ReviewSNAP

Why Learning on the Go Is So Important

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Thu, 16 May 2013 16:17:00 +0000

As companies try to diversify their learning programs and make training available across a variety of mediums, they’ve been forced to consider how mobile fits into the learning picture. Let’s face it — our phones are an extension of ourselves now:

· 79 percent of users check their phone within the first 15 minutes of waking up

· 70 percent of smartphone users frequently check Facebook

· 78 percent keep up with email on smartphones

Phones keep us connected and help us be productive (and increasingly more social). So when companies begin to update their traditional training programs, mobile has to be a part of the process.

Mobile makes previously irrelevant information relevant. Think about going to a training class that had workbooks and exercises about a product or service you don’t actively use. Sure, the information is helpful, but it’s not retained if it isn’t needed. Then four months down the line, suddenly that training becomes applicable. Is the information still in your brain? Probably not.

Mobile access to just-in-time training gets employees the information they need, when they need it. Salespeople are great examples of employees who are always on the go and need information literally at their fingertips. They can brush up on facts or get updates while sitting in a waiting room, riding a train, or standing around the luggage carousel.

When thinking about adding mobile components to your training, make sure you identify the most important information needed. Transferring a 40-page workbook to a PDF might make access easier, but those 40 pages won’t be helpful on a phone. Instead, identify a quick list of talking points. You can also do a short podcast (and by short, we mean two minutes) of an instructor giving an overview.

You can always have workbooks, simulations, and additional instructor-led training as part of your learning program. As you think about training with mobile devices in mind, you’ll also start identifying ways to prioritize information for other mediums as well.

Making Performance Management Part of the Daily Routine

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Sun, 12 May 2013 21:50:00 +0000

We’ve all done it — once a year, we set goals we don’t revisit until the next year rolls around. It’s

why performance management doesn’t seem to work. It also makes it really easy for people to skate along, doing well but perhaps not going above and beyond.

Measuring great performance requires understanding where the baseline is and enforcing that every day. Daily performance management not only encourages the right behaviors, it also helps address any concerns early on, before they become problems. Employees can stick to the right goals, and management can align performance with the business’s needs.

Here are tips on how to make performance management part of the daily interactions you have with employees:

· Break goals into actionable items: Large goals that require a year to accomplish can be daunting. But if you break the goal into smaller items, you can include how someone could work daily toward accomplishing that goal. Then when you do regular check-ins, it’s much easier to talk about progress.

· Find ways to recognize good performance: Whether your company has an official recognition program or not, take time to say, “Good job,” when an employee is performing well. Make the recognition as specific as possible, especially if it relates to one of their goals. For example, if an employee built an internal enablement guide that also included engaging messaging and creative design (just like an ad campaign), say, “Good job applying marketing practices to internal training to help us increase adoption.”

· Adjust as you go: Goals set at the beginning of the year might have to change over time. Making performance management part of a daily routine means it’s much easier to see when a goal might need to be modified or corrected. Check to make sure that adjusting the goal still fits into the company’s strategy. By updating the goal, it’s more likely the employee will succeed than if the goal and the daily work are no longer aligned.

Performance management can be effective if it’s part of daily management practices. It might require managers to be more proactive about goals and define action items with employees if internal performance software or processes aren’t set up for that level of detail. But the results will be worth it if you make the extra effort.

Customizing Performance Reviews for Higher Education

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 18:02:00 +0000

Faculty and staff populations at universities are filled with people who have been doing the same thing for many years, as well as new employees trying to find the best ways to be productive on small budgets. The performance review can seem like an interruption when people have other priorities.

Instead, universities can embrace their learning culture with Reviewsnap and make the performance review an opportunity for development.

Download “Customizing Performance Reviews for Higher Education: Make Performance ManagementMeaningful for Faculty and Staff” so you can see how universities can get more out of the performance review process.

In this brief, you’ll learn how to customize reviews to make the process more meaningful by:

Changing the language
Defining the goals
Asking for clarity

Download the brief and see how customizing goals and competencies can make the performance review process worthwhile.

360 Degree Reviews: Mixing Personal and Professional Feedback

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 13:00:00 +0000

If you’re lucky enough to work at a company where your co-workers are also your friends, it’s easy for the lines between personal and professional relationships to blur. Feedback often isn’t as objective as it should be — best friends might pump each other up, or if there is a critique, it can be more about feelings than performance.

A 360 degree review provides the opportunity to get multiple perspectives, but it’s important to put some processes in place so feedback doesn’t get personal. Follow these tips to make performance management meaningful and maintain a friendly culture:

1. Make the review about balance: Especially if you’ve never had much of a performance management culture, reviews can be scary. People might want to hide areas for improvement and inflate areas of strength. When you kick off the 360 degree review process, discuss how balance is important. Have a discussion around what a high-rating behavior looks like, as well as middle- and low-rating behaviors. Give people examples to work with so they know how to be objective and provide balance when they’re filling out the survey.

2. Maintain anonymity: It’s important to make it easy for raters to maintain anonymity. If an employee is going to select peer raters, have at least three so it doesn’t become obvious who left what feedback. The employee will get more-rounded feedback and he won’t feel like he has to confront a rater if there is a negative comment.

3. Keep the feedback meeting objective: The meetings in which managers and employees discuss a feedback report can be filled with anxiety and stress. Acknowledge that there are going to be some personal feelings mixed into the feedback, as well as the employee’s reaction. Then focus on talking about behaviors. Understanding that there’s a personal element means the meeting won’t be cold and detached, but talking about behaviors (which can be changed) will keep things on track. And when there are good things to discuss, talk about how those good behaviors might be used in other situations.

