Organisations in the APAC region have the most extensive practices when it comes tting the weighting of goals and behaviours compared to only 55% globally.
Despite the fact that organisations understand that talent is a source of competitive advantage and that enhanced productivity leads to improved business results, many continue to struggle to establish effective performance management programs, with only 3% worldwide claiming their own system provides exceptional value.
The findings, taken from Mercer’s 2013 Global Performance Management Survey of 53 countries, indicate that whilst no region or country leads the world in performance management best practices, organisations in APAC are generally more likely to have tools, guidelines and metrics in place compared to those in Europe, which have a tendency to focus more on career development.
While more than half of organisations worldwide cascade goal setting to the business unit, it is more common in APAC and Eastern Europe, noted by about three-quarters of organisations. Goal setting at the country level occurs most often in South Korea and India, and least often in the United States and Canada.
In addition to setting employee goals, conducting formal year-end review discussions and using performance ratings, the key drivers of successful performance management include manager skills, executive commitment, calibration, and technology. Companies with higher levels of executive commitment are more likely to have effective performance management programs. One-on-one performance discussions, formal performance planning, and team accountability are some of the more common practices being implemented to direct teams and achieve desired business results.
Commenting on the findings, Colleen O’Neill, Senior Partner at Mercer said, “In today’s challenging business and economic environment, companies are struggling to achieve important outcomes, like focusing employees on the ‘right’ things and driving them to perform at higher levels, with their current performance management programs. Although there is a lot of talk about workforce segmentation and innovative performance management practices, few effectively support dynamic performance and career development processes, and a minority of companies has made revisions to their practices in the last few years.”
Kate Bravery, Principal, Leadership & Talent Solutions Leader, Asia and Middle East added, “Despite this focus on the front-end of the performance management process, many Asian countries are trying to quantify performance in terms of behaviours and goals to support potential need in high growth markets. Linkages to pay and succession are hot topics given the talent pressures in the region, yet the quality of conversations supporting these decisions and the explicit connection to career development could be enhanced. Thus, more targeted discussions, a greater focus on development and fully leveraging technology will optimise the practices we see across the region.”
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
