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performance

Performance management matters despite Dilbert’s mockery!

It is annual performance review time for many organizations! The actual performance review may be a simple rating sheet, a multi-page document, a massive competency check-lists or an online 360 review. Whatever the format of your reviews, it is your entire performance appraisal process, which includes the manager & employee performance appraisal meetings that determines the effectiveness of your appraisal system for your organizational development goals. Scott Adams has dedicated a multitude of Dibert strips mocking performance reviews (scroll to end of article) but for organizations today, performance management still matters.

 

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Facebook and employees’ rights

You’ve probably heard by now that some employers in the United States have come up with the idea of asking prospective employees for their Facebook passwords so they can take a closer look at what these candidates are all about. Is it legal? Is it ethical? Is it fair?

 

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High achievers = high anxieties in the workplace

Is there an overachiever at your workplace? Do you have trouble understanding and working with them? High achievers, sometimes known as workaholics, have been found to be secretly plagued by fears and self-doubts and prone to resist change. Though it is important to be hard-working and have a drive to achieve in order to be successful, it can get out of control.

 

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Let me compare thee…

To achieve the best of both worlds it is important to align your data with common standards that are most likely to provide the opportunity for like with like comparison and like with unlike comparison. This creates the capability to compare in a way that confirms your performance or compare in a way that pushes your performance. As with all data and analytic practices the right thing to do is the one which moves the performance needle for your organization. The more HR can do this AND demonstrate this the better.

 

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Performance is relative

How do we resolve this dilemma? Time to Fill does tell us something important, yet we cannot be sure whether a change to this number is due to our own efforts or the effects of the overall job market.

 

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Are our devices harming our health?

I’ve caved. The end of my phone contract has been looming large, and as I pondered my options, somehow I thought, “I’d really like to be more connected.” So I’m ditching my two-year-old, decidedly not smart, flip phone and getting an iPhone—and a data plan. Soon I’ll be able to tweet and update my Facebook status and share photos wherever I am. And I’m afraid.

 

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Time for compensation planning

The beginning of a new year is the usual time for owners, managers, HR and payroll professionals to work on their compensation planning. The objective of compensation planning is determining what to pay employees to entice them to continue to work for your company.

 

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Multi-tasking: the unfulfilled promise of doing more with less

The common meaning of multi-tasking is doing more than one thing at once, like walking and chewing gum. Do you hold several conversations at the same time—on the phone, on Facebook and in person? Do you listen to music or the radio or watch TV or eat lunch while you check your favourite blogs and watch your auctions on eBay? Do you have several work projects on the go, spread across your real and virtual desktops? Is it hard to keep track?

 

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