Making Onboarding Work

With fresh faces in organizations and new interns flooding offices, it’s time to really think about what the first steps are for bringing a new employee onto your team.

Passing Judgment

When it comes to appraising performance-appraisal systems, why do so many companies score so low?

Dick Grote

A key myth of performance management is that the objective of the performance-appraisal discussion is to gain the employee’s agreement. It’s not. If the manager has applied tough-minded, demanding standards, it’s unlikely that the individual will agree. That’s OK—the objective of the meeting is not to gain agreement. The tougher the manager’s standards, the less likely it is that agreement will occur. The objective of … [ Read more ]

Dick Grote

A common myth [of performance management] holds that asking the employee to complete a self-assessment using the company’s form, or including the perspectives of others gained through a 360-degree feedback system, is a good idea. It’s not. It’s a bad idea and needs to be stomped out.

Research consistently demonstrates that individuals are notoriously inaccurate in assessing their own performance, and the poorer the performer, the … [ Read more ]

Dick Grote, Peter Drucker

Peter Drucker’s thirty-year-old concept of creating a “manager’s letter” probably remains the best performance-management technique to use with senior executives. Each executive writes an annual letter to her superior, spelling out the objectives of her own job and those of the superior’s job as she sees them. She then sets down the performance standards she believes are being applied to her. She lists the goals … [ Read more ]

Dick Grote

Although the actual results an individual produces may be quantifiable, the way she got those results, and the extent to which she modeled the organization’s values in generating them, aren’t subject to numerical measure. But behavior and adherence to values can certainly be described, and those descriptions of performance, supported by examples, are certainly objective.

Dick Grote

Every person who works for an organization wants the answer to two questions. First, What is it that you expect of me? Second, How am I doing at meeting your expectations?

Spotlight on Dick Grote

In this issue of Spotlight, Dick Grote speaks to editor Sarah Powell about the difference between standard performance appraisal and ‘forced ranking’ and the reasons why forced ranking is so contentious.

Forced Ranking: Making Performance Management Work

Forced ranking may be the electrified third rail of human resource management. In an excerpt from a new book, author Dick Grote makes the case for the controversial employee-evaluation system-at least on an interim basis.

Discipline Without Punishment

Punishing a problem employee leaves you with . . . a punished problem employee. Is there a better way?

The Secrets of Performance Appraisal

“Too many companies remain in denial about the benefits that a well-executed performance-management system generates. They may articulate the importance of transforming their stale “best-effort” culture into a tough-minded, results-driven one, but they fail to fathom that performance appraisal is the best tool available for muscle-building an organization.

So, understandably, those companies that have learned to wield this tool effectively don’t want to talk about it. … [ Read more ]

The Performance Appraisal Question and Answer Book: A Survival Guide for Managers

Most managers hate conducting performance appraisal discussions. What’s worse, few feel confident in their ability to accurately assess the performance of a subordinate. In The Performance Appraisal Question and Answer Book, expert Dick Grote answers over 100 of the most common — and most difficult — questions about this vitally important but often misunderstood and misused tool, including:
* How should I react when … [ Read more ]