Sharing Performance Data

Recently on software company 37signals Signals vs. Noise blog, the team at 37signals shared an image a recent data set of customer support ratings, or evaluations of their customer's satisfaction with the support experience they had received.  A copy of the chart is below, apologies for the low resolution, the original image is also located here.

What is interesting to me about the chart is not so much that 37signals had received over 90% positive responses from their customers, but rather that the company shared specific satisfaction scores attributable to individual employees in the organization.

Of course any organization that achieves (or at least wants to portray) superior customer satisfaction and service marks is more that happy to share that information with the market, with prospects, the press, and the public; but it is unusual if not unprecedented to share these kinds of results with the kind of specific attribution that we see in the above chart, i.e. 'Ann received a 96/100 positive ratings'.

Sure, individual ratings for customer support, call center, inside sales, and other types of organizational functions are often shared internally, to be used to spur competition, to provide some motivation to raise the bar of company performance, or even as a basis for a bonus or other prize.  But public, especially on popular blogs, displays of internal, personal performance related data are rare indeed.

The closest comparison I can think of comes from the local supermarket, where I often see individual 'Items scanned per minute' charts posted on the front wall of the store, usually in between the Redbox and the Coinstar machines.

If you were recruiting for customer service reps for a competing software company, or for cashiers for a new retail establishment, I imagine having access to this kind of raw, verified, and informative data might be quite valuable. Why would you need to vet a customer service reps references, when you could just access their real performance data on the corporate website?

It could be that I am making too much out of this little chart the 37signals shared, and I know no one except the grocery store staff cares about the 'items per minute' charts, but I do wonder if these kinds of public displays of performance will one day become more common.

We have LinkedIn recommendations, BranchOut endorsements, and even old-school style reference calls; but all of these have at least some amount of gray area, partial truth, and elements of uncertainty about them.

But raw 'Items per minute' and customer service evaluations, well, those are as real as it gets. If I were a star customer service rep or cashier (sadly I am neither), I would want my proof of high performance plastered on the real or virtual wall for all to see. Those scores might land me my next gig, or help me get better terms on my current deal.

What do you think? Do you anticipate these kinds of raw, normally internal employee performance metrics to get more public airing in the future?

Care to share the results of your last performance review with the world?

Visualizing Performance

The excellent blog Hoopism manages to successfully combine two of my favorite subjects, basketball and data into an interesting and unique blend of hoops nerd detailed analysis and engaging visualizations.Image - hoopism.com

Recently on the site the folks at Hoopism created a set of NBA player statistical data visualizations, that were developed by mapping player statistics to physical attributes of simple, cartoon, caricatures (more blocks equals longer arms, more rebounds results in longer legs etc.) 

An example of one of the NBA player data visualizations is at right.

The simple representative player caricatures can be evaluated visually, (long arms on the figure indicate a high number of blocked shots), and in comparatively, (the larger the mouth on the figure, indicates relatively more technical fouls assessed against the player). 

While the actual statistics taken into account on the player data visualizations do not offer what could be considered a total view of statistical performance, or complete insight into what makes for successful and more importantly winning players, the approach the visualizations themselves take offer a couple of important lessons for anyone in the game of understanding and evaluating individual and comparative performance.

1. Context and Dimension

These visualizations provide some insight to a player's individual contributions (how big is the player's head), and the relative position of the player compared to his teammates, peers, or competitors. A quick glance at the image above informs the viewer that David Lee scores at a high rate, but compared to Marcus Camby, blocks a relatively low number of opponents' shots.  Understanding and assessing performance for individuals, and in the context of the departmental and organizational units in which they reside is often an important and challenging task in traditional employee performance management. The simple characterizations of the NBA players in the visualizations make a better attempt at this than most workforce systems I have seen.

2. Eliminates Irrelevance

While certainly not perfect, or complete, the crude data visualizations do an excellent job at eliminating irrelevant or largely less important information.  Facts like where the player went to college, the number of neck tattoos, or the really subjective 'look' of the player are not included.  If in this case what 'matters' is the actual statistical performance on the court, then anything that is not directly related, and possibly subject to bias (Big 10 players are slow), is left out of the analysis. Again, there are many, many factors to consider in evaluating NBA performance, but I submit that often we allow unimportant factors to cloud our assessments.  In the workplace it is probably no different.  Do we sometimes, almost unconsciously factor in the number of crazy cat pictures that a colleague has in her cube to influence how we evaluate her work and contribution?

