Comment The HR hot seat
We needed a performance
journey that people feel they
own and are in control of.
It’s a challenge I know lots
of organisations are facing
Clear goals and opportunities for
personal growth are an essential
part of what motivates us in the
workplace (and in life). For the
generation entering the workforce
now the very idea that a conversation
happens just once a year about how
they are performing is absurd. If they
need to work on something they want
to know about it in real time.
If you’ve got an ambition to create
an environment where people can do
their most creative work, and where
your industry’s best talent want to be,
an ongoing dynamic dialogue about
performance is essential.
In early 2016 UKTV was five years
into a cultural transformation but
one thing that hadn’t evolved was
performance management. Our
existing approach was quite old
school – it was annual, paper-based
and corporate – totally out of kilter
with the culture we were creating.
To support the ideas-focused
culture we were building we needed
something much more dynamic: a
performance and development
journey that people feel they own and
are in control of. It’s a challenge I
know lots of organisations are facing.
Thinking holistically, any effective
approach to performance
management needs to be much
wider than simply implementing
a new tool. So many organisations
take a systems-first approach to
performance management and then
wonder why that tool isn’t being
embraced. A performance
management tool, however fantastic,
is just a tool. Without the right belief
in why you’re implementing it and
the right daily behaviours to
demonstrate that belief (at all levels),
it’s very difficult to get people to
support and adopt it.
Instead we adopted a model and
approach from our long-term
support partner, The Culture
Builders, that is based on three pillars
– what we believe, how we behave and
the tools we use.
The first thing that happened was
that Darren Childs, our CEO, ripped
up the rulebook on the annual
appraisal and began having
conversations with his own reports
every six weeks. That went down
really well and what followed was an
appetite from leaders to replicate that
approach and roll it out across the
entire organisation, forming the
heartbeat of our future performance
management approach.
This first step in this
transformation was so significant
because it was a clear signal from
the CEO that the organisation
believes in an approach that is
people-focused (not system-focused),
dynamic (not static), flexible (from
both an individual and company
perspective) and outcomes-focused
(with crystal clarity on what good
looks like). Key to all this is that the
approach is strongly supported
with a clear set of role-modelled
behaviours from the very top of
the organisation.
Moving people from an annual
performance review to a conversation
every six to eight weeks is no mean
feat; it requires a wholesale change in
attitude, mindset and approach. This
means involving employees in
designing, road testing and launching
the new performance management
system; widespread role-modelling of
the right leadership behaviours;
comprehensive support for managers;
and a constant line of sight back to
the ‘why’.
The challenge, however, is to keep
the conversations up. We’ve worked
extensively with our managers to
ensure these performance catch-ups
are effective and are part of the
conversations they are having with
their people all the time.
There’s no one size fits all for
performance management. But if
you’re thinking about a redesign my
biggest tips are:
Make it collaborative and work with
your people to design it.
Don’t over-engineer it.
Keep it simple and light touch.
Training. Training. Training.
Leadership walking the walk
is everything. HR
Claire Astley is HR director at UKTV
16 HR June 2019 hrmagazine.co.uk
/hrmagazine.co.uk