall effectiveness of a performance improvement plan include: 

• Listening to the employee and providing them with the opportunity to respond to any of your points of concern. The performance improvement plan is not an excuse to lecture – it is a collaborative process, aiming to decrease the potential for an employee to feel disengaged or misunderstood. 
• Paring down to the cause of any issues, asking questions to find the root of the issue. This could include questions relating to the employee’s perception of their potential in the company, their readiness for a different or more challenging role, whether personal issues are influencing their performance, and so on. The issue raised should be specific, supported by specific examples, to ensure the employee understands the opportunities and changes that are needed. 
• Focusing on the positive and emphasizing their valuable contributions to the company. Give as much attention to finding ways to improve on these positives as you do stress the negatives, so they don’t feel bombarded with criticism.  
• Outlining a clear path so they can understand their goals and the actions they need to take to meet behavioural and performance-based expectations. By being specific in outlining their goals, the more likely they are to obtain them. Vague goals can frustrate employees further. 
• Regularly reviewing their progress. By tracking the employee’s progress and touching base regularly, the employee is more likely to stay motivated in their improvement efforts and will also appreciate being given a chance to talk about any concerns that have arisen. All encounters should focus on the progress of their efforts, and the employee should be allowed to comment on their improvements and ask questions for further clarification.  

Recognizing the Risks of Performance Improvement Plans 

Development conversations are never easy for either party. Even the best manager with the best method of delivering hard-to-swallow messages with respect, care, concern, and support, always runs the risk of facing pushback from defensive employees.  

This Forbes article provides insight into the perception many employees have on the entire performance improvement plan process. Many feel it is simply a formality that occurs before the eventual termination of employment, and that being placed on a PIP means you are one step away from being terminated. Performance improvements plans should not be viewed as an opportunity given to supervisors to exert “power and control, letting an uppity employee know who’s boss.” The parting message of PIPs should not be a warning over the control managers have in the livelihood of their employees, but rather a reiteration of their role as a supportive and concerned figure in the success of every individual staff member. 

The conversation is never simple, however, there are a few methods that can be used to ease the sting of performance improvement plans and reduce the potential for employees to view them as they are described in the article mentioned above. 

1. Document behaviours and accounts of employee performance. This helps to remove any vagueness from the conversation. By commenting on specific behaviours and examples, employees are less likely to feel overwhelmed by unclear accusations. 

2. Ensure you are addressing a trend in performance. Every employee should be striving for ongoing development, even top performers, but every staff member is likely to see a formal performance improvement plan as a substantial event in their career. Before proceeding with any PIP, managers and supervisors should be absolutely certain that poor performance or undesirable behaviours are actual trends, and not simply anomalies that every employee will experience from time to time.  

3. Keep it focused on performance. Personal attacks on employees should be avoided at all costs. No matter the personal relationship between a supervisor and an employee, PIPs should always be focused solely on results and performances, and should not be implemented or driven by external, personal motives. 

Performance Improvement Plan Process 

Any performance improvement plan should be reviewed by several people, including a manager’s own supervisor and an HR representative, for objective feedback and approval, before being implemented. This ensures that every employee experiences consistent and fair treatment across all departments in an organization.  

As a general structure, the following six items should be points of review for the PIP conversation: 

1. State the exact performance that must be improved, being specific and citing examples. 
2. State the level of the work performance expectation, and that it must be performed on a consistent basis. 
3. Identify and specify the support and resources that you will provide to assist the employee in their success. 
4. Communicate your plan for providing feedback to the employee, specifying meeting times, with whom and how often, as well as the measurements you will consider in evaluating their progress. 
5. Specify possible consequences if the performance standards you are establishing in the official PIP are not met.  
6. Provide sources of additional information and supporting resources, such as employee handbooks, training sessions, and any other resource that can be helpful in the employee’s efforts to improve their performance.  

Final Thoughts

Formal performance improvement plans are best implemented for employees who appear to have the greatest potential for improvement. By framing our understanding of PIPs under the lens of improvement, rather than reprimanding poor behaviour, the reputation of this business practice can drastically improve. 

In order to ensure an employee’s ultimate success, the performance improvement plan should be realistic, fair, and clearly specify the required goals and means for accomplishing them. It should also be approved by upper management and HR, ensuring fairness across all levels of an organization. When used properly, performance improvements plans have the potential to transform a struggling employee into an organization’s top performer. 

