Objectives of Deloitte’s Performance Management System Redesign
How Deloitte Brought Radical Changes In Its Performance Management Plan?
The aim of the literature here is to assess how Deloitte brought radical changes in its Performance management plan to drive results for the organization. Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall published an article in Harvard Business Review named reinventing performance management, wherein they have discussed the big idea of how one company is revaluating Peer feedback and trying hard to design a system to fuel improvement in the organization. The goal which the authors set for Deloitte was to design a system which would be able to recognize the varying performance of the employees and provide a clear picture of their present performance along with the roadmap to boast their future performance. The solution which authors seemed perfect for Deloitte was to separate the compensation decision from day to day and provide clear insight through quarterly or per project, Performance snapshot, they wanted to rely on weekly check ins with managers to keep the performance on track. Deloitte realized the need for change in the current system when they tallied the number and found out that they have been spending 2 million hours a year to review all the documents and complete the performance management process.
Deloitte realized three objectives which have to be focussed on to evoke a radical redesign of the performance management system;
- Recognize performance through variable compensation
- See the clear performance of the employee
- Fuel the performance of the employees.
In the year 2018, Cascio discussed the importance of 360 degree feedback system for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the employees. In the Book “Managing human resources” Cascio mentioned that a round the year assessment is the true reflection of the employee performance. A process of continuous feedback system helps him to learn from his mistake and an action plan helps him to focus on the future and let bygones be bygones. It was pointed that such a performance management plan helps the employee to improve his professional relation with his immediate manager and peers. The management plan was also helpful in motivating them towards fulfilment of their business goals and objectives. Feedback was collected from Plethora of employees, all of whom were in big support of the performance management and resonated with the management by saying that the plan was helpful in shaping their personality and increasing their productivity exponentially.
Mone and London in the year 2018 published a book on employee engagement through effective performance management plan; the book was extremely helpful for organization in building engagement amongst its employees. Mone and London mentioned that an engaged employee is someone who feels motivated, involved , committed, passionate and empowered and demonstrates the same feelings in the workplace.360 degree feedback process addresses the issue and engages the workforce in the process, which empowers them and pushes them to work hard towards the attainment of their goals. 360 degree feedback system gives an insight about the SWOT of the employees, developmental areas on the basis of other’s feedback, based on all the information creates a competency development plan with specific objectives. In return, this keeps the employee engaged with the entire process and they are happy to take the steps to further enhance their working capabilities in the organization.
Importance of 360 Degree Feedback System for Employee Improvement
Cardy and Leonard are the co-authors of multiple books on human resources, in his particular book they went a step ahead and laid down guidelines for the organization to write the process of 360 degree feedback process. The first step in creating a fool proof management plan is to identify the core purpose of the feedback; this will help in understanding if people have the capabilities to reach the performance expected. The next step is to gain commitment from the management, and keep them on the same page by reporting to them. Involving and engaging the employees throughout the process and make them understand the process. Understanding the competencies and the values to be used in the process, the employees need to be aware of the training and coaching to be provided to them. To ensure all the above mentioned process, communicating with the people is extremely important, make employees understand who will provide the feedback and asking people to be really open in providing feedback of the employees. The last few steps in the process include follow up and collecting the feedback, producing report, providing coaching and at last post implementation review for better performance assessment.
Church and Waclawski in their book “Designing and using organizational surveys” discussed on the importance of the feedback system in the organization and on the performance of the employees. They described the process as not just a performance evaluation tool, but a consistent development project which allows the employees to know about their strength and weaknesses. The feedback process helps the employees to increase self-awareness and get a balanced view on their performance. Another utility of the system lies in the fact that it encourages employees to leverage on their strength, development of the required skills to be competent for the job role and uncovering blindsports in their behaviour. Hence, it can be said that the balanced feedback system holds great utility for the organization and the employees especially, as it is a directly proportional to their productivity in the organization.
