Archive for September, 2011
Talent Management – Grooming Your Best
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Talent Management – Are Annual Appraisal Results a Good Indication of the Employee’s Ability to Do Higher Level of Work?
By Lois Moncrief
Problem: Companies want to retain their best employees and prepare them for future top jobs in the company. It costs money and is a long term commitment to train and mentor these “high potential” employees. Therefore, companies are looking for ways to make the “first cuts” to limit the group to the most likely to succeed. Some companies use the results of employee annual appraisals to decide who is included in the first cut.
Using Annual Appraisals to Decide First Cuts
Some recent findings (Source: “How to Hang on to Your High Potentials”, Harvard Business Review, October 2011 p. 76) indicate that annual appraisals can be used to make the first cut in deciding who is considered a high potential.
On the surface this would seem to be a good starting point.
However, ability to do one’s current job well is not necessarily an indication that one can do a different, higher level job well.
In addition, the following variables could add to the difficulty of using the annual appraisals to decide that first cut:
-
Do all possible high potentials have the same manager
evaluating them using the same performance standards for each? -
Do all possible high potentials have the same job
description and the same performance standards? -
Are the performance standards of possible candidates
“subjective” (frequently vague with plenty of room for management
subjectivity) or “objective” (numbers that are hard to discpute? -
Is each manager truly objective and fair or does
he/she allow his/her biases and preconceptions to influence his/her
evaluations of each employee?
Using annual appraisals as one of the factors used to determine a first cut may be of some value. However, I would take this a step further rather than relying so heavily on the annual appraisals.
Note: USA Today Snapshot on September 27, 2011 “Are annual performance reviews an accurate appraisal for employee’s work? 61% say “Yes”; 39% say “No”
Source: Globoforce/Society for Human Resource Management survey of 700 human resource managers
Another Valuable Factor for Consideration
Here is my suggestion for another valuable factor for determination of first cut:
Give special short term assignments such as projects and leading teams to all qualifying candidates.
Give all interested and qualified candidates temporary assignments where they are leading teams on short term projects lasting 1-4 months. This gives each qualified candidate the opportunity to demonstrate his/her ability to perform at the higher level of work and demonstrate his ability to lead others.
Each qualified candidate should be give the same amount of time and the same level of project difficulty.
At the end of this period, all candidates can be evaluated by a team of managers on how well each of them did on their assignments. In addition blind surveys could be given to team members to evaluate the Team Leader’s effectiveness in leading the team and successfully completing the project.
Candidates who miss the cut should be counseled on areas for improvement and given opportunities for training in those areas and encouraged to try again later.
This process can be repeated if deciding managers would like to ensure that their selections for further training and mentoring are really the best candidates.
Advantages of Using My Suggestion for Another Factor for Determination of First Cut:
1. All qualified candidates may participate. Each should be given a short term individual project and also a short term team project that they can lead.
2. The short term projects of higher level work gives each candidate an equal opportunity to show what each of them are capable of doing. (Remember: keep the time the same and the level of difficulty the same in as much as possible).
3. Candidates select or weed themselves out by their performance on these short term projects that match closely the level of work they would be doing at these higher levels of future top jobs.
4. Other employees see who rises to the top through their own efforts and skills.
5. Each candidate sees how he compares to other candidates.
6. Giving all qualified candidates an opportunity to participate will lessen complaints and dissatisfaction with the process.
7. Candidates who miss the cut have reason and direction to continue working on their own career development and stay with the company.
Conclusion:
Adding performance on short term individual and team leader projects that are at the higher level of difficulty comparable to future top jobs gives decision makers a better look at the candidates and what they are capable of achieving in order to decide who makes the first cut and who doesn’t. This should result in saving organization money and time spent training the first cut group by ensuring the best candidates have been selected.
If you would like more ideas on Career Development for your top performers, critical skill employees and high potentials, get your copy of Module 6 – Career Development now.
Click here for more information.
Copyright (c) 2011-12 Lois Moncrief All Rights Reserved
U S Airways on June 16, 2011
In USA Today on July 21, 2011 was a full page ad by US Airways Pilot’s Association. The following is based on that ad. The ad recounted an event on June 16, 2011 when a US Airways Captain with 30 years of experience kept her flight from departing at night for a flight over the Atlantic Ocean. Her reason for stopping the flight was a bulky power component that had been failing and might continue to fail and that failure could have eliminated all electrical power on the plane’s trans-Atlantic flight.
Before she left the airplane, two other US Airways Pilots also refused to fly the plane that night. After she left the airplane, three more US Airway Pilots refused to fly the plane.
The pilots were right. The power unit was faulty. It was replaced and then the plane was safely flown that night over the Atlantic Ocean.
The point is management initially decided to override their experts’ opinions which could have resulted in an expensive loss (the plane) and many lives of crew and passengers.
They changed their decision after 6 pilots refused to fly the plane that night before repairs were made.
Management then allowed the repairs to be made before the plane was flown over the Atlantic Ocean that night.
BP – Deepwater Horizon Drilling Platform Explosion in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010
Pierre Towns on 06/21/10 in his article “A Tragic Example of How the Lack of Employee Empowerment Extinguished 11 Lives” recounts how that tragedy could have been avoided. The below is recounted from that article.
After returning to the drilling platform he called his wife several times to tell her they were being pressured from higher up to do things that weren’t the way Jason thought they should be done. It involved a safety issue. Higher management wanted to finish the well faster and were not using the best procedures. Jason Anderson died in the explosion that occurred shortly after that.
BP management did not listen to its experts like Jason Anderson and the result was great cost (19 billion dollars and counting), the loss of 11 lives, and damage to the ecosystem.
Source of Cost: http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2011/03/30/192306.htm
Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster on January 28, 1986
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster
Management decided to override their experts and go ahead with the launch. The cost to replace the Challenger Space Shuttle by building Space Shuttle Endeavor was $1.7 billion dollars.
Source: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/information/shuttle_faq.html
The cost of the human lives is priceless.
Employees Can Be The Experts Who Can Prevent Embarrassing, Expensive, and Tragic Disasters
Management needs to empower employees to speak up about safety concerns and then management needs to seriously consider these employee concerns in their decision making. If your employee(s) is(are) truly the expert(s) then allow him(them) to have a very big part in the decision making.
Probably your workplace does not involve expensive situations like those cited above. However, you could have situations that still could be costly and embarrassing if operations went wrong.
Do you empower your employees?
To learn more about empowering employees, check out Module 8 – Empower Your Employees to Excel.
Copyright 2011-12 Lois Moncrief All Rights Reserved
