On the other hand, due to flatter
structures and budget restrictions,
managers have few opportunities
to reward and promote staff on
the basis of their performance.
This is particularly evident in
the difference of attitudes and
expectations between the younger
and the older workforce. Some
supervisors feel they cannot retain
the new talent if they continue
to present them with challenging
targets but cannot offer
appropriate reward for it.
‘
What I look forward to is to
learn to manage the newer
generation, the Gen Ys. I
have got a lot of those who
are below the age of 26
in my team. Their thinking
is a bit too different from
how we look at things. It is
not really job security that
they are looking for. It is
about how quickly they can
progress in the corporate
world.
The inability of managers to
’
motivate employees by individual
performance-related pay is also less
possible in unionised environments,
where, in some cases, collective
agreements discourage individual
performance reviews. From the
supervisor’s point of view, a lack
of scope to influence individual
performance makes one-toone
performance management
redundant; as a result, they
rarely have conversations about
performance with their direct
reports. To circumvent that,
senior managers and HR need
to work together to equip line
managers with skills to have
challenging conversations within
the boundaries of collective
agreements. One senior
manager said:
‘
I have been strategic in my
approach in saying, ‘Actually,
from a supervisory point
of view, I need you to sit
down and have a one-to-one
discussion with your worker.’
That has never happened
in a unionised environment
before, as you are not
allowed to performancemanage:
talk to people on a
one-to-one basis.
Focussing performance reviews
’
on achieving challenging targets
can make it difficult for managers
to motivate the proportion of
staff who are not aspiring to
achieve ‘exceptional’ ratings or
to get promoted, even where
‘leadership’ behaviours are part
of the performance review. Few
employees in the research see
their performance review as an
opportunity to discuss lateral
development opportunities, and
think of their PDRs as tick-box
exercises if their performance
is satisfactory. Managers in the
research differ in their views
on approaching less ambitious
employees:
‘
Those individuals who are
interested in promotion
will have a copy of the
behavioural framework
because it tells you what you
need to have done to get to
the next rank and what you
need to work towards. If you
have someone who is quite
long in service, who hasn’t
got any aspirations to be
promoted and who may not
be responsible for staff, then
there’s no real value in them
knowing too much about
this, other than the fact that
their supervisor will be telling
them to do it.
Some of our staff have
joined us because they want
a job, and I say this quite
clearly to our staff, ‘If you
don’t subscribe to this and
if you don’t buy into it,
‘The lack of
capacity of
the people
management
processes
(including
recruitment,
performance
management
and succession
planning) to
match workforce
diversity puts a
lot of pressure
on managers to
have difficult
conversations
with staff about
how well they
fit in with the
organisation.’
21 Leadership – easier said than done
you’re in the wrong job. You
really need to go and get a
job somewhere else.’ Some
people, when we explain
this to them, and when we
set this out to them, you
can almost see a light bulb
moment where they get it.
Overly prescriptive
’
frameworks restrict scope
for discretion
Our previous research has
shown that managers find it
most challenging having difficult
conversations with staff and are
at times uncomfortable applying
performance management systems
and competency frameworks. This
can be due to the lack of skills in
conducting the process, but may
also be associated with the set-up
of the system itself.
Managers in the study explain
that they often experience tension
between the blanket policy that
should be applied to staff to
ensure a standard of organisational
behaviour, on the one hand, and
their need to allow for the variety
of circumstances that require
individuals to make independent
decisions. Previously, Bolden and
Gosling (2006) have shown that
competency approaches have been
criticised, among other reasons,
for being overly universalistic or
generic, rather than situationspecific.
‘
The policy is clear. It’s just
that individuals aren’t always
clear, and situations aren’t
always clear. And there is no
standard situation.
It’s about how you explain
that to people but also give
them the discretion to go
out and do their job. I don’t
want to tie people’s hands
but I don’t want complete
chaos and people choosing
what they do.’
The tension between the
organisation’s standards and the
individual becomes particularly
prominent in judging employees’
behaviours – ‘how’ the job was
done as opposed to what has been
achieved. Managers explain that
although they are instructed to take
staff behaviours into consideration
when rating performance,
those behaviours are difficult to
measure objectively, which is
why they have to rely on delivery
targets to differentiate individual
performance.
‘
When you look at the nature
of a lot of the work here, it’s
not always measurable easily
in terms of output. Certainly,
a lot of the issues are linked
to perhaps attitude or
willingness to perform, and
it’s very difficult to proceed
on that basis with regards to
performance itself.
The lack of capacity of the
’
people management processes
(including recruitment, performance
management and succession
planning) to match workforce
diversity puts a lot of pressure
on managers to have difficult
conversations with staff about
how well they fit in with the
organisation. A common belief of
respondents is that even where
they want to lead on challenging
situations, the policy again does
not support them, as the process
of managing underperformance or
employee exit is too lengthy and
cautious.
‘
I’ll give everybody their
fair chance. But there are
sometimes occasions where
people take more and
where you feel that enough
is enough. The processes
that we have in place are so
lengthy and complicated to
deal with, that managers at
the lower level…I think they
sometimes wonder whether
it is worth it, if it is going to
get anywhere because they
don’t ever see probably an
end result.
They know it’s a lengthy
process, and I think that
puts them off actually
undertaking the capability.
I think they want a
quicker, more convenient
way of dealing with
underperformance.
A similar issue can emerge when
’
managers are applying a blanket
approach to staff policies. A
common example is sickness
absence management of staff,
where managers think the
procedure is too rigid to apply to
each particular situation. Some
respondents feel they need to act
in a ‘corporate’ way if they are to
succeed with their careers.
‘
Say a member of staff is off
sick. I know this is genuine
sickness and the reasons
for it. While the powers are
saying to me, ‘You’ve got
to put that person on stage
whatever.’ I know that I have
to represent the corporate
side and [follow the policy].
But I know that’s not the
best thing for that person.
I know that a lot of leaders
would do corporate things
to make themselves look
good for the higher-ups.’