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How to Recognize and Avoid the Horn Effect 

At one point or another, everyone has been told that first impressions are important. That being said, an initial negative impression doesn’t necessarily mean that everything the person does moving forward should be viewed through that lens. Unfortunately, more often than not, that’s exactly what can happen, because of something called the horn effect. 

What is the Horn Effect?

First discovered in 1920 by psychologist Edward L. Thorndike, the horn effect is a cognitive bias that can influence how someone is viewed. Essentially, he discovered that the first impression of someone dictates how their future actions are seen – basically, the horn effect is making assumptions about someone based on very little information, or judging someone and attributing qualities to them based on one known trait. A very common example of this would be the bias that if someone is overweight, it automatically means they’re also lazy. 

The flip side of the horn effect is called the halo effect – it is a very similar cognitive bias, with the main difference being that the horn effect attributes negative qualities to someone, whereas the halo effect attributes positive qualities. Both can influence a bias, however.  

Thorndike’s research centered around asking high-ranking officers to evaluate their soldiers on several different qualities. The results consistently showed that soldiers ranked highly in the first few categories scored high in the others as well, and soldiers who ranked poorly in the first few categories scored low in the others. 

Both of these biases are unfortunate results, as they skew the perception of someone. If the first trait that comes to one’s attention is negative, there will inherently be a tendency to overlook other, more positive traits, and vice versa. These biases are also very hard to reverse once a positive or negative trait has been attributed to someone.  

The horn effect, as well as the halo effect, can be present in many situations, but two of the more impactful times are when interviewing a potential employee, and when conducting performance reviews. 

The impact of the horn effect when interviewing

The horn effect can play an important role when hiring. If not identified, it can lead to assumptions about the potential candidate based purely on the first impression, or something minor or even insignificant they did.  

If decisions are then made based on these assumptions, the interviewer may get a bad impression of the candidate, and likely overlook other positive aspects – only to hire the wrong person in their place. 

So how should an interviewer avoid the horn effect when looking at potential candidates? 

Avoiding the horn effect when hiring

• Recognizing the bias exists: knowing the horn effect and halo effect both exist is a good start to avoiding them. Try to set emotional reactions to irrelevant things aside, and focus on their professional behavior. 
• Interview structure: structure the interview so the interviewer doesn’t overly influenced with first impressions. Make sure each step of the interview focuses on the job, and objectively analyze the candidate at each step. 
• Interview design: Working in tandem with the structure, design questions to analyze the candidates’ ability to do the job and fit in with the office culture. The STAR method is very popular as part of Behavior-Based Interviewing practices.  Ask the candidate to describe: a Situation that they were involved in a project, what Tasks they were responsible for, the Actions they took and the Results that were yielded.  

As mentioned above, the horn effect is prevalent in both hiring processes as well as when conducting reviews. Here is how it affects reviews: 

The impact of the horn effect when conducting reviews

Performance reviews are an important part of employee growth, and as such, should be conducted regularly. However, they are also an area in which the horn effect – and also the halo effect – can regularly appear and make an impact.  

The horn effect can cause a reviewer to give their ratings based on one perceived negative attribute, which could unfairly skew the overall results to be much more negative than they should be. On the other side, the halo effect could result in better-than-deserved ratings, which not only can elevate a mediocre employee to a higher status, but can also hurt them, as they won’t be getting constructive feedback needed to actually improve themselves. 

Avoiding the horn effect when conducting a review

Documentation

• Take notes on the employee throughout the year 
• Make sure to have a record of both positive and negative aspects of performance with specific examples to cite  
• Without notes, reviewers can tend to base evaluations on recent events, or – sometimes worse – their specific memory of recent events 

More regular touch-point meetings

• More regular (weekly) meetings to stay connected and offer real-time feedback and coaching 
• Gives managers more chances to look at aspects of performance, and notice trends 
• Gives employee more chance to work on correcting their behaviors 

Analyze reviews

• Keep an eye out for reviews that may be skewed by the horn effect or the halo effect 
• Check for little variation in feedback 
• Look for a consistent reference to a few examples of performance 

Final thoughts

The horn effect (and also the halo effect) is common in many situations, but with proper steps, it can be circumvented. Many managers tend to think they’re being fair when appraising a potential employee or conducting a review, but can be unaware of their cognitive bias. Acknowledging that the horn effect exists is the first step to avoiding it, and ensuring everyone is viewed within a fair and equitable practice. 

