Source: theHRDIRECTOR
Date: April 2007
Authors: Stephen Bevan & Marianne Huggett (The Work Foundation)

Too often, performance management tackles either star performers or underachievers, but has nothing to say to people in the middle. Stephen Bevan, Director, and Marianne Huggett, Consultant, atTthe Work Foundation, advocate that organisations must build strategies for motivating the majority.

Whenever ‘people’ are mentioned in the literature on performance management, two groups spring to mind – high flyers and low performers. But between the ‘stars’ or ‘talent’ and the ‘underachievers’ or ‘weaker team members’ who between them get all the attention, lie everyone else: the majority. They are the vast fellowship of people in the middle who do not attract much interest from management scholars or line or HR managers. Their work is perfectly acceptable, and no one has cause for complaint. It is just not outstanding. Performance management appears to have virtually nothing to say to this group – a group, after all, that most people fit into. Much more importantly, however, forgetfulness about the middle order may represent a huge missed opportunity to improve productivity and performance.

“no one likes to be average”

If the terms used to describe people at the top and bottom can seem a little crass, a different problem confronts those in the middle. We do not have a word for them that is not in itself de-motivating. No one likes to be ‘average’. Being told in an appraisal that we are ‘effective’, when someone else is ‘excellent’ is demoralising – especially if pay is dependent on it. ‘Reliable’, ‘decent’, and ‘part of the unsung majority’ are terms we might use to describe others, but may not necessarily like to be called ourselves. That is why – with apologies in advance - there appears to be a need to create some new jargon for this group before setting out what we know about them. If we imagine an organisation is shaped like a diamond, then the people at the top apex can be seen as the high performers and the people in the bottom apex can be seen as the low performers. That leaves the heart of the diamond: the middle group are henceforth the HODs.

To the best of our knowledge, until now no data has been published on the HODs. That may be because gathering it is itself a challenge. The way we found round this problem was to use data from an employee attitude survey in a large UK financial services organisation, which graded employees as ‘outstanding’, ‘superior’, ‘fully effective’, ‘marginal’, and ‘ineffective’*. It is the difference between the responses of the ‘fully effectives’ (our HODS) and those above them that give us our insights into the HOD worldview, and the strategies for managing their performance that flow from them. In total, 58.9% were HODs; 36.3% were high performers (adding together the top two categories).

HODS are neither as well educated nor as likely to be in managerial roles as high performers. There is a chicken and egg question here. Are graduates and managers genuinely better performers, or are they given higher performance ratings because they are graduates and managers?Is a meritocracy at work or a self-fulfilling prophesy? It is impossible to know - though it is noteworthy that HODdom was by no means a barrier to entering the managerial ranks: 41% of managers were HODs (58% of managers were high performers). However, reassuringly, there was no statistically significant difference between the ratings of full and part timers.

There was also no real difference in either age or length of service with the company, although HODs are likely to have spent longer in their current grade than their high performing counterparts. This may reflect the fact that the company’s performance management system was being used to inform decisions about promotion. More cynically, it could be the case that ‘staying put’ in a role actively harms career progress – especially if the role is seen as a backwater. It is the results about attitudes that are more revealing. HODs feel differently about some very important ‘intrinsic’ motivators (intrinsic motivators include having a sense of pride in work, having autonomy, and feeling appreciated and valued by others, as opposed to ‘extrinsic’ motivators such as pay and promotion). The chart below suggests that across a range of intrinsic motivators, high performers have a more positive experience. The point here is emphatically not that HODS do not see these things as important. The survey found no difference between how much HODs and high performers value factors such as variety and job satisfaction. Rather, it means they get less scope for using their initiative, less autonomy, and less ability to see something through to a conclusion – the ‘look, here is what I have done’ aspect of work that matters deeply to us all. Is this because they cannot be trusted, or because low expectations create a vicious circle?

