[Closed] Corporate Culture, performance management and target driven environments.

IT perchance? I have a few friends in the sector and it appears to be dominated by business-by-numbers including having a forced performance management process that means having to 'exit' people based on some arbitrary numbers.

I can understand how you feel and, from the sound of it, you are well shot of the place. Take a deep breath, find a good cup of coffee and start to relax a little.

IT perchance?

Medico/legal as it happens, but the culture is similar by the sounds of it.

I spent eleven years working for a company that changed to that sort of structure, after the owner died and the management bought it from the family and brought in ‘Angel Investors’ one of whom had been involved with Sharp’s Brewery and Doom Bar. Performance evaluations were brought in, micromanaging became the norm, and any deviation from random decisions made regarding how things were done were held against staff. In the end, I was booted out because my performance ’failed to meet their required standards’, despite being perfectly satisfactory over the previous nine years! They are a print company that specialises in the charity sector providing lottery and raffle tickets and full banking for clients. A bunch of other staff left at the same time for the same reasons.
I was glad to go, my health was being affected, I had a panic attack in front of my supervisor, and I went to my doctor worried about my mental health.
Best thing that could have happened, I did two years driving for British Car Auctions, and now I’ve been with my current employer for three years, and they are much, much easier to work for, plus I’m much better paid!

It depends on the company culture and ethos. Used as a tool to improve company performance in a holistic And commonsensical way - it can be great, when implemented with a really supportive and constructive approach to people.

The opposite can be hugely destructive and negative.

Agree with jamj
Used appropriately within a good culture it can work really well. The trouble starts when those in power see it as a stick to beat the workforce with. Have seen a few companies struggle with really high turnover until it was fixed.

If I could recommend a book, Drive by Daniel Pink. Read it and look for more of the things you care about in the next company you chose.

Management is massively misunderstood and mishandled at so many companies these days.

It depends on the company culture and ethos.

Yes true, the company I've just resigned from is trying to measure output of it's staff who's role is that of advocacy and support for it's members, via the counting of "widgets" (or caseload) . I'm sure that in the short term there are folk who can perform under those conditions, I think it's the wrong way to manage and (perhaps more importantly) lead people.

It's the same culture that pretends  to measure how good a teacher you are by how many of your class get an "A" in their exam.

Thanks for the recommendation @toby1 I'll look it up on Amazon

It depends on the company culture and ethos. Used as a tool to improve company performance in a holistic And commonsensical way – it can be great, when implemented with a really supportive and constructive approach to people.

My first thought is that holistic and common-sensical are oxymoronic.
Performance goals just seem to be passed down with no thought to what they mean to people only spreadsheets.
At the end getting crapped on we have KPI's that can't even be met because our management have goals they can't meet due to their management setting goals etc.
and as soon as these are set they just become the over-riding concern ...

Very poor = get rid of the lowest 25% performers in a pool... which just means screw everyone you are in a pool with because you can't improve your own.

or typically .. answer or solve all requests within X time... means close the requests..
I've been in client companies where you plot the requests on day of week/month... you see hundreds closed on a Friday only for the same person to reopen on a monday... and be sent an automated mail "we acknowledge your request". (meaning we started the clock)

I don't think this is what you mean by holistic but this is what I see organisations interpret "holistic" to be. Perhaps pervasive is a better word?

rather than to understand that that very same culture of “performance-led” management is the thing that’s driving the problems they have with under-performing (ie stressed out, and in fear of losing their job if they don’t meet targets)

Yeah... I was at my wits end already... every email ping made me feel ill even though 19/20 were actual work the 1/20 "You committed to x,y,z but you instead chose to do a,b,c"

I was in a real mess...multiple things: I had a promise of a billing code from a pretty high up (country sector leader) for some work. He had to get that code from a 3rd country (as it happens one they are at war with)..from a higher up geographical area leader who wanted to screw him so her figures look better. I eventually got the code but for the wrong dates and couldn't timewrite it unless someone higher up allowed it. Noone would give me that permission so put on the shit list.
Another I was due to start a project and the client person meant to sign was in a car accident. I knew I needed therapy when my first thought was "who will sign off now"!