Personal feelings can make the feedback process stressful for people, or make it hard to get at what behaviors really need to be changed. By striking a balance, maintaining anonymity, and keeping things objective, employees can get the feedback they need and the organization can get the change it’s working toward.

Even Small Businesses Need Compensation Management

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 13:00:00 +0000

During the early days of a startup, making payroll might seem touch-and-go. You might be able to close deals, but money goes straight back into the business — whether that’s to fund more development or just keep the lights on. Employees in a fresh startup environment know that checks might not come regularly, and amounts might vary. But the sacrifice can be worth it to work on something so new and exciting.

As your company starts to see some stability, though, it’s time to come up with compensation plans for your current and anticipated employees, even if your company is the smallest of the small.

Compensation management for small businesses is just as important as it is for large enterprises. In fact, it can be even more important because things are pretty transparent for small businesses. Here are five things to keep in mind as you develop your small business compensation plan:

· Check the market rates: People are willing to work for less when it’s something they believe in, and in the early days, that flexibility could help you keep the business going. As you stabilize, employees and prospects will be checking how your plans rate against salaries on Payscale.com or Salary.com. Knowing these rates will be critical when you also need to recruit talent as you grow.

· Be clear about the whole package: Salary is just one component of compensation, so if you offer additional benefits such as full healthcare coverage or flexible PTO, communicate how that rounds out an employee’s total compensation package.

· Add non-financial rewards when you can: Especially when money is tight, look into creative ways to reward employees. Small businesses require employees to wear a lot of hats, and the early phases may mean employees work around the clock. Can you give an employee a title boost? How about the ability to work from home?

· Project what rewards will look like in the future: You don’t have to take standard approach to raises and bonuses, but figure out what you are going to do (so you can budget for it). High performers might deserve a significant boost, but you might also want to give everyone a reward if the business overall is doing well. Identify the options you’ll want managers to have when it is time to reward performance and make sure they’re in line with the values you want to communicate to employees.

· Answer questions when they come up: You’re not going to be able to predict what will happen in three years — things change really quickly — but answer questions about your plans when they do come up. Be honest and clear. Employees will appreciate open communication and trust the decisions your leadership team is making.

Small businesses can make a big difference in the market, so rewarding employees is important to that success. Develop a comprehensive compensation management plan, and then you can focus on other strategic elements of your business.

Client Story: Maternal and Child Health Consortium

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:58:00 +0000

Reviewsnap is excited to share its newest case study with the Maternal and Child Health Consortium of Chester County (MCHC). As MCHC worked to build a sustainable future for the organization, it was clear that strong performance management was going to be necessary for the success of the organization.

MCHC, founded in 1991, is a nonprofit organization in suburban Philadelphia with a mission to improve maternal and child health through the collaborative efforts of individuals, healthcare providers, and policymakers. MCHC’s programs include ensuring that pregnant women deliver healthy children and secure well-baby care, as well as supporting families as they prepare their children to enter school. The organization serves an incredibly diverse population of women and families in the Chester County community, so the consortium needs to support a diverse workforce.

In pursuit of continuous quality improvement, leadership development, and alignment of its mission and core values, MCHC selected Reviewsnap’s performance management offerings to infuse greater accountability into the organization’s culture.

Download the case study to learn how MCHC developed a pilot program to launch its performance management system, how Reviewsnap helped the consortium develop custom content to fit its unique culture, and the results MCHC has seen with the program.

Identify and Uplift Disengaged High Performers

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 14:59:00 +0000

Employees are always asked to do more, and while there’s the very real employee population that’s only productive 60 percent of the time, many more are productive and performing well. They might

also be burned out.

Believe it or not, some employees want to do a good job, even if the workplace is beating them down. Maybe they’re going through a rough patch, or maybe they’re having issues with a colleague. These people usually see a light at the end of the tunnel, so they keep working hard.

The last thing you want to happen is for your high performers to get burned out and decide they’ve had enough. If that happens, you’re out a great employee, and that worker potentially parts ways with you on bad terms. Situations like this can be avoided if you identify and uplift your disengaged high performers.

First, discover the high performers. You should already have a performance management system in place that helps you manage how well your employees are doing. Check out who’s considered a high performer and identify who’s on your team and who else you might interact with.

Next, see who’s becoming disengaged. On your own team, that might be really easy to see. You should also take a look around and see if high performers from other departments that you interact with are having a rough time. You’ll want to see if you can determine the factors that are contributing to that disengagement, too. Some will be within your control, and some won’t.

Finally, uplift the high performers. When you can make a change for your team, make it. If there’s a temporary challenge making life rough for everyone, be sure to express that you know things are difficult. Keep assuring people there’s a light at the end — and deliver on that. For people on other teams, check with them personally, if you can. You might also have to say something to their manager. It could be there’s a problem no one was aware of or something that a simple realignment of priorities could fix. Don’t step on toes, but you can always look out for your colleagues, whether they’re on your team or not.

Check out our white paper “Giving High Performers a Runway.” You’ll find more tips on how you can help high performers succeed and help your company accomplish its goals, too.

Internal Expertise Is an Untapped Learning Resource

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 19:49:00 +0000

While learning programs are going more digital, don’t forget that your company has many internal experts who have knowledge to share. Those specialists have expertise in areas that affect different parts of the business.