It is line managers that have the most direct influence over the engagement and motivation of their staff. Once more, HODs tend not to think their manager is good at motivating them. More than 75% of high performers felt their abilities were recognised. For HODs, the figure was just over 60%. They also felt they got less support and encouragement from their manager (just under 30% said they got it), received less regular feedback (10%), while just over 20% felt they had an approachable  manager, compared with 37% for high performers. Personal growth often flows from getting on in an organisation. Yet in every organisation there are hidden rules for how to do this. Compared with high performers, HODs have strikingly different beliefs about the best way to achieve success.

HODs attach more importance to ‘getting on with your manager’ and ‘being open and honest’. High performers go instead for ‘being innovative’, ‘being self-confident’, ‘being visible to management’, and ‘working long hours’. By contrast, only 14% of HODs felt being innovative was one of the ways to get on, and only 19% thought long hours were important. As might by now be expected, work-life balance and part-time working were both real HOD issues, and less important to high performers. However, it would be wrong to conclude the split is between career-minded top performers and unambitious, career-sacrificing HODs. Actually, a higher proportion of high performers had pre-school aged children.

“a downward spiral of disengagement”

Finally, no prizes for guessing who gets the most training and development. Just 35% of HODs said they had had access to development – compared with a little under 60% for high performers. If such a high proportion of HODs feel opportunities are closed to them, it may not be a surprise that some may feel their chances of advancement are limited and that the value placed on them by the organisation is low. In this way, the relatively low motivation of medium performers may be reinforced as part of a downward spiral of disengagement. So what can be done to re-energise the HODs?

Perhaps the most significant factor that emerged from the research was the role of line managers. For example, they can reinforce perceptions about presenteeism or strike a blow against it in their behaviour and language. And it is with them that HOD performance management must begin. High performers appear able to put themselves forward. HODs are quieter. This finding turns the onus sharply on line managers to be willing to draw people out of themselves a little more, and not expect them to look after themselves too much. In other words, the line needs to play a nurturing role. Given that it is known that line managers are the most important source for feeling a sense of commitment to the organisation – critical to customer service and sales – the data suggests interesting possibilities could follow if HODs were better engaged by their line managers. Some people have the gift of spotting talent among people who are not self-boosters naturally, of course. But it would be a foolish organisation that left it to happenstance alone.

Organisations ought to develop the line to value and challenge HODs. Managing the performance of HODs is something that is worth the investment in management capability – especially in sections where HODs are over-represented. The clear implication of the data is that high performers monopolise organisational Agreeingattention (from training, to managerial access, to autonomy). The line has the opportunity to free up the market, as it were. If HODs were granted greater autonomy, shown they matter by development opportunities, and that their faith in ‘honourable’ behaviour was not misplaced, the results may well be a significant
rise in organisational performance. Managers need to build their core skills in coaching, assessment and feedback. Where appropriate, they also need to be able to see when people would benefit from personal effectiveness-type development.

“appraisal matters”

The second key to addressing HOD performance concerns the performance management system itself: does the appraisal or review process enable managers and staff to have the right conversations? By linking appraisal with pay explicitly (as our survey organisation did), an organisation sends the message that appraisal matters because it affects pay. In this way, staff learn to take it seriously. Yet by doing so, it also sends another kind of message: that the appraisal conversation is not a venue for an honest, trusting exchange, but rather a kind of exam. Given what we know of the comparatively passive HOD worldview, this may be counter-productive. If there was a regular (though perhaps informal) forum where staff and managers could talk about development and performance issues without pay depending on the conversation, then that may well work better in terms of gaining greater motivation.

The implication of the data is that some de-linking of pay from appraisal may work to the advantage of the HODs. Within the HODs, there are likely to be some very able people with the potential to progress. The HODs are doing OK, but they remain at the moment the epitome of an untapped organisational resource – largely because organisations seldom notice them. It is up to organisations to break the performance management habit of a lifetime and look beyond the chosen few to the majority. At the moment, the risk is that those outside a small elite few feel there is no point making the effort because the decision has already been made. Liberating the performance of the humble, self-effacing HOD could be the greatest single step to higher performance that an organisation could make.