Improving Employee Performance Through Coaching Scorecards
What gets measured gets done…
In today's high
-paced work environment filled with distractions, it is easy for an existing or recently-hired employee team member and their manager to get “off track” until the results fail to materialize. When a recently-hired employee’s performance is in question, the employee team member / supervisor relationship “honeymoon” is then over.
You know what happens next… The manager scrutinizes the employee team member’s activities which leads to the employee feeling “micro-managed”. Thus begins the “downward spiral” of the relationship between the employee and their manager.
I have found the two best ways to improve newly-hired employee performance…
1. Improve Employee Job Fit. In other words – hire the best employee possible in the first place using a Pre-Employment Personality Profile compared to a Job Benchmark.
2. Remove the potential of a “Possibility Gap” by making sure the employee team member knows exactly what is expected of them and is held accountable to a employee performance scorecard.
It is important to remember…
Poor employee job fit is simply the ugly problem of the wrong person in the position. Without a Job Benchmark and an effective Pre-employment Personality Profile System, you are gambling. Harsh but true.
The Possibility Gap is the gap between “what is” and “what should be” in terms of tasks and activities and the results that should be coming as a result of the right employee team member doing the right things. Another way to look at The Possibility Gap is to ask what is the difference between…
· What are the tasks and activities that are critical to do the job well?
· What is actually being done right now?
And there lies the real problem. What makes the Possibility Gap so problematic is it may take 3-4 months (or longer) until an employee performance problem becomes evident. This is caused by something I call the “results lag”.
An example of the “results lag”… When I worked as a paper carrier in high school, I could deliver 200 newspapers in two hours. The results were immediate – therefore no results lag is evident. Today, I can write a report, send it, and not see action for up to 18 months with a Client.
The “results lag” is the time period between the task or activity completion and the results evidence. Not everything being done right now leads to immediate results. Therefore, one becomes accustomed to seeing results “down the road” – the “results lag”. The real challenge is that managers fail to look for the actions that predictably lead to results or misinterpret observed results and attribute those results on past tasks and activities.
Results take time. The right task and activity completion right now leads to the right results in time…
The “results lag” must be respected. It is critically important to realize that the tasks and activities being completed right now may not “yield fruit” for several hours, days, weeks, months, and even years. Therefore, it is critical to know which tasks and activities matter most and to focus on them without exception.
An excellent way help new and existing employee team members to focus on the “important stuff” is to create a performance score card and make sure it is turned in daily or weekly. This score card should be a “predictor” of future success. Failure to do so will leave the employee team member up to their own “approach” in terms of how to get the results. If you are not score carding your employee team members, you are setting them and yourself up for reduced employee performance and possibly failure.
Maximizing Employee Performance Key Points
- Avoid The Job Mismatch Problem – Select / Hire the Right Employee for the Job – If you are not Job Benchmarking and using a comprehensive pre-employment personality profile, you are gambling. Period.
- Score Card Employee Tasks and Activities – You get what you measure… Employee Performance Maximization means doing what matters most right now. Consider an employee coaching software system that can help streamline the score carding process.
- Clarify Tasks and Activities – Do your employee team members understand which tasks and activities lead to the right results? Are you holding them accountable?
Without accountability, do not expect results.
Remember... What gets measured gets done...
Other posts that will be of interest to you...
- Is Having An "Asshole" For a Boss Really Such a Bad Thing?
- Eight Ways To Improve Employee Morale
- The Mismatch Problem
- Improving Employee Performance Through Coaching Score Cards
- Personal Accountability Training - The One Training Program You Need In A Down Economy
- Do Your Employees Know Your Mission Statement?
Now go Maximize Possibility!
Chris Young helps organizations Maximize Possibility through talent management, cultural transformation, and strategic intervention. Bring Chris in today!
