At the start of February, we heard news about a former manager at Yahoo challenging in federal court the company’s quarterly performance review (QPR). This came just after IBM announced it would replace the annual performance review it has used for 10 years with a new system called “Checkpoint.” Meanwhile GE, Adobe, Microsoft, and many others have eliminated numeric scales and stacked rankings within their performance-management process. 

What’s going on? Once again, it seems that the more things change the more they stay the same. Employers continue to search for methods to improve the performance-evaluation process and make it relevant for the 21st century workplace. According to Josh Bersin, principal and founder of Bersin by Deloitte, this means finding ways “to evaluate job performances faster, more efficiently, and more accurately.” Rather than beginning with a top-down approach, as a first step, many companies today are asking employees for feedback. 

This applies to IBM, which asked employees for ideas through the company’s internal social-media platform, and received feedback from 2,000 workers. Similar to others, IBM’s new system, Checkpoint, has done away with performance rankings, replacing the once-a-year review with ongoing feedback. 

But Bersin’s description also could apply to Yahoo’s QPR, implemented by Marissa Mayer shortly after she became company CEO in 2012. Now under fire, the stacked ranking system had managers place employees into “buckets” described in news reports as: 10 percent in “greatly exceeds,” 25 percent in “exceeds,” 50 percent in “achieves,” 10 percent in “occasionally misses,” and 5 percent in “misses.” The problem with this approach is that a company’s total population usually does not fit that neatly into these categories.

It seems many companies are still hoping to find the secret sauce.

In a survey of executives by Deloitte, only 8 percent of companies reported that their performance-management process drives high levels of value, while 58 percent said it is not an effective use of time. The common theme among major corporations in the United States is that annual goals are a thing of the past and annual review processes don’t provide enough timely feedback. Moreover, the time, money, and effort that managers spend on reviews do not accomplish the main goal of driving better performance among employees.  

Moving beyond the headlines, here are a couple useful approaches to learn about. 

Adobe: Clear expectations & frequent feedback

In 2012, Adobe moved away from a traditional ranking evaluation process to more frequent, but less formal “check ins.” Donna Morris, executive VP, customer and employee experience, reportedly had been frustrated with the lack of results. A correlation between the timing of evaluations and the exodus of high performers leaving the company also troubled Morris. The turnover suggested that the evaluations demoralized top performers. Adobe’s new approach is designed around the ideas of clear expectations and frequent feedback. The process works like this:

– At the beginning of each year, priorities are defined across Adobe. As part of managers’ one-on-one meetings with direct reports, the manager outlines expectations for the coming 12 months, taking in feedback from the respective employee.

– Once expectations are agreed upon, manager feedback is expected to occur in real time through on-going discussions that can occur daily, monthly, or quarterly.

– Managers no longer devote long hours preparing detailed reviews. Instead, they conduct “check-ins” throughout the year with employees to set expectations and offer feedback on performance.

In a recent Business Insider interview, Morris said to “think of it as jointly setting the frame of what the focus should be for the year, and making a to-do list for the year.”

“People are more effective when they know where they stand,” she told the magazine. “We want people to be getting feedback on their performance against those expectations in real time (not just once a year).”

INFICON: Aligning performance with company competencies

INFICON, which is headquartered in Switzerland but has an office in the Syracuse area, is a leading developer and supplier of world-class instruments for gas analysis, measurement, and control. When Sue Magari, director of human resources joined INFICON in 2010, she discovered a manual, paper-intensive approach to performance reviews. The system relied on traditional ratings tied to merit increases. It neither reinforced accountability nor helped employees understand the value of their individual contribution to the company. The process was broken, and Magari said management was ready for change. In early 2011, she formed a cross-functional team to design a new, forward-thinking process now referred to as Employee Development Assessment (EDA). The process has no ratings. It includes:

• Employee self-assessments designed to help employees think through how their work can better align with the company’s 10 core competencies. 
• Skills section that asks employees about their strengths, and their view on how the company helps them improve/succeed.
• Goals section focused on both short- and long-term goals. 

INFICON conducts its EDA process each fall across the company, and does follow-ups mid-year. Magari reinforces the importance of continuous, quality conversations between managers and direct reports. EDAs are completed online, which also supports INFICON’s green initiatives. 

Not set in stone, the EDA process continues to evolve, Magari said. The focus is to help employees better understand how individual contributions are valued and articulate how each team can make a difference to the overall health of the company. 

Lessons learned

Building a better model involves many factors, but the following three are among the most important.

Frequency of appraisals. As business leaders expect workers to be project-driven and results-oriented, it makes far more sense for managers to provide frequent feedback, with specific coaching relating to the project at hand. Feedback delayed for up to a year, causes memories to grow dim, can be useless for the employee, and can be dangerous for the company. What organization in today’s fast-paced climate can wait a year to suggest that an employee make a course correction?

