There are many ways to determine how successful your EPM efforts are; internal promotions is one indicator to measure your abiity to plan for and groom employees for advancement.  Taken on it’s face it would seem to be a reliable indicator - but it’s really from the perspective of your management team.

What about an indicator from your employee’s perspective?

After all, aren’t they the real judge of whether Employee Performance Management is a success?  Aren’t they the final arbitor of whether they’re being communicated to honestly and whether your committment to help them grow and succeed is real?

One sure fire way to tell, is based upon the number of internal hiring referrals you’re getting.

If you put the word out that you’re looking for a new hire and your employees respond with recommendations, before you have to advertise the position to the outside world, you’re probably doing something right.  Without saying so, employees are showing allegiance and pride in their workplace environment.  It’s an unspoken vote of confidence.

Employee won’t put their credibility on the line solely for the sake of a referral bonus. Even dedicated employees put personal friendships ahead of potential financial gain.   

So if you’re wondering whether EPM efforts are succeeding or not, don’t simply rely on internal promotions as an indicator.  Take a look at employee referrals. 

One of my favorite resource blogs is 1800CEOREAD.  Today they point a reader to a book entitled One Foot Out the Door, in which the author correlates poor employee engagement (read performance) with poor corporate financial performance.

In fact, the author suggests that a majority of your staff may have an eye towards something better or are simply “marching in place” in their current positions.

If you suspect that your employees are less engaged than they might be, this could be a useful resource for you.

that you may want to purchase.   One of today’s most well respected business gurus says we have a long way to go when it comes to getting the most out of our employees.

Here’s a video.

The Employee Performance Management model that seeks to have Employees “own” responsibility for their personal performance is well grounded in these quotations from figures in history and popular culture.

The temptation to “dumb down” S.M.A.R.T. goals usually happens during the annual compensation process, after performance reviews are written and agreed to. 

Here are several pitfalls to watch out for.

1. The tendency to reward employees based on effort, not results.  Understandable, (for many of us it’s just human nature) but you’ll undermine the objective nature of the SMART goal process.  Remember that Wall St. rewards results, not effort. 

If you reward effort in lieu of results.  It will undermine the process for the following years - turning goals into “guidelines”, not necessarily something that has to be achieved, to be rewarded.. 

One strategy that is sometimes used is to develop a “scalable” compensation program - where partial results can be rewarded.  If you do this, it should be described as part of the goal setting process - not as an “after the fact” compensation negotiation. 

2. The tendency of managers to reward their employees effort (in the case of missed goals) in order to convince THEIR  manager’s to be lenient with them.  After all, managers are performance facilitators, mentors, coaches.  Failed goals are a reflection on the employee’s manager as well.

3. Watch for “softball goals” the year following poor SMART goals results - in an effort to achieve a performance increase more easily.

If these behaviors infiltrate your performance management process, they’ll migrate the outcome from rewarding results to rewarding effort.  It’s a slippery slope.

So begin the goal writing process with “the end” in mind.  Think about the performance review discussion that will happen a year from now.  Is everyone comfortable with the goals?  Are they realistic?  Are they achievable?  The more discussion and work done up front, the easier the performance discussion will be. 

While Scoreboard is a great tool to facilitate the performance management, sucessful outcomes will be driven by the team using it. 

Remember, just because you use a high quality hammer, doesn’t necessarily make you a great carpenter!