It's like a big open secret .. lie on visa applications ... add extra hours to clients ... all done by verbal communications, reduce the marketing and sales budgets to almost zero then expect contracts to magically appear next quarter.. then out of desperation people have to help the sales people "for free" in order to get a contract. (For free meaning the person doing the technical help gets no code and gets penalised on their weekly performance)

Really good managers and management are, in my experience, as rare as hen's teeth.
For every one person that has a n instinctive way of bringing out the best in folk and nurturing their staff, there must be 3-7 others that have got there by dint of long service (or worse) and promoted way beyond their level of competence.

I have several friends that I know are straight down the line folk, hard work ethic and all the rest, and are - or have been - in senior levels of management. I'd be interested to see things from the side of what they're like to work with, and what aspects and qualities of how they behave in my company they bring to work environment.

Expect a lot more of this kind of thing when the furlough scheme ends in Oct.....

Really good managers and management are, in my experience, as rare as hen’s teeth.
For every one person that has a n instinctive way of bringing out the best in folk and nurturing their staff, there must be 3-7 others that have got there by dint of long service (or worse) and promoted way beyond their level of competence.

Sadly the performance management merely prevents any "good" ones doing a good job as managers.
Of my two most recent line managers, one was a good liar and politician and one is a good bloke.
The key to performance management seems more to do with being able to lie and get away with it and play the politics of shifting blame for missed targets to others. Performance Management greatly favours this sort where subordinates are just bodies to be chucked under a bus when you miss a target or promise.

Having been there also and made myself very ill, I can hand on heart say life's too short for this sort of crap at work.

So many times I've had people tell me they're working hours and hours unpaid because "if I don't do it, it won't get done." It won't get done then, why are you working for free? A company's lack of resource is (probably) not your fault and they're not going to hire extra help when they've got people daft enough to do it for nowt. They're having you for a mug.

Having been there also and made myself very ill, I can hand on heart say life’s too short for this sort of crap at work.

So many times I’ve had people tell me they’re working hours and hours unpaid because “if I don’t do it, it won’t get done.” It won’t get done then, why are you working for free? A company’s lack of resource is (probably) not your fault and they’re not going to hire extra help when they’ve got people daft enough to do it for nowt. They’re having you for a mug.

Easy to say when you don't have kids to put a roof over and feed. (Not a criticism.. just pointing that out)
This is the hammer behind performance management...
At threat of being put on a redundancy list you accept a performance measure (like getting the job done)
The company then even further reduces the resources available so whomever is trying to meet that target now has to squeeze... those without families to support can leave but its another matter when you have a mortgage and food bills for a family.

However even that is missing the real stress.
The real stress is regardless of how well you do and hours put in you are only making it into the next quarter's repeat. Then it starts again groundhog day style.

The real stress is regardless of how well you do and hours put in you are only making it into the next quarter’s repeat. Then it starts again groundhog day style.

This is what did it for me today: Q2 performance moderation...The whole leadership team judging their teams worth...as if you could mark a human out of 5...

"This quarter your teams overall performance as human beings is a 3.7 out of 5. In Q1 they were ranking as high as 4.3...what's dropped in their performance? Have you noted their performance in the appropriate field in the online people management intranet programme, have you discussed a PIP/PDP with them, where are they in their personal development plan..."

Urgh,..

This is what did it for me today: Q2 performance moderation…The whole leadership team judging their teams worth…as if you could mark a human out of 5…

Putting that aside... so lets say you do it once but then the performance metrics get changed.. you lost the low performers and now the target is the unlucky.... your job/project start date, did you take vacation etc. all affect the KPI's in some stupid intrawebby application that doesn't allow moderation.

"Did they complete the required on time" .. the answer is no because the whole thing started 5 weeks late and was then under resourced etc. but non of that goes into the automatic scoring.. then next thing it's pressure to put them on a PIP (whilst continuing to measure their performance) ...and as you originally said it's the freakin performance measures that are causing the problems in the first place.