Uncoupling raises and feedback. Performance appraisals that attempt to accomplish everything in one meeting are bound to disappoint. A discussion of money nearly always overshadows everything else covered in the meeting. Employees hear only “how much” and become unable to focus meaningfully on their performance. More companies, as they adopt frequent feedback and performance planning sessions, allot separate times each year to discuss merit increases.

Manager training still crucial. Performance appraisals involve one of the most emotionally charged activities in the workplace: assessing an employee’s contribution and ability. The outcome of these assessments can affect an individual’s self-esteem and subsequent performance. Making certain that managers are well trained in the appraisal process ensures that in-person review meetings are beneficial for employees. It also helps managers avoid thorny legal problems for the company. Managers should understand the importance of giving specific, constructive feedback and realize the negative impact of inaccuracy or lack of feedback.

It’s clear the days of traditional appraisals and forced ranking are coming to an end. One perfect system for all companies will never exist, but when performance management has done well, it can have a big impact on employee performance, engagement, and organization-wide results.      

Candace C. Walters is founder and president of HR Works, Inc. (www.hrworks-inc.com), a human-resources outsourcing and consulting-services firm based near Rochester that also has a DeWitt office.

We hear most every day about one type of security or privacy breach or another. It seems that many Americans have become a bit numb to the topic. Perhaps this is a product of the numerous detailed and required communications that are provided when a breach occurs, a lack of understanding, or the classic perception that “that won’t happen to me.” As you might imagine, the correct response is dependent on the particulars of the situation. 

What is certain is that there are significant concerns regarding cyber security and identity theft. In the news, in the mail, even on the IRS website www.irs.gov, where there are any number of pages dedicated to the topic, and of course, on the Federal Trade Commission website www.ftc.gov.

Seeing so many stories, I began thinking, am I doing what I should to protect myself? I came up with a few ideas, including strong passwords, firewalls, not sharing my personal information, and certainly not clicking those email links from some bank, the IRS, or my long-lost uncle from Nigeria. Since I am not a high-tech expert, I decided to “interview” a couple of my super-smart IT Security consultant colleagues to see how far off the mark I was, and maybe even get some free, easy-to-follow advice.  

Carl Cadregari and Brett Coburn from The Bonadio Group’s Enterprise Risk Management team were happy to offer some observations and suggestions.

Gail: Is there any simple way to explain the world of “cyber security.” 

Brett: Basically, “cyber” has come to encompass all electronic representation of data and related technology. In other words, the Internet, your smartphone, websites that offer services like your bank, or (as you mentioned) the IRS. Also, social-media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. 

Carl: Security, as it relates to information, means setting up defenses to protect information from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, perusal, inspection, recording, or destruction.

Gail: Great, so what kind of defenses can I deploy to protect my information? 

Brett: Well, the first thing you need to do is deploy sentries, meaning set up various methods to monitor your information. Good ways to do this are signing up for credit monitoring and identity theft monitoring. Most of the time, you can get this for free from a company that lost your information. (Most recently, this includes the government Office of Personnel Management.) These services will alert you when something changes in your credit report or if someone attempts to take out a loan using your information. 

Carl: Additionally, set up alerts on your credit and debit cards. For example, you can set it up to get a text message every time more than $50 is charged. On the same note, continually review your transactions; sometimes the bad guys make multiple small-dollar charges that you might miss. 

Gail: Ok, so I have my sentries, that is, monitoring set up. What about actual defenses? 

Brett: You mentioned the obvious ones already: strong passwords and firewalls on your home network. Other good things to do include having a pin/password on your smartphone, and enabling encryption on it, and also installing anti-virus software on your smartphone and home computers. 

Carl: Also, understand all your “Internet ready” devices in the home. Does your smart TV accept voice commands? Who else receives that data? Think about a home security system and perhaps a baby monitor. These items all have the capability for you to access them remotely, so the key is for you to set them up so that only you can access them and not just anyone on the Internet. 

Gail: I do that and I’m secure, right?

Brett: Well, not exactly. One very key thing to remember is that once you have your defenses set, you are not done. Monitoring these is as important as setting them up. Make sure for example, that if you upgrade your TV’s firmware, your security settings haven’t been modified or reset. 

Carl: Also be aware of when certain threats can occur. The recent holiday season is a good example; it was a prime time for scammers to send emails trying to get you to click on a link. These are usually disguised as “Check your FedEx shipping status” or “Your account is overdrawn.” In the next couple of months, you’ll see a lot of information about tax-return status and the like. 

Okay, I feel better, I think. My take-aways are 1) pay attention, 2) put some safety measures in place, and 3) monitor, monitor.          

Gail Kinsella is a partner in the Syracuse office of The Bonadio Group accounting firm. Contact Kinsella at gkinsella@bonadio.com