For example, the logistics manager will have insight into how the supply chain affects whether products are delivered on time. When marketing needs to set product launch dates, it’s critical to partner with the logistics manager.

What if marketing could get a download from the logistics manager before ever scheduling a meeting?

Your company can create learning content developed by your own internal experts. Here are some things you can do:

· Have departments record introductory videos about responsibilities and contacts

· Launch a wiki for the product development team to give everyone the ability to learn the ins and outs of your new offering

· Set up Google+ Hangout events with your executive team and let employees ask about new initiatives or strategic direction — or allow people to collaborate remotely on projects

· Record radio and webinar broadcasts that feature your employees and share them on the internal network

· Invite teams to host “Lunch and Learn” events to keep everyone abreast of what’s happening in other departments

· Let authors of internal process manuals deliver a recorded presentation of rules, processes, or best practices to follow so new employees have access to onboarding resources

As you can see, there are many ways you can transform your learning programs from being generic to being customized. As you log all these materials, you’ll create a learning library that makes it easy for employees to get answers faster. Your teams will stay productive, and your experts can share their insight across the company.

Course Correct Early with 360 Degree Reviews

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:10:00 +0000

It’s exciting when you get to bring new people on at your company. They’re fresh faces with lots of energy. However, their hire date could put them out of rotation with the performance review cycle. The first round might be too soon for the information to be meaningful, but the second round could be a year and a half later. Don’t let that much time go by before you’ve had a chance to talk about performance.

Using 360 degree feedback tools can help you have performance conversations with employees when they’re off-cycle with performance reviews. You’ll get them feedback earlier, as well as make any course corrections before formal review season. Here’s how to integrate 360 degree tools into your off-season performance review program:

· Select a standard 360 review cycle: You might not use 360s for every employee, but if you set a standard cycle time, new employees will get feedback sooner rather than later. For example, all new employees can complete a 360 degree review after six months.

· Take away the pressure: Using 360s for developmental purposes can relieve the pressure of this being a performance-related event. Set expectations early that this is a progress check and an opportunity for improvement, not a tool to be used for punishment.

· Help the employee select the raters: By six months, most employees are comfortable with peers and co-workers. When they go over their rater selection with you, make sure they’ve selected an “A” team.

· Review feedback and get employee input: Many employees have ideas around how they’d like to improve, so ask for that input before prescribing next steps. If there’s a behavior that needs course correction, discuss it in a constructive manner. Find ways to address the behavior, but also make sure that there are not outside factors influencing the behavior. If you have influence on those factors, assure the employee that you’re doing what you can to address those.

For many people, a 360 degree review offers the chance to get a better idea of their performance than meetings or daily interactions might provide. Employees often want to improve before it’s too late, but they just might not know what’s wrong. Make sure you help employees prepare for formal reviews by giving them an interim step. And don’t forget to celebrate great performance, too. You could find a rising star ready for new responsibilities sooner than if you had waited until the formal review.

Get Relief Before Cabin Fever Strains Performance

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 13:00:00 +0000

We’re heading into that time of the year — when kids get excited about spring break and employees are itching to take a few days off. If your employees don’t get a chance to recharge a little before summer, they’re likely to experience some cabin fever.

Cabin fever symptoms can affect performance:

· Constantly thinking about warm, sunny places might result in extensive daydreaming

· The desire to get away can lead to long lunches or early happy hours

· No R&R might make employees snippy, frustrated, or stressed

· Too many back-to-back workdays can lead to burnout

You don’t have to call the doctor just yet, but here are four things you can do to make sure cabin fever doesn’t hinder your team’s performance:

1. Take your team’s temperature: Is everyone stressed out? Are people working 24/7 or hardly working at all? Is a rebellion on the rise? Make sure you’ve evaluated what your employees are feeling and what their behaviors say about stress levels.

2. Give them a break: All companies have different policies for flexibility, but if you can find some, give it to your employees. That could mean taking them out to a team lunch, or even giving them a Friday off to reward good performance. If your policies still require employees to be at work, perhaps do an afternoon activity that lets people blow off some steam (laser tag is pretty fun).

3. Build in some healthy habits: Encourage employees to use your company’s wellness benefits so that they’re not feeling unfit in addition to feeling stressed. If you don’t have a formal program in place, try things like instituting walking meetings for your one-on-ones, or have a snack day once a week. Instead of cookies, have everyone bring in their favorite ingredient for trail mix and create a trail-mix bar.

4. Take a breather yourself: Managers who are stressed can pass their stress on to their employees. If you’re feeling frustrated because everyone’s coming back to work with a tan and you haven’t seen the sun since October, don’t take it out on employees. Instead, take a breather. You might need to get up and have lunch away from your desk, go for a walk, or even meditate in between meetings. Literally take a breath before you react out of frustration and you won’t derail productivity because of stress.

Cabin fever may not affect everyone, but it can make performance a serious issue when people aren’t focused or energized. Follow these four tips and your team will slide through spring a little healthier and a little happier.

Upgrade Higher Ed Performance Management by Answering These Three Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 16:39:00 +0000

HR managers in higher education institutions need to find an easy way to streamline the performance management process. But they have the same question we’ve heard from many businesses:

How do we manage performance across a varied workforce when we have practically no budget?

The easiest response might be to just put a paper process in place. Everyone uses Microsoft Word, so it should be pretty easy to get these reviews done. But then managing data collection, confirming reviews have taken place, or even checking that the right forms got to the right people can create administrative chaos.

Who has time for that?