3. Fun

I simply like how the data visualizations introduce a novel and fun way to look at very traditional and typically flat data. By creating the caricatures and linking the familiar stick figure forms with the player statistical information, the creators make this performance data much more accessible.  You don't have to know too much about basketball to be able to quickly grasp the performance information, and begin to gain an understanding of individual and relative player strengths and weaknesses.  And finally, it is simply cool to look at this data in a new way.

We have loads of data in the organization.  Truly, there is no shortage of financial, operational, and employee data.  The challenge is finding ways to make the data meaningful, relevant, accessible, and perhaps even fun.  The ideas from some simple NBA player data caricatures I think offer some clues as to how we may approach these challenges.

Deliver the Wow

Cleaning up my trusty travel backpack from the last several weeks of traveling to events like HR Florida, HR Technology, and this week HR Southwest, and I found a small slip of paper in one of the pockets that said simply, 'Deliver the Wow'.flickr - wiedmaier

The phrase sounded familiar, but I could not remember why I jotted it down.  I dug into one of my vendor-branded notebooks from one of these trips (my favorite swag),  and discovered the source of the 'Wow' quote.  

At the HR Technology Conference during one of the vendor 'shootout' sessions, (where vendors are asked to demonstrate live their solutions to several common and important talent management processes), one of the vendors, (I honestly can't remember which one), was running through the steps and functionality around performance management and appraisal processes.

The demonstration highlighted the application's ability to assign and rank the importance of key competencies to a given role, and allowed the manager to evaluate the employee on their degree of demonstrated mastery of the identified competencies.  It was solid, if not spectacular functionality, pretty much all the performance management solutions provide that kind of capability today. 

But what caught my attention was that in the demonstration of manager assessment of employee competencies for a role in a Customer Service position, one of the specific competencies that was being rated was called 'Deliver the Wow'.

Tucked neatly right alongside some standard competencies like 'Demonstrates Integrity' and 'Customer Focus' was this sort of out of place seeming competency called 'Deliver the Wow'.  It seemed to me that it really did fit though.  So many of the traditional competencies that get assigned in performance management processes are really hard to measure and assess effectively and objectively.

How exactly do you rate someone on 'Ethical Behavior?' By noting the employee did not steal out of the till 98% percent of the time?.  By taking careful inventory of the supply cabinet to make sure no one nicked a ream of paper for their kids middle school book reports? I guess we just assume most people are behaving ethically if we don't catch them not behaving ethically and leave it at that.  But when performance management processes force the manager to give a numerical or some other ranking on an 'Ethics' competency, then what really justifies a 3 or 4?  It is kind of an all-or-nothing thing I think, and then it becomes sort of irrelevant.

But something like 'Deliver the Wow', that has some potential. The successful demonstration of delivering 'Wow' moments, whether to external or internal customers seems easier to assess, and likely a better mark of differentiation across employees in a given role. How does the manager know which employees are really successful in 'Wow' delivery? 

Well, they probably already know. There probably is a paper trail of 'Wow' moments. Unsolicited email testimonials from enthused customers, internal or external (LinkedIn?) recommendations from colleagues and partners, or even special recognition at holiday time from vendors (warning, do not use for folks in Purchasing). It is not so easy to 'know' about focus, ethics, and other more nebulous concepts.

In fact, Delivering the Wow is probably a competency, if you are a believer in identifying and assessing these kinds of things at appraisal time, that should be on everyone's performance plan. 

The HR Technology Conference vendor shootouts are really all about the solution, and this particular solution, like all of them, was tight, capable, and effectively demonstrated the required functionality. But to me, the most interesting aspect of the demonstrations was 'Deliver the Wow', and it to my recollection was not mentioned by the presenter or anyone in the audience. 

The technology on display was fantastic, awesome even.  But 'Delivering the Wow' is more awesome. 

Any solution you buy for Performance Management these days will let you evaluate any competency you like, but not all of them will make it easier for you to Deliver the Wow.

That is if you are trying to measure for Wow in the first place.

Get Rid of the Performance Review?

Tonight on the HR Happy Hour Show, our guest will be UCLA Professor Samuel Culbert, author of the recent book, 'Get Rid of the Performance Review!'.

Show time is 8PM EDT and the call in number is 646-378-1086.

From the title alone, it is abundantly clear where Professor Culbert stands on the issue, and in the book he makes his argument clearly and forcefully.

According to Culbert performance reviews are fatally flawed for the following reasons (there are a few more in the book, but these are the major ones):

1. They are completely one-sided, boss-dominated exercises, where only one opinion matters, the boss, and employees quickly learn to adapt and adjust to 'boss-pleasing' behavior, that is not necessarily in the best interests of the organization as a whole.

