Team objectives can help when you need collaborative behaviours and interconnectedness

We spoke to Jonny Gifford (above), Senior Advisor on Organizational Behavior at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and author of the report ‘Could do better?: Assessing what works in performance management’.

He discusses the changes that have taken place in performance management and whether there is still a place for any individual management in the workplace.  

What changes have taken place in recent years that have impacted how companies develop their systems of performance management?

The main change has been a move away from periodic to ongoing reviews. Related to that, we see an emphasis on quality performance conversations, including taking a coaching approach, more than on rigorous assessment or appraisal. Even more specifically, managers are taking a strength-based approach: focussing on our strengths, thinking about how we can replicate those in different areas and build on them to increase our impact.

We also see a potential shift in the role of performance management. It can be used as an administrative tool, informing managerial decisions like pay and promotions, or it can be used to help people develop and to improve performance. It seems the performance-enhancing view is now becoming more prominent, and that’s something we’d encourage.

The term ‘performance management’ isn’t always helpful. It suggests that performance is something you can pin down and control. If you are thinking about improving performance, you are more looking at fostering or enhancing, which requires a different approach to ‘controlling’.

What would you say are the advantages of adopting more team-based performance management over individual performance management?

Performance management over the years has stifled some of the behaviours organisations really need. Imposing narrow, individualistic targets, often with monetary incentives, can lead people to ‘hit the target and miss the point’, in that they can ignore other aspects like service quality or supporting colleagues. Targets really shape people’s behaviour and need to be set carefully to avoid unintended consequences.

Team objectives can help when you need collaborative behaviours and interconnectedness. Highly individualistic objectives are not conducive to quality employee collaboration as they create too much competition between colleagues.

Ultimately, it’s about what the nature of the work is. Many contexts nowadays rely on team performance, but individual performance is still really important, in some contexts more than others. I’m not saying team performance is the answer, but it certainly is something we should be considering more than we do at present, as performance management is typically more individualised than it should be.

So is there still a place for individual performance management in the modern workplace.

I would say it shouldn’t completely move away from individuals, and I would also say that collaboration is a massive buzz word. I think you can very easily overegg the pudding in saying that the world is much more collaborative than it used to be. I’m not sure that is always the case.

If you think about the organisational approach to risk, there is greater risk consciousness now and in some respects people have got less work autonomy. They are more controlled by management. I don’t think we live in some kind of utopian world in which it’s all about collaboration and free flowing ideas now. There is still a lot of risk management, a lot of control and also individual graft.

A lot of our roles will have individual graft. For example, a journalist will still be judged on the quality and impact of their own writing.

Have the pandemic and the rise of hybrid working made team management and team performance management more or less difficult?

Emerging research suggests the pandemic has resulted in less of a focus on performance management. The challenges of adapting to virtual working and keeping operations going, has made things like performance reviews, perhaps understandably, fall off the radar somewhat.

In terms of performance management becoming more difficult, some argue a lack of visibility – fewer people in the office due to greater remote working – is a problem. I’m not sure there’s much evidence for this, as examining productivity during the pandemic, many organisations have seen it go up, not down. Obviously not everyone is working remotely, but for those who are, it seems that by cutting out the commute and distractions in the office, many have found that they have been more productive.

We’d argue that employers or bosses shouldn’t emphasise visibility and monitoring – they should trust people to deliver to their objectives. The aim of performance management should be to enhance, not control performance. Also, virtual teams are nothing new, only the pace of their growth is new. Performance has been managed with those workers in the past and it can be managed in the future.

Do you think there is more of a role now for online-based, real-time feedback platforms to help overcome the challenges of modern performance management?

Research has shown that feedback, in combination with goal setting, can be hugely helpful for performance – that’s the key thing. But feedback is just information, it can be good or rubbish – we’ve all had feedback which hasn’t helped our performance. So for example, good feedback focuses on tasks and actions (not personality) and is given in good faith with a clear purpose.

Modern technology can absolutely be used to facilitate feedback, but the litmus test stays the same: are we encouraging good quality, useful feedback?

I’d keep going back to the idea of purpose; for example, am I getting feedback to make my case for a pay rise, or is it genuinely for my learning and my development? If feedback is given in a ‘you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours’ kind of scenario (or even someone giving feedback to make someone look bad) it’s unlikely to help people develop.

So, it needs to be given in the right way, but absolutely, we should do what we can to get more feedback.