No one, but it’s a very real scenario that these organizations deal with every time there’s a review cycle. When HR managers in higher education institutions and universities finally throw their hands up, it’s time to find another way to get quality performance management, even on a tight budget.

Here are three questions to ask when you’re ready for a better way to manage your performance:

1. Can we utilize technology? Today, almost everyone is connected to a computer 40 hours a week. If that’s the case, an online or cloud solution might be exactly what you need. Make it easy for faculty and staff to log in and complete a form online instead of using paper handouts. Things don’t get lost in the shuffle, and you can then track completions.

2. Can we transition quickly? It’s not too difficult to imagine that universities are filled with processes that have been in place for years … and no one will change them, even if they’re flawed. Since new programs could cause upset, making sure the transition can happen quickly and cleanly will be important. That means getting all the stakeholders on board, finding a technology with easy implementation processes and having a rollout plan.

3. Can we make some room in the budget? Sometimes just looking at the loss of productivity can be enough to secure some spend. Not all technology solutions will use up every dollar in your HR budget. Especially when you need to secure spend approvals beforehand, making the case for the savings (even if there is a cost) will help you get some budget freed up for the solution purchase.

Streamlining your performance management can be easy, but getting your institution or university ready for the change will go a long way toward program success. Answer these questions and get ready to upgrade your own performance management approach.

Three Steps to Apply Your Talents to Goal Setting

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 14:00:00 +0000

As an employee, you can have a lot of power over what your goals look like for the next year. Many companies cascade goals down through the organization, linking individual goals with the overall strategy. Instead of waiting to hear what those goals are, though, you can pull together ways you best contribute to the business.

Here are three steps to follow when creating individual goals that you might bring to your manager:

1. Tap Into Your Talents and Interests: People perform best when they’re working on what gets them energized and excited. While your job might include not-so-fun tasks (everyone has something administrative to do), make it clear to your manager where you do your best work and where your passions lie. For example, a retail store manager still has to set the schedule every week, but she could also be great at hiring and onboarding new associates. When she thinks about her goals, her talents in hiring and onboarding should be on the list.

2. Make the Goal Measurable: Before bringing a new goal to a manager, make sure that you’ve thought through how you’re going to measure progress on that goal. Without these metrics, your own manager won’t know if you’ve accomplished that goal, made progress or are behind. When hiring and onboarding store associates, our manager can put some time metrics against her goals: Hire associates within two weeks of opening, associate proficient at point of sale system within two days, and so on.

3. Bring It Back to the Business: Identifying your new goal isn’t complete until you’ve also included how it relates back to the business. Our store manager might get a lot of fulfillment by getting to focus on hiring and onboarding, but she also needs to say how that would be relevant for the store’s goals or even the company’s success. Her goal could include pulling together best practices for other store managers so all stores improve their hiring and onboarding processes.

Make sure you’re including your manager in the development of these goals, giving them plenty of notice that you want to work on these individual goals. If you surprise them too late, you might not get to focus on these areas. By being proactive, you’re working on things that help you perform better, but also help the performance of the business.

Connect Learning Back to the Job

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 13:00:00 +0000

With the Internet, it’s never been more obvious that the skills you learn in school could drastically change over the years of your professional career. The Internet (as we know it) didn’t exist prior to 1991, yet graduating college students are incredibly savvy about SEO and mobile connectivity.

When you don’t have the option to go back to school, get updates through skills-based learning.

Learning exists to help you do your job better, and learning management systems have matched the most-needed skills with training modules. Instead of classes on topics too vague or high-level to be useful in your daily job, today’s learning dives into the proficiencies that you actually need.

Here’s how a flexible learning strategy can help you perform better:

· Learning to update your skills: You might have already learned something once, but your brain fills up fast. If you need a refresher, you should be able to breeze through some short learning modules that help you remember what you covered before. For example, you might have to work on a new machine in the shop, something you’ve done before but it’s been awhile. A quick tutorial will get you up to speed and moving products down the line in no time.

· Learning just in time: Usually more tactical, these types of training courses will cover skills you need to perform a function or get you background information when you need it. The idea is that you don’t spend five weeks in classes to get where you need to be. If you’ve got a sales meeting and you’re pitching the most recent updates to a product, just-in-time training should have a short video of the product updates along with some talking points so you don’t sacrifice the sale.

· Learning for the long term: These types of training courses might include strategic perspectives or behavioral development that you don’t need right away. Learning how to communicate as a manager (when you’re not a manager) will help you practice early in your career, help your soft-skill development and help you better understand the communication techniques your own manager uses.

You can always learn, and unfortunately, the pace of change means you’ll be constantly learning on the job. When you’re in need of some information, check out your company’s learning management system. You could find the answers you need before you have time to ask questions

Different Strokes for Different Folks - Customizing Performance Reviews for You

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 13:00:00 +0000

For performance reviews to be a valuable part of performance management, they have to mean something to the employee, manager and organization. Relevant measures help people understand expectations and plan accordingly.

But what happens when the expectations set are too vague?

People get frustrated. Vague competencies or goals are like telling an employee to “do better.” Do better than what? Do better how? Sure, there might be some general understanding of what “better” might mean, but without specifics, performance won’t follow.

For example, “do better” for a salesperson could mean win more deals. However, winning deals by, say, discounting the product or service not only reduces profitability, it makes it harder for the firm to maintain the value of the service. Other salespeople can’t sell at the set price if a salesperson is undercutting them. So yes, more deals were closed, but at what cost?

Customizing goals and competencies can make it much easier to encourage the behaviors that lead to improved performance. Using customizing features in your performance review systems makes the process more meaningful for everyone.

