Employee Performance Management and Alignment: Dim Bulb, or Bright Laser?

This is second in a series of blog posts about the power of effective Employee Performance Management to deliver superior results for customers. This series, in addition to supporting a vital tool for effective management, accompanies our release of our new web-based automated Employee Performance Management software, MFR People. Check out the first post in the series, "Employee Performance Management: Why Bother?"

Any effective Employee Performance Management (EPM) system exists, first and foremost, to help the organization achieve its results.

The first essential element to an EPM system that supports and accelerates organizational performance is alignment.

Alignment is conceptually pretty simple - it's the idea that a group of people functions as a whole. As organizational guru Peter Senge outlines it, an aligned organization in one in which energy is not wasted, but where there is:

• Commonality of purpose
• Shared vision
• Understanding of how to complement one another’s efforts
• Shared vision becomes an extension of their personal visions

As Senge has noted, the difference between organizational power that is not aligned vs. aligned is the difference between a light bulb - where light is broadly scattered - and a laser - which is light with the focused power to cut steel.

How do you create alignment? How do you harness scattered light into a tight focus of effort?

First, be clear what you're aligning to. Even a robust approach to EPM will fall short of its potential to drive results if it's not clear what the desired results are. If the organization is scattered in its thinking, an EPM system in itself won't drive focus. The creation of clearly stated, customer-focused Goals and Performance Measures provide a powerful framework for alignment.

Second, integrate individual employee performance with organizational performance. Once an organization creates clarity around its desired results, those results have to be integrated into the performance plans and expectations of employees. Integration gives employees a clear line of sight to how they contribute to what matters most to their organization.

Third, ensure integration is consistent. This is a conceptually straightforward idea, but harder to get right when implementing it - and doing it incorrectly can generate a significant backlash. This is not an impressionistic exercise. In our experience working with integration for thousands of employees in many different functions of government, we have seen the importance of using a consistent, systematic approach to integration - and are pleased that our approach has proven effective and sustainable.

The power of aligning employee performance can be extraordinary. We've seen it save millions of dollars, save lives, reduce wait times, improve satisfaction - you name it. Get your folks aligned, and get ready for them to cut through steel.