If you live in New England, like I do, you tend to look over your shoulder when someone shouts that familiar phrase. But in the case of sports these days it’s a fresh and inviting thing. With Bradley Wiggins winning the Tour de France this year, as the first Brit to win and a couple weeks later capture a gold medal in the Olympics, you would say the British are here.
Looking at the major accomplishments of Bradley, from France, to back home in London for the time trials there, it got me thinking about goals, measurements, and performance, and how we reward our employees.
You see where I’m going with this right?
So what do you do when it comes time for raises, or increases, or reviews as some organizations call them? Do you look at the dollars in the budget and divvy them up evenly among the workforce? Do you send out the reviews a couple weeks before they are due to your managers and tell them to fill them out the best they can? Or do you have everything documented in a Workforce Management system that shows you the employees’ profile information, tenure, past performance ratings, goals you set for them for the quarter or year and how they are doing with those documented goals, and the ability to assess your employees in a timely fashion? Then have that all tied together with your budget for the year that is sent to the managers so they can link the performance reviews with compensation reviews and send that seamlessly to payroll.
Some of you are saying “British said what?”
Performance and Compensation Management is something that every company wants to do, and at some level you do it; either through spreadsheets and Word docs, homegrown databases, or with a fully functioning system that ties all the pieces together. The key to all of it is communication.
Just as each of the members of the Tour de France teams communicated with each other in some way, shape, or form; or as far back as the militia communicated in every little township to make sure everyone was on the same page with defeating the red coats…
You too can communicate with your workforce. In the end, when the loop is closed and you have your managers talking to your employees and vice versa and HR talking with both of them; you find the trifecta of communication keeps employees informed and you’re able to use the tools provided to assess, retain, reward great employees.
In the spirit of the times – Go for the Gold !!