2. The notion of 'pay for performance' that is embraced by so many organizations, is largely BS, and that compensation is mostly a product of market conditions, whether the firm desires to retain an employee, and the available budget to adjust pay treatment.  Performance, especially as documented in the formal review, factors very little into this compensation decision.

3. Performance reviews actually have the opposite of the desired effect, to help employees improve and develop.  They are de-motivating, de-humanizing, and effectively sour the most important relationship in the organization, that of boss-employee.  

That is the gist of the arguments made in the book that argue for the abolishment of the performance review as most of us recognize it.

Professor Culbert then continues in the book to offer and describe his suggested alternative to the formal, traditional annual performance review, a construct he has termed the 'Performance Preview', a kind of ongoing, two-way dialogue centered around discussion of some key questions that are meant to better inform and equip both the boss and the employee as to each other's needs, styles, and work preferences.  

Rather than dive in to all the details of the 'Preview', (I have to save something for the show), I would rather get your opinions on the issue of performance reviews, and perhaps some insights into your experiences with them, both administering them as a manager, and receiving them as an employee.

So to help me out in preparation for the show tomorrow, please drop a comment letting me know where you stand on performance reviews. 

Are they:

1. Essential to the management of people and the alignment of effort to organizational objectives

2. A largely administrative process meant to provide legal backup for disciplinary procedures

3. A great tool for employee development, if only we could teach managers to really coach and mentor employees more effectively

4. A complete waste of time, and a soul-crushing, morale killing exercise in futility, and they should be abolished.

5. Something else entirely.

Let me know what you think in the comments, or send out a tweet with your thoughts in the next couple of days - just be sure to tag it with #HRHappyHour.

Oh yeah, please feel free to rate the effectiveness of this post, my self-assessment gives it a solid 'Meets Objectives'.

Infinite Choice

The other day I was driving in a light to moderate then back to light rain storm.  One minute the rain was quite strong and the car's windshield wipers had to be engaged at almost full speed to assureFlickr - Christine Krizsa somewhat decent visibility, and then a minute later the rain would subside to an extent that the wipers were hardly needed at all.

Fortunately for me, my car and most cars made in the last forty years or so possesses a feature called 'intermittent wipers', a mechanism that enables the windshield wipers to operate at numerous speed settings, with variable delays between 'swipes' across the windshield.  In an extremely light rain, or mist, or in rapidly changing conditions like the ones I was driving in, the ability to adjust the speed of the wipers to most closely match the outsude conditions is a fantastic improvement of the wipers' original design - simply either 'On' or 'Off'. 

In the case of windshield wipers, I think most drivers would agree that having a range of settings, perhaps even an infinite amount of settings is an improvement from 'On' or 'Off'.  But having so many choices in wiper settings can actually make finding just the right setting quite difficult.  On my twenty or so minute drive the other day I must have adjusted the wiper speed fifteen different times. As conditions changed outside, I almost unconsciously reacted by tweaking, ever so slightly, the wiper speed. I have unlimited contol and choice remember, so it is assumed no matter what the rain and wind are doing, I have the ability to set the wipers at the perfect setting. I don't remember anything else about that drive except fussing with the wipers the entire time, and thinking I still have to keep messing with them even though I have far superior technical capability at my disposal.

I was in discussion with some colleagues about performance management, specifically a discussion of the use of rating systems in the performance appraisal process.  One person favored the use of the classic descriptors for formal ratings ('Exceeds, Meets, etc.), while another favored a numerical scale (1-5).  A third said what they really need was a way to rate employees on a sliding scale, that all '3's' or '4's' are not the same, and what they really wanted in their performance management technology was a sliding scale that they could use to dynamically 'drag' and adjust the ratings between the defined beginning and end points. That way they could rate Sally as a 3.73 and Joe as a 3.21 and so on. Sort of like an 'intermittent wiper' for the performance rating.

While I think that the capability for more granular assignment of numeric performance ratings is, at least on the surface, an improvement from assigning '3' or '4', it doesn't really change the fundamental exercise all that much, or improve the conditions or environment that effects the eventual outcomes in the review process. Sure, the manager has more choices, even an almost infinite amount of choices, but as sometimes happens when we are presented with so much choice that we spend all our time focused on the alternatives and much less (or not at all) on the outcomes.  Obsessing over the 'choice' and not the results of the choice if that makes sense.

And no matter how advanced our windshield wiper systems get, it still rains outside.