Here are three ways you can customize your performance reviews:

1. Change the language: Your company might have its own lingo, so integrating that into your performance review system will help employees relate what they do each day with the appraisal’s measures. It can be as simple as swapping out “customer” with “patient” for hospital performance management, or you can translate all the competencies and goals into your company’s vocabulary. As you use an internal language to customize your company’s appraisal, make sure it’s still clear what’s being measured.

2. Define the goals: Using specific goals helps employees stay on track with the company’s strategy. To make goals more meaningful, cascade goals down from the business’s strategy through employees at all levels. Help a line manager see just how his efforts will contribute to the business. Then take it a step further and ask that line manager how else he might contribute. He might have a new way to work with suppliers that you might never have known about. His own professional goals would then change a process or service, delivering even more value to the company.

3. Ask for clarity: Competencies are often built into performance reviews to help measure employee effectiveness, but did anyone ask the employees if the competencies were clear? Competencies can sometimes become too general when leaders want only a few competencies that many employees can be measured against. “Effective communications” can mean something different to lots of people. In some cases, you’ll either need to add definitions to those competencies, or go ahead and make a few versions of the competency so it’s relevant.

Customizing competencies and goals can add work to the performance management process, but the work will be worthwhile. With specific and relevant measures, it’ll be easier to see how well employees are performing and link that to the performance of the business.

You Have To Compensate Employees

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 02:46:00 +0000

You’re probably familiar with the dreaded announcement: No raises this year — again. Announcing that a pay freeze is continuing is messy business. Employees hate to hear it, and managers hate to be the bearer of bad news.

There can be a host of reasons why there isn’t enough money to reward people for their performance. When it comes down to a choice between paying the light bill and giving a bonus, the light bill wins every time.

But if you’re moving into a fourth year of pay freezes, it’s time to find a way to compensate employees for what they’ve done. Compensation isn’t everything, but if basic financial needs aren’t being met, employees can’t give you top performance. Compensation is a type of reward, and rewards show that the company recognizes the difference between great performance and poor performance.

If you’re treating everyone like poor performers by failing to reward them, don’t be surprised when that’s the kind of behavior you get.

Instead, think about how you can make small compensation changes that have a big impact. Try looking at your compensation plan with these ideas in mind:

· Shake up the budget: Where can you shift some money around? Giving a 5 percent raise to everyone might not be possible, but finding a few dollars for bonuses could help keep your hard workers engaged. This is where you really have to match performance and rewards, because you’ll only have budget for the top performers.

· Get consistent: Are you offering new hires competitive salaries while current employees’ pay lags behind? You may not have the budget to bring everyone up to market rates, but make sure there aren’t major discrepancies among similar roles. Help hiring managers understand compensation options and find ways to match internal salaries to preferred rates.

· Find variety: If you think about compensation as a reward, there are suddenly more options. You can provide managers with flexible funds that can be used for spot rewards — like sending an employee to a conference or taking the team to a congratulatory lunch. Non-cash rewards can’t replace raises, but they can help your people feel appreciated throughout the year.

Just because an employee hasn’t left yet doesn’t mean their loyalty should allow you to hold back on compensation. Budgets are tight, but you should find a way to grant rewards to employees who deserve them. Hopefully, you’ll then drive improved performance, which might result in better opportunities to raise compensation in the future.

Setting Goals That Mean Something

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 15:14:00 +0000

Unless you’re in sales, goals can seem vague and unrealistic. Instead of a clear goal, like increase sales by 5 percent, vague goals take on the similarity of New Year’s resolutions — be a better team member, communicate more frequently, and focus on personal development. No wonder most resolutions get dropped before February.

Instead of generalizing goals, get really specific. Set both quantifiable and qualitative goals that mean something to employees.

· Find the numbers. Most employees’ duties can be measured in a quantifiable way. Some metrics are easy (sales), and some are going to be a little trickier (customer satisfaction). For each goal an employee has, make sure there’s a way to measure it and track it with numbers.

· Check the numbers. Do some digging to make sure those metrics reflect what’s important to the business. For example, number of leads can be important for a sales role, but converting those leads to sales is even more important.

· Narrow qualitative goals. How people do their jobs is just as important as hitting milestones. Qualitative goals can naturally lead to vague descriptions, but you can help employees narrow those goals to specific desired outcomes. Instead of learn to write better, make the goal more specific, like learn three writing techniques used by top industry writers and apply them to company materials.

· Ask your employees. Your employees probably have a good idea of measures that accurately reflect success on the job. Set goals together so that business gets taken care of and the employee is part of the goal-setting process.

· Follow up. Progress reports are important to help people not just follow goals as well as meet them. Without specificity, it’s hard to know an employee’s progress or if something has impeded the completion of the goal. By following up on a regular basis, goals can be adjusted and obstacles can be removed. Both the employee and the business will be better for it.

Spend time on goal setting and make sure the goals you set are meaningful to the employee and to the business. Articulating what’s expected early on means people stay on track. And by keeping your employees involved, you’re likely to see high performance and great success.

Giving High Performers a Runway

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:17:00 +0000

Companies have to make lots of tough decisions when it comes to developing their people. When money is tight, it’s easy to focus on developing high-potential employees. After all, they’ll make a huge difference for your company in the future.

But you don’t want to think too far ahead and forget about today. A pool of very important people keeps your company running so that it’s there in the future. These are your high performers.