I'm exactly in this situation - corporate IT sales - and having had a good four year run of it I can understand why people move on, encouraged or not.   All the advice is in here, but when its being made very difficult to sustain a working environment that rewards you in money, motivation and growth there's two things to do:

a) Manipulate it so that it does

b) Leave

My advice is to stand up for yourself outwardly or otherwise or find a job your are more comfortable in.  Don't let it grind you down unless you are prepared to suffer that because the reward is somehow worth it and obtainable/justifiable to you.

find a job your are more comfortable in

Time for this I think. I'm finding the performance culture just far too unsustainable, and the apologists for it not being able to see that the very thing they're trying to manage; is being caused by the way they managing the staff. It's not leadership, it's bullying.

Easy to say when you don’t have kids to put a roof over and feed.

Oh sure, it's "easy to say" on any number of levels. By the time I realised it was killing me I was so stressed out that the last thing I wanted to do was add to that by job-hunting. It got to the point where I was leaving work on Friday thinking "Christ, I've got to come back on Monday" and that's no way to be.

In the end they "let me go" with a massive stitch-up which in hindsight was almost certainly illegal, unfair dismissal or some such. They offered me a payout of something like three grand to go away quietly, I took the money and ran. I've never been happier than the day I walked out of that building for the final time, it was like a huge weight had been lifted. It took me six months to recover sufficiently to get another job. I vowed then, "never again."

My point was really trying to say, if this sounds familiar then wherever practical you should start looking for an exit strategy before you get to the point I did. I should have left long before I was pushed.

It’s not leadership, it’s bullying.

Jump onto Linked in and search for Brian G Burns content.  Little 1 minute comedy Sales experience videos that will startle you as to the parallels in performance management you don't want.   He agrees with you BTW,

there must be 3-7 others that have got there by dint of long service (or worse) and promoted way beyond their level of competence.

I have been that man and its a dreadful place to be. I actually was appointed deputy but with no manager. I floundered. I make a decent deputy but personal traits mean I am not a crap boss

nickc

Time for this I think. I’m finding the performance culture just far too unsustainable, and the apologists for it not being able to see that the very thing they’re trying to manage; is being caused by the way they managing the staff. It’s not leadership, it’s bullying.

I'm with you... the whole issues is that the performance measures not only drive this but they become worthless as performance measures as soon as they are published.

They become ALL people worry about... or how to bypass or get away with them or target others.

Doing a job well, creating something sustainable etc. are just past concepts when you have a specific set of measures.

Then one persons measures are linked to someone else's.
Typically someone might have a measure that for them to meet means someone else can't or will be teetering close to an edge but might accept that simply out of desperation.
One way someone gets screwed..

Then you have the whole "expectation" thing...where if you succeed against all odds it just resets the bar higher and if for some reason outside your control you only meet expectations based on this new bar you are back on the shit list.

where if you succeed against all odds it just resets the bar higher and if for some reason outside your control you only meet expectations based on this new bar you are back on the shit list

Welcome to a double sized Sales target in Corona year... I'm not getting more than 75% of my OTE this year on top of the aforementioned performance management traits.

I've just volunteered for a position on the Diversity, Inclusion and Equality council, thats going to be an odd mix of objectives in my role!

Having never worked in such an environment I find this thread interesting and disturbing in equal measure. I feel sorry for those of you who have to live with that kind of bullshit.

Cougar

My point was really trying to say, if this sounds familiar then wherever practical you should start looking for an exit strategy before you get to the point I did. I should have left long before I was pushed.

Yep know that feeling .. Christ I know the have to get up in the morning and do it again feeling.

By the time I realised it was killing me I was so stressed out that the last thing I wanted to do was add to that by job-hunting.

To be honest I'd never have put up with it until I had a child .. I'd have just thought sod this and walked out and then found something. (In fact I have)

That's something that changed and as far as I feel* it's because I have a child to support... partly because when I left work you have a kid to give what energy you have rather than job hunt and partly because of the loss of security that never bothered me before I had a kid.

*I say feel as it's not like a yes/no ...

@tjagain - I ended up being one of those promoted beyond their competence, due to length of service. I hated it (made me take time off work as it was making me ill). Luckily was made redundant shortly before I had decided I would just jack it all in and leave.

Hey Nick, I'm hope you're okay matey....

With you 100% on performance management/target chasing/one year reviews with out-dated objectives etc. Sure you have to manage but this idea that one size fits all, and prioritises indicators skewed by shit data, and entirely unconcerned with the people doing it is just no way to spend 8 hours a day.

