Welcome performance management fanatics! This is the fourth part of our series on the amazing world of workplace performance management. If you like what you read, then please subscribe to our blog using the sidebar to the right, or follow us on Twitter for regular updates!
A company is a living, breathing organism, made up of dozens, hundreds, often thousands of employees! But with so many people driving the organisation, how can you ensure that all of them want to steer it in the same direction?
When we talk about values and principles, we mean the corporate values which define your company. They’re your organisation’s mission statement, they tell your staff and the rest of the world exactly who you are and what you stand for.
Including values and principles as a key part of your performance management efforts is a great way to make sure that every employee understands your company and shares its philosophy.
Why bother with values and principles?
Back in 1992, Professors John P. Kotter and James L. Heskett published a ground-breaking study in their book Corporate Culture and Performance. They looked at the corporate cultures of 200 companies and tracked their economic performances across an 11-year period.
Their findings were simply staggering! For example, when comparing companies with strong company values to those without, they found that their revenue grew an average of 682% compared to just 166% over the 11 years. Net income grew an incredible 756% compared to a measly 1% for the companies lacking strong corporate culture!
So spending the time and effort to clearly define your core values can bring real financial benefits! They drive the people within your business, turning everyone into perfect representatives for you. They even help you when bringing new people on board, as you can make sure you only recruit people who share your vision and will fit perfectly into your organisation.
So how do we do it?
With our online Performance Centre, we’ve carved out a dedicated area for managing Values and Principles. And as you might expect from a company which has made its name through a gamified learning management system, we’ve added gamification functionality to performance management too!
Any employee can come to this section to remind themselves of the different values which define their company and its workforce. But they’re also incentivised to demonstrate these values in the workplace. How is this done? Badges!
Each time an employee becomes a paragon of certain company value, they could be eligible to earn a badge for it. But there’s a catch… These badges can only be awarded by someone else!
This means that each demonstration of a value has to be verified by a colleague. It also helps to foster a sense of team spirit, as you have everyone working towards meeting the values, and keeping an eye out for opportunities to reward their colleagues.
Each badge has an accompanying comment to explain exactly why it was earned. You can even set a target number of badges to earn within a set period. So, for example, you can task employees with earning three of each type of badge between each review.
This is sure to get everyone living and breathing your values and principles!
Want to see more of what our Performance Centre can do? Take a free tour today!