In our most recent white paper, “Giving High Performers a Runway,” we take a look at how you can get the most from your high-performing talent. When you download the paper, you’ll learn:

· Why high performers need a runway

· How to develop high performers for team success

· Ways the company benefits overall from strong high-performer development

We want to help you improve the performance of your organization and your people. Count on Reviewsnap for expertise on how you can start seeing benefits when you let your high performers fly.

Download your complimentary copy of “Giving High Performers a Runway” today.

Corporate Learning: Training Doesn’t Have to Be Old School

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 15:46:00 +0000

Corporate learning programs get a bad rap because people assume you just sit through an endless string of boring training sessions. How can employees learn when they have to suffer through 10-hour sessions with instructors akin to Charlie Brown’s teacher? Whaa-whaa-whaa.

Your employees already went to school, so now’s the time to change the way your company approaches learning.

Beef Up Corporate Learning

“Beef up” doesn’t mean “add more of the same.” We’re talking about making the learning more meaningful. When corporate learning can be integrated with development plans, employees know there’s a reason why they might need to attend training or complete a learning activity in the first place.

Look to diversify your current learning offerings. You could use online learning modules that employees can complete on their own, saving you the time and expense of trying to get everyone in a room. Videos can provide just-in-time training when an employee needs a refresher, and a wiki can include the most up-to-date information on a project.

Don’t forget about the topics. If your learning library only offers training on mastering Excel or Word, your employees could be missing out. Ask around — what do your employees wish they knew? There are going to be a number of missed learning opportunities for a variety of situations. For example, an employee traveling overseas on the company’s behalf for the first time could watch a quick video on how to prepare for travel, how to behave in the country, and how to manage time and expenses.

Don’t Make Learning a Distraction

When corporate learning programs force employees to put their jobs on hold, everyone sees the drop in productivity. Instead, learning should help people improve their skills without pulling them away from their daily tasks for too long.

Homework takes on a new meaning with corporate learning. Instead of theoretical pre-work, have employees bring on-the-job challenges to training sessions. Activities should focus on improving the employee’s job performance instead of completing exercises that appear irrelevant. By focusing on job-related topics, employees could end up developing templates and processes you wouldn’t have known you needed if you’d stayed in the theoretical.

There are many options for learning programs and technology on the market. Adding modules or updating systems might be expensive, but if you build in proper tracking, the investment is worth it. When you combine tracking with a beefed-up program that doesn’t distract employees, you will make your corporate learning program a success.

Use 360 Degree Reviews to Help Employees Process Feedback

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 01:17:00 +0000

Employees don’t like being railroaded with feedback about poor performance. If it’s the first time they’ve heard the news or they only ever hear it from one person, it can feel like an attack. The employee can’t focus on a development plan when he is still trying to figure out where the negative feedback came from.

Sometimes, employees need time to process.

Using 360 degree reviews as part of your performance management process can help employees absorb feedback before coming to a performance review meeting. Here’s how you give employees room to process and prepare:

· Conduct the 360 degree review. Help the employee pick a 360 degree “A” Team so that the review paints a complete picture. Also, make sure the review is done with plenty of time to capture feedback and get the report to the employee.

· Review the feedback report. Some 360 degree review tools have reports that don’t require a manager or HR professional to walk through the report with an employee, but doing that might still be helpful. This report review meeting focuses only on the feedback report and helping the employee process the information.

· Allow a little time to process. Let the employee take the report and review it for a few days. This gives the employee time to form questions and to understand the feedback, and it also gives the employee time to feel whatever emotions might have come up from the feedback.

· Prepare for the performance review meeting. Both you (the manager) and the employee need to prepare for the review meeting. The employee can ask questions related to the 360 degree review report and should come with ideas on how to start improving. And you should come with a working development plan so that together, you can determine what the employee’s next steps will be.

As a manager, you should be giving feedback year-round so you don’t surprise an employee. Sometimes there are going to be surprises. By using 360 degree reviews, you give employees a report they themselves can review. You also empower employees to be part of the development process, encouraging them to contribute their own ideas. Employees who take ownership of their development will be more invested in their jobs. You then improve performance and engagement, something that can help your team continue to succeed.

Giving Feedback: When Your Gen Yer Isn’t No. 1

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 13:00:00 +0000

Gen Y stereotypes indicate that this group of young employees demands feedback but can’t take criticism. It’s always easy to tell your employee when he’s a rock star, but what do you do if he’s not? You don’t want your performance review meeting to result in shouting or crying because the news came as a surprise to your employee.

Avoid a messy performance review by following these tips:

· Have your Gen Yer take an active role in preparing for the review: Don’t leave the discussion up to chance. Ask your employee to reflect on the last year’s successes and challenges. Then take it a step further and ask for areas where the employee fell short; have him articulate what he would or could have done to make things turn out better. This approach separates personal responsibility from situational circumstances.

· Prepare for the review yourself: It’s really easy to remember the project that bombed or the client who yelled. But reviews are about both the good and the bad. Make sure you’ve got the good things prepared and can explain to your Gen Y employee why he handled things so well in those instances.

· Be clear about development opportunities: There’s a saying, “Don’t be part of the problem, be part of the solution.” When employees have a bad performance review and walk out knowing they need to fix things but don’t have any idea where to start, managers aren’t being part of the solution. Find out what development programs and resources are available and help the employee make a concrete plan for improvement. Get your Gen Yer to be involved as part of the solution, too. There could be social training tools or local networking events that can help your employee get the skills he needs.

