Janine is the Owner/Chief Innovations Officer for Talent Think Innovations, LLC, a multi-disciplinary business strategy and management consulting firm. She is also the Founder and Chief Blogger at “The Aristocracy of HR” and Host of Periscope TV show “Ask CzarinaLive”. Her career spans over twelve years in HR. Janine is a dynamic speaker, entrepreneur, and an important and respected voice bringing both a human touch and business savvy to the HR and Technology disciplines. A globally-known figure in Human Resources and Business, she has contributed for Performance I Create and IRIS.xyz, where she isn’t afraid to tackle the obstacles and issues facing employers and employees alike. She has been quoted by Maternity.com, SHRM, US News Careers and has been featured by Black Enterprise, Entrepreneur, Ebony Magazines and Fast Company.
What is currently missing in the way overall employee performance is being managed?
There is no continuity between the performance review period and what happens during the actual cycle. Performance is largely seen as an onerous once-per-year activity where the impact of an employee’s performance is discussed. Since there are no real-time conversations around performance both the employee and supervisor are missing out on capturing key data points that would allow for a more accurate depiction of the employee’s contributions.
Given that a company’s workforce now has a significant proportion of virtual and freelance workers, how should performance management include them?
The emergence of more virtual and freelance workers should be a catalyst for streamlining how we manage performance. If all employees across the board are receiving real-time feedback on their performance and are given a fair chance to express hurdles, pain points as well as demonstrate their progress in meeting performance goals; it shouldn’t matter whether they are remote or in the office so long as there is an efficient and consistent deployment of strategies to manage productivity and performance.
What are employees, managers and decision makers looking to make performance management more effective?
There is a growing trend of HR becoming consumerized in the sense that companies will have to focus and cater to their employees as they would an actual customer. In this way, people are not a number, but individual contributors requiring year-round management of their performance and in some cases performance management on the employees’ terms. Things like performance actions and discussions about meaningful work, purpose, career pathing and outside interests or outlier skills are just a few things employers can do to pick up the pace in addressing the individual needs of their employees.
What are some of the new things being introduced in Performance Management that are working/not working?
Continuous feedback and peer recognition tools are some of the new frontiers in performance management. The idea of having more regular performance discussions throughout the year means both employee and supervisor are able to have a more real-time focus on the goals and contributions. Also, it hopefully ensures that everyone is given a chance to improve rather than to be blind-sided by poor reviews for what seems like poor performance; but is really a deficit in communication and leadership.
I am seeing a lot of companies using peer recognition apps or software as a means of having crowd-sourced feedback from team members about their co-workers’ performance. It serves as evidence of a person’s contributions and also dutifully allows for morale-building and recognition in a real-time manner.
If not periodic appraisals, then what & how?
Every team within a company should set a schedule and mechanism for ongoing communication and check-ins on performance. It can be monthly or even bi-monthly to start. Either way, there should be a scheduling of meetings where performance goals can be reviewed or revised if need be. Doing this will alleviate the burden of having to do a comprehensive and deep-dive during the annual review process.
