A recent article from the Harvard Business Review (HBR), “What Does It Mean to Be a Manager Today?”, sparked a lot of debate in our team, especially around the implications for performance management of this ‘new world of work’ we find ourselves in.

At the centre of the conversation was the notion that performance management seems to be heading in a ‘touchy-feely’ direction, prompting one of our colleagues to say “My mother would shudder about talking personal lives at work.” Probably a feeling that many share.

At a time when is common to see organisations either rolling-out or exploring remote or hybrid working models, and the lines between work and home life are increasingly blurred, the question no longer is if performance management should evolve, but how.

Is touchy-feely the way to go? Here are some thoughts from us on how to navigate this question.

The case for change

In the run up to the COVID-19 pandemic, change in performance management practices was well underway. Organisations were increasingly coming to realise that the ‘conventional’ approach to performance management was not working well. Instead, their attention was turning towards:

• Improving the quality and frequency of conversations between employees and their managers;
• Introducing greater flexibility on the basis for assessment (with rigid ‘SMART’ objectives no longer being the only area of focus); and
• Reviewing the links between performance outcomes and reward and recognition. More on this here.

Then, the pandemic started. People managers found themselves facing a wide array of new challenges. From dealing with furloughs, redundancies or changes to working patterns; to having to manage teams remotely with much less visibility of their work and direct contact than normal.

This new set of circumstances kick-started or, for some organisations, accelerated a move away from performance management based on ensuring accountability for the delivery of objectives. Instead, the focus is shifting towards enabling employees to do their best work and providing support beyond the confines of technical or operational requirements.

To quote the HBR article that prompted this piece, we find ourselves in “…a new era of management where it’s less important to see what employees are doing and more important to understand how they feel.”

Taking action

What to do then? The challenges are clear but the answers definitely less so.

To start with we need to change the paradigm that good management means delivering results. A more appropriate way to look at success in management is ‘winning together’. That means making sure that business success is achieved as well as – and not at the expense of – employee development, wellbeing and overall engagement.

Then there is the opportunity of expanding the relationship between employees and their managers to create greater trust and an environment where employees feel comfortable being vulnerable and seeking support.

This can start with managers themselves showing vulnerability. We just need to look at cases of organisations in which senior leaders opening up about their challenges consistently led to employees being more comfortable talking about their own issues and seeking help when needed. This in turn led to improved wellbeing.

There is also the point of managers being more empathetic and approachable. Getting to know employees better, their preferences and concerns, can facilitate more effective conversations and improved performance. In addition, operating a ‘virtual open door policy’, ensuring that employees know their manager is available as well as the choices for how to keep in contact in a virtual environment, will help a great deal.

On the employee side, this new way of thinking opens the door for employees to take on greater ownership of their own performance management and wider development. Therefore organisations need to send out an unequivocal message that in order for performance management to work better for employees, they need to do their part too.

Finally, organisations need to recognise that this will not happen overnight and that their managers may need significant support themselves to adapt to this new way of working.

There are aspects of capability and comfort with having these conversations that need to be addressed – and probably won’t be exclusively in a training room. Providing coaching and support networks for managers will speed up movement in the right direction.

Systems most likely will also have a part to play here, starting with the communications infrastructure needed for teams to be in touch and collaborate effectively in the office and remotely.

But it is also important to have tools at hand to ensure that in providing greater support, emotional and otherwise, business goals do not fall by the wayside. In this respect technology can be very helpful to record goals and desired outcomes, both operational and personal, and progress against these. On this point, it has to be clear that these tools are there to support quality conversations, not drive them.

There is a lot more to say in this conversation, but one thing is certain: performance management is changing. We are leaving behind the days when performance management is something that is ‘done to’ people, especially when they are not performing. Performance management, or performance development, is now focussing on supporting everyone to do their best work.

We hope these ideas get you to think that perhaps a more ‘touchy-feely’ approach to performance management is worth a look. You can find out more about our take on performance management here.

And, if you need some help developing your plans or want to test your ideas with us, send us an email to ku/oc/gcq//aluap or ku/oc/gcq//nauj.

Paula Hayes (QCG Associate) and Juan Novoa (Consulting Lead at QCG) - May 2021