· Check in frequently: Many Gen Yers have a hard time with feedback because it can easily feel like an ambush. If it’s the first time your employee hears about his weakness, he’s going to wonder about all those times he could have course-corrected. Set up progress checks at regular intervals (at least quarterly) so you both can mark whether there’s been improvement.

Employees aren’t always going to be on the rock star path. Make sure to check with HR around performance management protocols, but do what you can to help make sure the employee gets plenty of notice when there’s a problem. You might find that things are easier to correct simply by having open lines of communication.

Compensate Differently: Use Employee Engagement Tactics

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 15:54:00 +0000

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Money is a tricky motivator for employees. Based on an infographic from Bolt Insurance, 22 percent of employees leave their jobs because of pay/benefits issues. But the biggest reasons have more to do with non-monetary factors:

· Heavy workload — 43 percent

· Lack of opportunities for growth and advancement — 43 percent

· Unrealistic job expectations — 40 percent

Yes, people want raises (especially if you’ve been in a salary freeze for three years), but more money won’t always keep people if the job or environment is awful.

Compensation doesn’t have to be only about the money. Instead, expand your definition to include rewards and engagement. A few dollars can go a long way if you apply them effectively. Let’s break it down based on these other turnover factors:

· Heavy workload: People wear more hats than ever in their jobs, and at some point they’ll burn out. See where people are working under, at and over capacity. If the workload on a team isn’t distributed properly, redistribute. Then continuously check with your employees, celebrating big wins. If someone’s going above and beyond, say “thank you” with a long weekend.

· Lack of opportunities for growth and advancement: Have you told your employees about all their career options? Create an internal site for job postings and positions. Make it easy for people to get information and apply. Then take it a step further and provide internal networking opportunities. These could be in-person happy hours if everyone is local, or virtual brown bag discussions for the remote. You're helping people to get to know one another and then to see what else is going on in your company.

· Unrealistic job expectations: This is something you can catch early when recruiting candidates. Are they being hired for the job they interviewed for? Set the right expectations upfront and keep them. Help managers have regular discussions with employees to make sure everyone’s on the same page. If there’s a major discrepancy, encourage employees to come up with solutions to make their job more inline with their expectations.

Compensation is only one part of the equation, so think about the reasons your employees might be frustrated or leaving. Find alternate rewards and ways to encourage engagement before employees become dissatisfied. You’ll be using budget more efficiently and seeing greater productivity from your teams.

Holiday Performance Burnout

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 17:20:00 +0000

Avoiding Compressed Performance and End-of-the-year Stress

The end of the year is coming and with it comes accelerated deadlines. Even if your office is open between the Christmas holiday and New Year’s, your ability to be productive is really tightened by a three-week month. On top of that, people are distracted, stressed and trying to get out the door for vacation. While you might need to wrap up the year performing at your best, your employees might already be drained. So how do you survive holiday performance burnout?

First, understand what factors hinder your employees from performing at their highest potential:

· Unrealistic timelines: It’s tempting to say “Yes” to new business so you can close the year with some realized revenue, but can you actually deliver? While retailers are experts at thriving during the holiday season, they’ve been planning since spring. Something new in December can put the pressure on, especially if there’s already a lot of work in the pipeline. Employees might feel like they’re being set up to fail if the timelines are completely unrealistic.

· Process shortcuts: When timelines are tight, people might take shortcuts just to get things done. Sacrificing process for the sake of saving time can lead to having to redo projects later. When certain teams take a shortcut, other teams could suffer the consequences. If this becomes a habit, some employees won’t bother making the fix after the fifth mistake.

· Vacation holes: Vacation time can be tough on teams when the departing employee hasn’t ensured that projects can run in their absence. Dropping projects and hoping that teams can handle coverage means more things get dropped. Those left to pick up the pieces will also become frustrated, adding stress to the team dynamic after the New Year.

Next, see how you can address these challenges:

· Adjust timelines appropriately: Even if new business is knocking at your door, set expectations with the customer and your team as to what realistic timelines look like. Maybe you can deliver some elements over a staggered timeline. Then continue to create a dialogue of expectations between the executing team and the customer.

· Stop shortcuts before they happen: Processes are put in place to help ensure quality. If people are cutting corners, you can’t guarantee the quality (and then why are your customers paying you?). Check in with employees frequently to catch process shortcuts before they start, reminding teams that the process is there to help. If a project has to be reworked, help employees take the time to do it right.

· Fill the vacation gaps: Set up a vacation schedule with your employees so people know who’s coming and who’s going. Then have a departure checklist or plan. Employees should be able to provide the status on a project, any expected next steps that need to happen while they’re out, and who’s going to handle those steps (and the handler should have a heads up). Projects can continue and customers won’t be frustrated because things get behind.

These practices should happen throughout the year. Tell your employees that this time of year might feel stressful, but they should go about business as usual. Following processes and communicating effectively will reduce stress and keep things on track. Remind managers that they shouldn’t add stress if they don’t have to. By aligning performance expectations during the end of the year, you’re likely to have happy and productive teams leading you into the next year.

Now What? Why Continuous Learning Improves Performance

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 19:10:00 +0000

It’s been six months since your latest performance review. You had walked out of your boss’s office with a development plan in hand, and you were ready to get started.

And then it got busy. And there was that emergency project. And you suddenly realize you’ve made zero progress on that plan. OK, well, no one’s really paying attention. You can say you worked on “improving communications” — just send a few more emails. It’s not like there are training classes or checklists for you to actually use as part of your development.

As a learning manager, that’s not the picture you want to see. You want employees not just thinking about development but also acting on their plans. You want managers to be involved year-round, not just at the annual performance review. You want a continuous learning culture.