My old employer (one of the big 4 consultancies) used to brag how they cut '10% of the lowest performers every year'. What they cut were the ones who mostly just didn't catch the lucky project breaks. When you consider someones value by the number they bring in, you're not any company I want to work for.

So right decision. Hope you find something better and more rewarding. If you've got some spare time, there's riding and beer waiting for you here 🙂

What they cut were the ones who mostly just didn’t catch the lucky project breaks.

Exactly this...especially after the first one.
After 2-3 quarters its then all about screwing those in the same performance pool as you...as you realise its all about project breaks, starting at the right time, not being delayed etc. making sure you are in a billable and non replaceable position at quarter end.

If you can't make yourself look good screw the competition. (noticed this especially with ex-one of the big 4 former employees)

Having never worked in such an environment I find this thread interesting and disturbing in equal measure. I feel sorry for those of you who have to live with that kind of bullshit.

It is not for everybody, but that’s not an excuse to treat everyone like dogs.  A properly supported managed and rewarded culture can provide very good experience and career opportunity, as well as pay and benefits.   Most people have stresses about their jobs and we all deal with those on very different levels.   It’s always important to remember there are bad managers and companies everywhere, you don’t have to and should be be afraid to move.

E.g. salespeople can be very well paid, the highest amongst most staff, but beneath the surface many are dealing with high pressure targets, long working hours and need wide ranging skills to compel People to buy.  It’s perfectly acceptable to not want that and back off to something else - different strokes etc.

Well done for resigning. You have the rest of the summer to enjoy on your bike, make the most of it.

Reading this thread makes me realise I too need to knock my crap job on the head for the sake of my sanity and health. Actually its not the job that's crap, its the manager.

Targets and balanced score cards are all good if the management and culture from the very top are competent. i.e. Supportive and setting achievable goals, with an incentive scheme designed to drive performance rather than backstabbing. It should be in everyone's interest that you achieve your targets and paying your commission should a pleasure (You created the revenue / profit to make it possible).

Getting rid of the bottom 10% of performers is another matter but in a co with 10k staff it can be essential. No one has a 100% hit rate on recruiting good people. That 10% person can often be ill suited to the job or just a total **** e.g. The bad chef stopping the waiter getting their tip, the developer or tester passing on shoddy code that kills your project, the project manager that can't manage their way into work in the morning...

From what you say above it sounds like the co potentially has multiple layers of poor management without competent support / delivery functions. Only choice is to play the game or jump ship to a better run co. Sounds like you have made the right decision.

If you are in tech sales and looking for a better role:

* Make sure the product and co is good - can't sell c**p product no matter how good a sales person you are.
* Ask exactly how tech pre-sales, BA, project management and dev are managed. They should be able to answer well how they would avoid every nightmare situation that made you leave last co. If reasons are valid they will be happy to listen / answer.
* Pick a co that is scaling rather than surviving. Always helps avoid backstabbing.
* Good to work out exactly what part of the sales process you are good at e.g. lead gen, pre-sales, closer, acc manager. In my experience each require a very different person / skillset / psychology. Don't try to be all. Decent co's will understand this.
* Focus on quality of company / quality of direct manager rather than basic pay.
* Never look down at sales / support roles. They are just as important and dev, PM,BA roles. On more than one occasion I've seen head of tech sales laugh at the end the year with a higher salary than the CEO/MD for smashing their targets.

sillysilly

Targets and balanced score cards are all good if the management and culture from the very top are competent. i.e. Supportive and setting achievable goals, with an incentive scheme designed to drive performance rather than backstabbing. It should be in everyone’s interest that you achieve your targets and paying your commission should a pleasure (You created the revenue / profit to make it possible).

I guess that is more aimed at me though it all translates to NickC as well.
All my scorecards are based on billable hours not sales but without sales I can't get billable hours.

However the sales people have no budget or minimal at best and I get no commission and at best it is a mitigation to slightly missing a target that someone might argue is a reason to keep me.

Getting rid of the bottom 10% of performers is another matter but in a co with 10k staff it can be essential. No one has a 100% hit rate on recruiting good people.

As I noted earlier it's the continued quarterly continuation. Assuming the first round got rid of the dead wood that then gets replaced ... but ultimately it's all about being in the right place at the right time.

