Organizations establish formal performance systems such as a performance management (appraisal) process, measurement systems, performance support (e.g., online tools and reference materials), and training programs to provide direction, feedback, and support for the workplace practices needed to drive business results and achieve their mission. While rapid advances in technology have made these systems easier to develop and deploy, they don’t always live up to expectations. 

ADI identifies behavioral disconnects and synergies and provide specific recommendations for how you can get the most from your performance systems. Whether you are looking to evaluate the alignment, efficiency, and effectiveness of all of your performance systems as a whole or focus on one system specifically, ADI provides the clear direction you need to achieve your goals.

Performance Management Process

Many organizations view their Performance Management Process (PMP) as unavoidable. Managers and frontline employees are frequently burdened by high administrative requirements, subjective goals misaligned with broader objectives, and lack of feedback on the goals throughout the year. Employees at all levels often see the implementation of the process as separate from the daily and weekly setting of priorities and managing of performance. It can become a compliance activity with little value for the employee or the manager. While many within the company might agree that the process is adding limited value, organizations can be reluctant to eliminate the system because they feel they need a process for managing performance, even if it’s an undervalued one. They also can be reluctant to make changes fearing that the changes will create more problems than they solve.

Whether you want to overhaul your performance management process or develop a tiered plan for incrementally improving it, ADI can identify how to increase the value and consistency of your process. 

Measurement Systems

When used effectively to shape and motivate performance, measurement systems are an essential tool for aligning and tracking performance. This requires selecting the most important measures that the employees can influence, having balance in the measures (e.g., leading and lagging, productivity and quality), providing frequent feedback on the data in relation to past performance and goals, providing the resources needed by employees to improve the performance (direction on what to do differently or more often, time, tools, etc.), and providing positive consequences for incremental improvements. When poorly designed or communicated the measures can provide misleading or little feedback on performance trends, motivate the wrong or competing behaviors (e.g., unsafe or unethical behavior), or prompt management by negative consequences.

ADI can assess the design, implementation, and impact of your measurement system from our unique behavioral perspective, ensuring that your system motivates the right behaviors and increases the opportunity for positive reinforcement for work well done. 

Performance Support

Advances in technology have greatly increased the potential for building a readily accessible and up-to-date performance support system so that employees have the information they need at their fingertips to do their jobs well. Unfortunately, just because a system uses the latest technology doesn’t mean that the benefit will be automatic. The resources still have to be organized and designed in a way that makes them easy to search, scan, read, and comprehend. The information also needs to be written in a way consistent with the intended use of the resource.

ADI’s assessment of your performance support systems provides feedback on the usefulness of your systems and offers recommendations for how to modify the systems and/or the information within them. This can include how to reduce the response cost (time and effort) of using the systems; how to organize the information into more usable chunks; how to write and visually present succinct, unambiguous procedures, requirements, if-then protocols, etc.; and how to build employees’ fluency in finding the information they need quickly. 

Training Programs

Evaluate the design and effectiveness of your employee and leadership training. For more information visit Training Assessments.