CASE STUDY #2

Building Performance Via Employee Participation

The process of documenting performance management within an organization encompasses both how feedback is provided and how it is documented. Performance feedback provided well means any form will work for its documentation. Ideally, employees buy-in to the feedback and documentation process and trust that the communication occurring between managers and employees supports both individual and company-wide goals. Sometimes employees become dissatisfied with the way their organization provides and documents performance goals and feedback. This may result in poor attitudes towards their jobs and the company as well as decreased motivation, and reduced effort on the job (a lack of employee engagement). These negative factors lead some companies to design and implement more innovative performance management systems to drive employee engagement.

Jewelers Mutual Insurance Company (JMI) has actively enhanced its performance management system and has seen a corresponding trend toward positive results. Employees indicated they were dissatisfied with the feedback and goal-setting practices applied to performance management. This dissatisfaction was manifesting itself in a lack of employee engagement. In turn, this led company leadership to involve employees in determining how employee performance management should happen at JMI. An outside consultant was hired to kick the process off by interviewing top leaders in the company. Employee focus groups were used to solicit feedback from a cross-section of other members of the organization. By surveying all stakeholders, JMI was able to identify the problems with the current performance management system while generating greater support for the proposed changes leadership hoped would fix the issues.

As a result of the feedback from leadership and employees, several changes were made to the performance management system. Targeted in this redesign effort were inconsistencies in the way the performance management system was administered, problems with the rating techniques and forms, and challenges linking pay to performance. Evaluations became based on narratives with support of specific examples, and metrics of accountability and job goals were introduced. Furthermore, feedback is now provided to employees on a quarterly basis and compensation was more strongly linked to individual efforts.

for your analysis, consider:

-What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of the use of employee surveys when making changes within an organization? What are some alternatives to handling the situation at JMI?

-Consider why organizations track performance in the first place. What are some of the challenges organizations face when devising performance management systems? Are there legal or compliance implications? Is there anything that stands out to you about JMIs approach that seems especially good or questionable?

(1-2 pages)