From what you say above it sounds like the co potentially has multiple layers of poor management without competent support / delivery functions. Only choice is to play the game or jump ship to a better run co.

Ultimately the whole thing is managed as a short term "get through this quarter" for multiple levels above me. It's got sod all to do with delivering a good product and everything to do with manipulating your KPI's. [and the same applies for layers above me]
My direct line manager is a fantastic bloke but has no real influence.. my "sector" manager was a nice bloke but he just left (unknown reasons) .. indeed I have a lot of high level supporters (all people I've worked with) that have got me through quarter ends but they are all limited in influence and are all handcuffed in looking after their own employment.

Only choice is to play the game or jump ship to a better run co.

The "game" is in my perception like a video game with infinite levels... you make it through one and then a new wave of alien spaceship come... you jump project for example simply because one is due to finish 2 weeks before quarter end and being on the bench at quarter end is terminal but ultimately it seems inevitable that you will get to a quarter end and bad luck will trump playing the game.

that of course leaves jumping ship.

Reading what you say above it sounds like you pay structure / targets are somewhere on a scale between unintentionally badly structured to semi predatory / gig economy. Variables beyond your control stopping you from hitting targets, dressed up as a full time role where the employer takes little risk.

I'm going to kick against a bit and say that I think performance management is a good thing if done properly.

Just employing people with no clarity on what they should do and a measure of how effective they are at doing them is difficult. I get that a good manager should be able to qualify, even to an extent quantify that but documenting rather than 'just knowing' is part of that.

What I disagree with is Performance Management by Calendar. This idea of a quarterly or half yearly process so that it fits in with neat HR timescales. I prefer to do project based objectives....so clear expectations of deliverables and timescales but within reason i don't care if that is a month or 4 months or even 14 months away. Of course I want regular check-ins (ties in to knowing if someone is performing) but that allows for the path from A -> B rarely being a straight lines. The concept that if it's achieved by 31.12 you've done well but do it by 10.1 and you're useless....even if the result is only really needed by 31.3.

I know salary increases and budgets have to be managed, and some increases and bonuses are tied to company performance so my preference will always be compromised by having to play the game. But PM as a concept isn't bad, in most cases it's the way it's implemented and used.

Reading what you say above it sounds like you pay structure / targets are somewhere on a scale between unintentionally badly structured to semi predatory / gig economy. Variables beyond your control stopping you from hitting targets, dressed up as a full time role where the employer takes little risk.

Pretty much .. though it would be pages to explain the intricacies.
Essentially my targets and continued employment hinge on being billable to an extent I have about 2 days worth of slack if I ever took my vacation. It's up to me to somehow find this work and from my side somehow make sure it gets signed. The sales person will also get shit if its not but that doesn't mitigate me getting in the shit. Not to mention you don't really have a chance to explain anyway.. and since 90% of my work is international and different profit centres no-one gives a monkey's anyway... either I got billed or not.. unless about 5 layers of people stick their neck out for me (and a whole load of others)...

However very few projects where I can add value are likely to get signed without me doing pre-sales support but the sales people don't have budget.
In practice this means if
Essentially my targets and continued employment hinge on being billable to an extent I have about 2 days worth of slack if I ever took my vacation. It's up to me to somehow find this work and from my side somehow make sure it gets signed. you are in a project and 100% billable you need to spend a lot of spare time working for free to line up the next project.

and that's without mentioning how for example you are expected to have zero travel time so I might have a project 3d/wk in Frankfurt and 2d a week in Riyad and I'm meant to somehow organise the clients and meetings so I can travel between them in my own time unless the client pays whilst I travel then I can bill them. (Except of course the sales people are so desperate it's not in the SoW)

Essentially my targets and continued employment hinge on being billable to an extent I have about 2 days worth of slack if I ever took my vacation. It's up to me to somehow find this work and from my side somehow make sure it gets signed.

So yep it's a bit gig economy, Uber driver and at first appearances it looks like the company is minimising it's risk but in reality it is creating risk but risk that can be deferred a quarter. and yep of course it then gets kicked down the street again next quarter until someone kicks the can and it turns into a massive dog poo and covers anyone in range as it explodes.