Is it time to re-think your performance appraisal process?

Could a business improve its organisational performance without using an annual appraisal process? Could performance management ever change from being a top down to a bottom up process?  Could you afford to abandon performance reviews altogether?  Some interesting questions but we can’t get away from one fact; employees need to know where they stand and organisations need to know how employees are doing. But, how would we achieve this without the performance appraisal?

In many organisations a performance appraisal is currently used for a number of reasons; giving feedback, coaching, setting goals, setting pay rises and bonuses, measuring performance, identifying training and development needs, boosting motivation and providing recognition. All this important information lumped into one end of year formal meeting . Often this meeting is met with dread, fear, anxiety or disillusionment by employee and sometimes even manager.  An hour’s formal meeting is seemingly all it takes to analyse one year of an employee’s hard work, create a learning and development plan, set objectives for the following year and even sometimes set bonus or pay rise. Often the information used is calculated using unreliable ratings or out of date statistics gathered from employee, manager and sometimes, if using 360 degree feedback, other team members.  Not forgetting that the success of the meeting relies on the fact that the manager is a good coach and the employee is receptive. In a matter of minutes, a previously motivated employee could turn into a shrinking violet. So, what’s the alternative or is there one?

It’s true people need and want to know how they’re doing and understand the information that may influence their career development or pay but is it really necessary to discuss so much and place so much emphasis on one or two meetings a year? This not only puts pressure on the ability of the manager but also on the relationship between the employee and the manager.

With this in mind, I think the first step in the journey to re-thinking your appraisal process should be to consider an appraisal as a number of different processes.  These processes could be divided into goals, coaching and development, feedback and recognition, remuneration, and motivation for example.

Over the next week or so my blog will take each of these processes individually and look at how they could be implemented differently and more creatively to eventually negate the need for an annual review.

What's different about social learning platforms?

I was recently asked what the difference is between a Learning Management System (LMS) and a Social (or collaborative) Learning Platform (SLP).

Simply, a Social Learning Platform creates a continuously evolving collaborative enterprise learning environment whereas a Learning Management System is a static platform which enables the management and delivery of learning content and resources.

So what exactly is ‘collaborative learning’ and how can it benefit business? To answer that question, let’s firstly look at some basic facts about the way we acquire knowledge. There are two methods to consider; firstly, formal structured learning which is made up of face to face activities like classroom training and coaching and secondly, self-led web based activity such as elearning courses. This type of ‘structured’ learning can be managed and monitored using an LMS.

But what about using the knowledge acquired through the secong method, ‘informal’ learning? According to research carried out by Princeton University, 70% of an individual’s knowledge base is acquired through informal learning; learning from experience, role models and problem solving for example. Informal learning happens, often subconsciously, as part of our everyday life. It’s not planned or structured and therefore often isn’t taken account of in business learning strategy. Organisations who've introduced a Social Learning Platform have taken a huge step towards making use of this invaluable resource. But, how?

Firstly, a Social Learning Platform encourages and incentivises employees to share the knowledge they’ve gained from both informal and formal learning by allowing them to create and upload their own learning material. Secondly, employees are encouraged to communicate proactively, the aim being to create and support a mentoring or coaching culture developed from within; ultimately, employees learn from each other. The Social Learning Platform acts as a central hub which is constantly evolving and growing as new knowledge is added daily. This can be in the form of video, documents and links to websites. When I explained this to my fifteen year old daughter she said “Mum, that sounds like Facebook” - Well, in fact some Social Learning Platforms are intentionally designed to look like Facebook, but don’t be fooled; there are some essential differences. Apart from being flexible to business needs, branded and unique to each organisation, in my opinion, a good Social Learning Platform also has the following elements;

Firstly, a top-down library of learning resources, very similar to a traditional learning management system. Secondly, a bottom-up element which enables employees to make their own contributions to engage others and build content. Thirdly, a community environment which encourages employees to connect and share their knowledge with each other. When these three elements come together, the result is the creation of a continuous learning and coaching culture. However, a truly effective Social Learning Platform should also contain a performance indicator or leader board. A ‘shared learning community’ will only be successful if everyone takes part. By providing public recognition for time spent learning and sharing, the leader board ensures that employees feel incentivised and motivated to get involved. All this information of course needs to be linked by a skills matrix providing a meaningful collaborative and continuous learning environment.

Some static learning management systems have now added a social element to their platform but I sometimes wonder if this has been thought through carefully enough … By introducing a chat or community feature only - is this really going to work if employees aren’t engaged or incentivised to participate? Couldn’t they use other social networking tools for this?

Surely Social Learning Platforms are the way forward for enterprise learning.