Sahara LLC is a Muscat based consumer goods Company which sells goods such as paper product, cleaning supplies, and health and beauty products and is operating under the leadership of its CEO Mr Junaid. Sahara LLC adopted the 360 degree feedback system 2 years ago and was met with a lot of resistance, the employees were not totally convinced with the idea and had no clue as to how the feedback system would help them in improving their performance. It was later understood that the 360 degree feedback system has plethora of utility for the employees, utilities such as skill development, leveraging the strength, increasing their productivity and strengthening the relationship with the managers and peers are some positive elements of the balanced feedback process. The purpose of implementing a new feedback system was not clarified to the employees and hence was a major resistance when the feedback system was implemented
Engaging Employees through Effective Performance Management Plan
It helps in giving much perspective about the performance of an employee. Peer, team leads and managers give their own review about the performance of an employee which helps the management to correctly assess employee performance(Moynihan, 2008).The feedback given by the raters in not based on their disguised perception, but it is based on the observation and the behaviour of the employee at the workplace(Verbeeten,2008).There is no one source of feedback in a 360 degree feedback system, feedback is taken and acknowledged from the subordinates, peers and the managers. The cumulative feedback helps in correct assessment of the employee’s performance. Another characteristic of the feedback system, which makes it highly relevant in the present context, is the motivation one gets after knowing about his strength and weakness. The employee then gets determined to leverage his strength and work on his weakness (Mitra & Dutta, 2014)
Organizations have been facing numerous internal and external challenges; the effectiveness to deliver performance becomes a key source of differentiation between organizations which are successful and the ones which are not. Based on the same rationale, some recommendations are being provided to Sahara LLC to enhance the effectiveness of 360 Degree feedback system:
Before implementing a 360 degree feedback system, it is highly recommended that the organization considers the background and history of the team. Some of the management expert has said that a team has to be 1.7 years in system before implementing the feedback system.
In order to ensure the effectiveness of the employees, it is very essential to make them understand the intent and purpose of implementing the feedback system. Once the employees have clarity that the feedback system will help them in improving their performance, resistance against the system will be quashed.
It is highly recommended that Sahra LLC should maintain anonymity over its raters. Provided if the anonymity is not maintained the raters will not be able to provide a comprehensive feedback which can be used to boast the performance of the employees.
It is important that to ensure the effectiveness of the program, feedback is shared with the team. The feedback can be shared either by an internal leader or an external consultant. The purpose of the feedback is to give a fair assessment to the individual on his performance, his strength, weakness and areas for improvement, all this information will help the employee to have a better picture of his performance and he can review the feedback to work on improving his performance.
Guidelines for Creating a Foolproof Management Plan for 360 Degree Feedback
Question asked during the 360 degree feedback process serve as backbone of assessing the performance of any individual. Thus it is highly recommended that the questions are designed in alignment with the goals and objectives of the organization. In the absence of such question, a clear assessment is hard to obtain for the employee.
Employees are wary about the outcome of the feedback process; they are in constant fear that someone will bad mouth them, worsening their ratings. Hence, the feedback has to showcase the positive aspects of the employee and not the negative; it should lay emphasis on the strength rather than the weakness of the employee.
Change management is one of the toughest things to implement in any organization. People resist changing, because they are unsure about the benefits of the change, the intent behind it and the rationale to adapt to the change in the organization. Similar is the case with the feedback system, employees are comfortable with the elementary feedback system and they see a new feedback system as a disruption to the current practices. More so, if the objectives and the intent behind introducing the feedback system are not made clear to them.
Conclusion
Performance management system is a comprehensive tool for assessing the performance of the employees and helps them to identify the key areas for their improvement at the workplace. Performance management system addresses the year old mentality of individuals where they fear the fairness and transparency in the system, performance management system removes such obstacles in their thinking. Peer assessment is a great practice which makes the employee understands how their peer assesses their performance, working on the performance review; they can constructively work on improving their performance to match the standards of the organization. Using 360 Degree feedback system can be really effective in a team environment to promote self-awareness and create transparency in communication through the pillars of trust, sharing and increased clarity on the goals and behaviour. However, implementing 360 degree feedback in an organization is not an easy process, it is clouded by number of challenges at the hands of management, obstacle like; clarity of purpose, lack of transparency, lack of fairness, miscommunication are always present. It is therefore recommended to the management to take care of all the obstacles in the path of implementation of the feedback system to ensure a smooth transition from an earlier process to a new process. The report can be concluded by saying that a well drafted, designed and created 360 degree feedback process can help the employees to excel in their performance, which would help the team deliver an exceptional performance.
References
Buckingham, M. and Goodall, A., 2015. Reinventing performance management. Harvard Business Review, 93(4), pp.40-50.
Kearney, R., 2018. Public sector performance: management, motivation, and measurement. Routledge.
Mir, F.A. and Pinnington, A.H., 2014. Exploring the value of project management: linking project management performance and project success. International journal of project management, 32(2), pp.202-217.
Mitra, S. and Datta, P.P., 2014. Adoption of green supply chain management practices and their impact on performance: an exploratory study of Indian manufacturing firms. International Journal of Production Research, 52(7), pp.2085-2107.
Moynihan, D.P., 2008. The dynamics of performance management: Constructing information and reform. Georgetown University Press.
Rao, Z., Wang, Q. and Huang, C., 2016. Investigation of the thermal performance of phase change material/mini-channel coupled battery thermal management system. Applied energy, 164, pp.659-669.
Shaout, A. and Yousif, M.K., 2014. Performance evaluation–Methods and techniques survey. International Journal of Computer and Information Technology, 3(05), pp.2279-0764.