A continual and collaborative approach to performance development

CFO: “What happens if we invest in developing our people and they leave?”

HR Business Partner: “What happens if we don’t, and they stay?”

Today’s workers expect to be held accountable for results—but they also expect coaching, development, and regular feedback. Look carefully at the performance management process to see if it truly drives performance today or is merely an artifact of the past. In many cases, a shift from “evaluation” to “development and performance improvement” will drive appreciable results.

Learnings from Adobe best practice...

Prior to radically reforming its performance management system, managers at multinational software company Adobe spent over 80,000 hours per year on traditional performance evaluations—a process one manager described as “soul-crushing.”

Adobe, a company of 11,000 employees, 54 percent of whom work in North America, tried for five years to modify the traditional performance management system before abandoning it as inconsistent with Adobe’s strong culture of teamwork and collaboration.

Today, Adobe has a far simpler, but far more effective, system.

Either an employee or a manager may request a “check-in” every three months. Before the actual meeting occurs, a group of employees provides feedback on the employee’s performance.

The results form the basis of a conversation about performance improvement, rather than a zero-sum dispute about compensation or ranking. The goal is to make coaching and developing a continuous, collaborative process between managers and employees—a far more motivating outcome.

Importantly, Adobe’s new system focuses on both ends of the performance curve—keeping high performers happy and offering practical advice for lower performers looking to improve. Group performance is also evaluated, leading to a more rational determination of group compensation.

The results have been profound: Since rolling out the new approach worldwide, Adobe experienced a 30 percent reduction in voluntary turnover in a highly competitive talent environment.