We have an annual performance review. We are an organisation where most people have very measurable KPIs, sales, production or despatch related. However the issue has arisen that many people are being appraised as high performers when in fact there can be real issues with their behaviour in the workplace.
The issue you raise is not an uncommon for organisations were the review is only focused on tasks or project outcomes.
Such reviews are measuring outcomes but not how a person went about achieving the outcomes which I think is what your question is alluding to.
For example, a high performing salesman will meet stretch sales targets but at the expense of team behaviours and even undermining the sales of others through not sharing information. Another common problem with sales KPI’s is that they can lead the sales person to make commitments to the customer that they know the organisation cannot meet such as a delivery time or product modification. They have got their sale but production or despatch has a problem.
Outcomes like the above raise two issues. One is that in drafting KPI’s real care has to go into them to ensure they do not promote behaviours or decision making that is in some way counterproductive. Therefore care needs to be taken to think through what are the potential dysfunctional behaviours a KPI may drive. Having identified such, you may need to revise the original KPI or create additional KPI’s that “balance” or head off single minded or self-centred behaviour so that it does not occur.
To use the example above, you may maintain the sales KPI but balance it with another KPI that requires that customer complaints are <4% of their sales. This will ensure they liaise with production or despatch before making commitments to a customer.
The second issue raised is that it is quite acceptable and even best practice to incorporate into the performance review explicit descriptions and ratings of desired behaviours that underpin or support how tasks or projects get done.
For example, it might be important in your organisation that sales, marketing, production and despatch working cooperatively. It would be wise then to be able to define what collaboration is or looks like for the purposes of your organisation, incorporate this into the performance review and rate staff on it.
This would set the standard for supporting behaviour and conduct when a salesman (using the above example) obtains sales and would enable the manager to have a frank conversation and hold the salesman to account if he continued to make commitments to customers without consulting the appropriate internal stakeholders first.
