As you may already know, the topic of choice here at Cullen Scholefield at the moment is the Employer Brand: How to become a Talent Magnet. This topic is making the rounds at the Circle of Peers roadshow which kicked off last week in London and makes an appearance in the Isle of Man today. It’s not too late to book your place at the Sussex or Gibraltar events, but if you can’t make it then we’ll fill you in with what you’re missing out on in our weekly blog!
A couple of weeks ago we gave you a sneak preview of the events’ topic of discussion: “The five As of becoming a Talent Magnet”. Since then, Maureen has added a sixth A – “Adieu!” This refers to letting employees leave on the correct terms in order to keep bridges strong – good relationships ensure new possibilities in the future. This week’s blog however, concerns the fourth A – “Advise and Give Advice.”
Here’s a reminder: “Advise and Give Advice” refers to the importance of continual feedback during an employee’s employment. It is common for people to receive one performance review after their probation period and then if they pass, another one 6 months down the line and so on. “Advise and Give Advice” encourages people to replace infrequent performance reviews with continuous advisory sessions – less formal, more useful and more relevant.
Yesterday the CIPD/Halogen Spring 2014 Employee Outlook tracker research was published. The survey reveals:
- A significant increase in negative perceptions of senior managers
- 30% of employees view the performance management process in their workplace as unfair. This figure increased slightly to 33% for employees in the public sector
- Concerns about career progression across all sectors.
Here at Cullen Scholefield we have felt for several years that performance management has become a meaningless process. It seems that we are not alone, in his recent blog Josh Bersin discusses how performance management needs a revamp. He states that the main issue stems from companies’ over reliance on the Bell Curve principle or the Normal Distribution Curve. Most companies believe people’s performance follows this model and so have adopted it in their appraisals. Bersin believes that whilst this model is easy to understand, hence its popularity, it doesn’t actually reflect the process of people’s performance accurately.
The main problem with the model is that it only allows for a small percentage of under-performers and a small percentage of over-performers which leaves everybody else clustered near the average middle. This means that companies only allow for a limited percentage of high performers. There will always be people who are labelled as under-performers and most people assume that the majority of money and awards go to the middle of the curve.
If this assumption is true and your company follows the Bell Curve principle then you’re hardly going to attract high performers. In 2012, Ernest O’Boyle and Herman Aguinis identified the Power Law distribution as an alternative statistical model to the Bell Curve.
It renders the term ‘average’ relatively meaningless. This allows for more focus on the high-performers which is more useful, as these high-performers generally accommodate for a high percentage of the business.
The Power Curve allows for awards to go to the high-performing people in your company which ensures that they will stay with you and also attract more high-performers to your business!
If you want more advice on how to attract new talent to your organisation, read about the other 6 A’s of becoming a Talent Magnet and don’t forget to book your attendance on one of our Circle of Peers events! It’s not too late!