But how do you get there?

The first step is easy: Know what you’re doing now. Do the development plans include clear actions? Or are the steps vague, with subjective measures of improvement? Do you offer a library of training materials or budget to reimburse employees if they seek outside training? You want to perform an audit of everything you’re currently doing at your company with learning, including getting some honest feedback from employees. Do you offer online training but no one uses it? Find out why.

Next, review the gaps in your program. Once you’ve done your audit, you can match the current state with the desired state to see the gaps. Maybe you’re not using an online Learning Management System (LMS) or there isn’t budget to send employees to outside training. Or maybe employees just don’t know what you offer. See where the gaps are and determine which areas are priorities for improvement.

Bring the learning and development together. Ideally, a development plan would have action items that match the learning activities your company offers. “Improving communications” would include the online module about giving feedback, a quarterly check on communication styles and perhaps written exercises so the employee can practice. Bringing the current state and ideal state together requires some work, but you can start small. Do an internal communications campaign to tell employees what resources are available to them. Informing the workforce is a good way to get people to use the programs. Next, revamp the review process, making the development plan more reflective of the learning programs you have in place. Then start looking at changing the resources. You can find technology that automatically creates development goals or has progress checks for managers.

A continuous learning culture doesn’t have to come with a big investment upfront. Knowing what is happening in your company and which areas you want to tweak can start making changes for you immediately. As you plan ahead, include these audits on a regular basis. You won’t get to the ideal state right away, but you’ll be marking progress so you know how you’re doing. Just like in your own development plan.

Feedback Lineup: Building a 360-review “A” Team

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 13:00:00 +0000

During 360-review season, you’re asked to select raters to help evaluate your performance. Just like picking players for a kickball team, you want raters who will make you look good.

But you don’t want to look good because the raters are all generic and wishy-washy. You want to look good because there’s something worthwhile in the feedback.

Think about the kickball team: If people are picking daisies in the outfield and constantly missing the ball, even if you score home runs, you could still lose the game. If everyone contributes to the best of their ability, then you’ve got a match.

Selecting 360 raters who are going to contribute to the best of their ability means selecting people who will be honest, fair and objective. They’ll also take the time to focus on the survey, not just click through it to get it over with.

These “A” team raters also aren’t going to give you a perfect review.

If you really want to improve your game, you need people who are going to tell you the good and the bad. What makes these raters helpful is that with the bad, you’ll get suggestions on how to improve. You won’t have poor ratings because someone’s had a bad day.

Here are some of the players you should look for:

· A peer who’s known you for a long time

· A mentor or indirect supervisor

· One new and one long-term client or customer

· A project teammate from another department

· A remote employee you’ve worked with

· Someone you’ve faced a work challenge with

All of these people have had a variety of experiences with you. A project could have gone perfectly or it could have been a mess. You could have played different roles on different teams. Clients see a different side of you than your co-workers do. Selecting these people will help you get a full picture of your past performance.

If you don’t get to choose your team of raters because a supervisor selects them, go ahead and make a list anyway. You can then tell your supervisor to add these people — and show that you’ve given thought to the process.

Once you’ve built your “A” team, give the same courtesy to the 360 reviews you’re selected to give feedback on. Be honest, fair and objective, and take the time to really give quality answers. Both you and the rest of your co-workers will get more out of the process by being “A” team players for each other.

Take the Drama Out of Compensation — Strategies for Honest Communication with Employees About Pay

noreply@blogger.com (Reviewsnap) — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Negotiation strategies indicate that when both sides work together to share information, both parties come out better. When you hide information or believe the other party is hiding something, both sides come out with worse deals than if they had been honest. Yet, it’s in our nature to think we’re leaving something on the table.

Then again, just bothering to ask for a raise can get you nowhere (or a knee in the groin). “The Secret Life of an HR Lady” shows just how painful that compensation conversation can be.

Compensation drama makes things more tumultuous in a company culture because people think they’re missing out. Or that decisions aren’t being made fairly. A lot of worry and gossip stems from people trying to fill in the blanks themselves. There will always be people who make compensation discussions dramatic, but you can reduce anxiety by being upfront.

Here’s how to communicate honestly with employees about pay:

· Be upfront when there isn’t money. Employees get more frustrated when you hide the reality of your business than if you had let them know things were tight. It’s tough to hear that the business is going well but that people will have a fourth year of no raises. It’s a mixed message. Is the extra money going to pay off debt? To invest in a different rewards system? Employees can be on your side if you’re not hiding information.

· Measure performance so you have data to support compensation decisions. If your company is truly implementing pay-for-performance, you are no longer distributing rewards evenly (aka the peanut butter approach). When someone doesn’t get a bonus or raise, you'll have the information to support the decision. You'll also need a plan for developmental steps so that performance can be improved. And if you want to reward a top performer, you'll have the documented justification to request the spend.

· Deliver on your promises. When you have contracts or agreements that call for bonuses, commissions or raises, you're obligated to deliver. You can add language around performance deliverables or goals, but if you renege on the agreement, employees will find out. They’ll wonder what else you’ll renege on. There might be good reasons for having to back out, but be prepared to have a conversation about why you can’t deliver and about a plan to revisit the obligations in the future.

Employees will gossip; that’s why they call it water-cooler talk. You can still control messages but also share information. Your behavior influences how employees perceive your honesty. Don’t let compensation drama impact your company’s productivity and culture. Strive for transparency, document your decisions, and deliver on your promises.