S1-Part 2 Making the Job Stick “Big Five Performance Management”

In one of my last posts I introduced Rick Gillis‘ book “Promote”. Part of his six key thoughts about proving your worth in the workplace is to provide your boss and your company an accomplishments based story. So today, I want to delve further into that aspect of how to make a job stick.

Another close friend and long-time colleague, Roger Ferguson, has written his own book named Finally! Performance Assessment That Works: Big Five Performance Management

Roger is a human resources and operations professional with more than thirty years of experience in Fortune 500 companies, has created Big Five Performance Management, a commonsense alternative. Big Five creates better accountability than traditional annual performance appraisal, requires less time, and is actually embraced by managers and their employees. Big Five is born from the sales culture where it is said that good salespeople are “born on Monday and die on Friday.” That means that good salespeople are 100 percent accountable for positive, documented, successful efforts on a weekly basis, creating a culture of ongoing accountability and demonstrated performance. Human Resources can learn a lot from sales; Big Five tells us how.

Before this idea turned into a book project, Roger was using the practice in his own job. It’s pretty simple. Build a list of the top five things you accomplished in the last period, typically a month. Add to it a list of five key thing or goals you want to complete next month, then include 5 things you need to work on for career enhancement or improvement. The latter can come from the usual assessment exercise most companies use. Give this report to your boss. He can agree or edit based on his view of what needs to happen.

If you follow this faithfully, at the end of the year you have twelve very comprehensive sets with at least 60 accurate accomplishment statements that provide a clear view of what you have done and how it has created value for the company. Roger decided to take it to the next level.

He wrote the book to encourage HR managers everywhere to abandon the old fashioned annual assessment program and implement Big 5.

“Admit it, we all hate annual performance appraisals, and with good reason” claims Roger.

• Over 85% of companies say that their current performance management processes are only “moderately effective.”
• Only 50% of employees believe that their managers provide them with honest feedback that actually improves their job performance.
• Managers spend, on average, 400 hours per year on the process! The return-on-investment for that time is very low. Most participate in the process “because the Human Resources department requires it.”

So why do we continue, year after year, with this outdated, tedious, and questionable process? Probably because we have not had any better alternative… until now!

This innovative process, tested in multiple corporate environments for the past fifteen years, is presented here for the first time in a conversational, easy-to-read style, and is not just limited to human resources professionals or upper-level management. It is for the rank-and-file employee who may not know how to prioritize their work; calculate the value they bring to their organization; or communicate that value to their management. It is for front-line supervisors and managers who struggle to effectively align the efforts of their team members; are not always comfortable with confrontation when coaching employees; and dread the thought of having to prepare one more round of annual performance appraisals. It is for companies and organizations looking to build a more effective, accountable, and inspired workplace by improving processes and eliminating waste. Finally, performance assessment that works!

“The best 100 pages you will ever read on the subject of performance appraisal!   Big Five is an absolute game-changer.” – Rick Gillis- Author, Consultant, Speaker

“I installed Big Five in our business and was amazed at how quickly my teams embraced it. Most of us have never questioned HR on the value or validity of the traditional process. We should have! Big Five provides us with more and better data; data that actually helps me run my business more effectively.” – Cathy Penland, General Manager, Houston home builder