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How Rater Bias Negatively Impacts Performance Reviews

Employee performance evaluations can be a challenging task for many leaders. When the proper assessment tools are not in place, it can be challenging to measure using a strategy utilized by millions of companies, which is the performance rating. While there may be ease of determining employee, abilities based on feedback from supervisors, subordinates, and peers, the process of rating others is almost always negatively influenced by rater bias.  

Rater Bias & Performance Reviews 

Rater bias refers to an error in judgment that can occur when an individual allows their pre-existing biases to affect the evaluation of another. This is a common issue when it comes to employee performance reviews and is a hazard of any rating system that is difficult to eliminate but not impossible to manage. 

The error of rater biases can be a result of personal opinions or perspectives, and are almost always unreasonable and stereotypes, though they vary from individual to individual. These biases can skew employee ratings too high or too low, negatively impacting the accuracy of performance reviews and nullifying their validity. When we fail to consider rater biases during performance reviews, it makes obtaining a true estimate of employee performance very challenging.  

Types of Rater Bias 

Humans are fallible, and biases can also be an outcome of an unconscious mind. Rater Biases pervade in our nature and exist in all organizations no matter their size. Though unhealthy, it is a reality of any performance management system. Because of this, it is crucial for Human Resource professionals to have a strong understanding of the different rater biases that exist. Understanding them thoroughly can prevent decision-making errors, which ultimately strengthens a company’s ability to use performance ratings to its full potential. 

The Leniency and Severity Effect 

The leniency bias involves a rater being too lenient on the person they are rating. The employee is rated positively irrespective of their performance, which means all scores are very high, making it challenging to recognize an employee’s true pattern of strengths and weaknesses. 

The severity bias, the manager is too rigid while rating employees, increasing the chances of employees receiving low ratings even if they perform well and show improvement. This creates an unfairly negative representation of the person being rated and can have serious implications for employees and for HR decision making.  

The Central Tendency Bias 

In this bias, the manager gives an average rating to all employees, irrespective of their past or present performance. This usually happens when a manager is lethargic, and instead of reviewing each individual employee, they give similar ratings to all. A rating of “3” on a 5-point scale for every question is a clear example of central tendency bias. In this case, good performers suffer, and poor performers are granted an undue advantage. 

The Halo and Horns Effect 

These biases address the phenomena where a manager tends to generalize their ratings of an employee based on specific positive or negative events. 

The halo effect refers to the tendency for a single positive rating to cause raters to inflate all other ratings. Positive ratings across the board aren’t helpful when making decisions, so it is crucial to watch carefully for evidence of the halo effect in employee rating data. 

The horn effect is the opposite. It is the tendency for a single negative attribute to cause raters to deflate the ratings in all areas by ignoring the employee’s recent performance. Like the halo effect, the horns effect makes decision-making challenging and might lead to unfair sanctions or inappropriate employee dismissal. There are legal ramifications for such assessments also. 

The Recency Bias 

Performance reviews are often made with a particular time frame in mind. This could mean a focus on the last quarter, or the past fiscal year. The recency bias occurs when a recent event clouds memory of previous performance. In this case, the manager overlooks the overall performance of an employee and judges them instead based on their recent performance. The recency bias leads to overestimates if the employee has recently performed exceptionally well, or underestimates if they have recently performed poorly despite past success.  

The Affinity Bias 

People are prone to favor someone who is like them. Typically, men rate men higher than women, women rate women higher than men. Older employees rate their contemporaries higher than younger employees, and so on. Similarity in age, gender, race, and experience all affect ratings. The affinity bias refers to this effect, where the rater tends to give higher ratings to employees with whom they share certain similarities in terms of age, gender, attitudes, perception, education background, experiences, hometown, even similar work habits. This can lead to unjust inflated ratings, and unfair low ratings.  

The Alienation Bias 

This bias refers to the opposite of the affinity bias. As the name suggests, this bias occurs when the rater alienates an employee with whom they may not have anything in common. This is evidently unreasonable, since performance should always be the principal factor of consideration while reviewing employees.  

The Comparative Bias 

In this effect, the rater makes comparisons among all employees in the organization, instead of reviewing individual performance. While comparisons can be helpful in moderation when making ratings, reliance upon them can lead to overestimates or underestimates of a person’s abilities. For example, one employee may be extremely organized, but slightly less organized compared to another co-worker. Their boss might then rate that employee lower than they deserve, because they can’t help comparing them to their more organized co-worker.  

The First Impression Error 

In this bias, the rater forms a premature opinion about an employee, and conducts their performance review based on that first impression. The premature opinion may be positive or negative, but the rater judges the employee in the future review period based solely on that opinion, rather than by evaluation their performance over time. 

Situational Bias 

In this bias, the rater inflates or deflates the ratings of an employee based on factors that are beyond the employee’s own control.  

Dispositional Bias 

Dispositional bias refers to cases where the rater seeks opinions from the supervisors of the employee, rather than personally reviewing the employee’s performance for themselves. This leads to inaccuracies in their performance review, due to the inherent distilling of information that occurs in this process.  

How to Overcome Rater Bias 

Measuring and monitoring employee performance is crucial to any employee and ultimately, the organization’s success. In order to promote continuance, but to reduce the potential for rater bias to occur, try using some of the following tactics. 

Written Records 

Raters should resort to document trails in order to accurately assess the overall performance of employees. By referring to a written record that tracks their performance on a weekly basis, raters will be able to accurately judge employee performance over a period. An example could be notes taken by the manager after each weekly, 1:1 meeting, where they jot down the state of the performance of each individual employee in a brief manner. 

Humans are bound to make errors, especially in the evaluation of other individuals. Proper documentation and a clear, written outline of progress help to avoid such biases by providing a clear picture of their overall performance which will ultimately make preparing the review a fair and equitable exercise (not to mention much simpler to complete). 

Continuous Feedback 

An open Feedback forum can be designed and made accessible to all members of an organization, or utilization of a “Continuous Feedback” online software like the one offered by Sprigg will help raters to receive feedback from all positions, making performance reviews dimensional and not limited to an individual’s perspective.  

Clear Goals Definition 

Top management should aim to clearly define the goals and targets for all individual departments and be able to break down those expectations to everyone. The goals should be communicated to all individuals in an organization, ensuring each one fully understands the requirements of the task. Managers should also communicate the performance evaluation process of each employee, so all employees have a thorough understanding of their individual contribution towards the company goals and the process of evaluating their success in those goals. 

The Role of the Moderator 

Top management often acts as a moderator in the performance review process. It is their responsibility to contribute to the oversight of employee appraisals, acting as an outside perspective that can catch any imbalance or rater bias that is occurring in the process.  

The Role of HR 

Human Resources should act as a support system for employees during the employee appraisal process. HR should ensure that all the problems and concerns of employees are addressed as soon as possible and should initiate healthy employee-employer relationships. This could mean the implementation of the weekly 1:1 meeting process, offering tools and format for promoting regular discussions. It could also take the form of organizing team effectiveness events that encourage a friendly and productive work environment built on healthy collaboration. They should also ensure top managers are not too rigid or too lenient while dealing with employees by offering coaching or review practice sessions for leaders. 

Work Culture 

Top management should always aim to maintain a culture of trust in their organization. Members of a team tend to mimic those of their leaders, so ensuring that favoritism and rater bias are eliminated is necessary to ensure equal employee treatment is promoted and practices. Top performers in the company should be recognized and rewarded, and the low performers should be given the necessary training and tools or at minimum, the opportunity to improve so that all employees can experience fairness and equity in the treatment of their performance assessment. 

Final Thoughts 

Rater bias can skew performance reviews either negatively or positively, regardless of an employee’s actual performance. While an employee can control how they perform their job, they have no control over a rater’s bias against them.  

Rater bias is, unfortunately, inevitable and can never be completed eliminated. However, raters can be taught to be consciously mindful when conducting performance reviews. Each time a rater assesses an employee’s performance, they should regularly ask themselves why they are choosing to rate them the way they are. This allows for the rater to be continuously conscious of whether their ratings are in fact motivated by unintentional bias and can ensure fair and just ratings are provided to each individual employee. A very effective strategy is to provide a specific example with details of a given situation. This can provide a fair and valid perspective when conveying either positive or constructive feedback. 

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