Enablers and barriers to high performance working

Insights from the first Shaping the Future caf event

Christina Evans, Senior Researcher, Shaping the Future team

Despite the current economic gloom it is really encouraging to see the number of people that have registered an interest in our new flagship research and engagement programme Shaping the Future which is investigating sustainable high performance in the context of fast-moving change. To date around 1500 people from diverse business sectors have registered their interest via the STF website. This figure has surpassed expectations given that the target was to get 1000 people signed up by the end of year one.

See overview of Shaping the Future programmeSo what is about this programme that is so appealing? Responses to the question What brought you here today? at our first caf event on 21 October 2008 provide some interesting clues. For some practitioners there is a clear business imperative to identify innovative and cost effective HR solutions to address current business issues. This includes gaining new ideas and best practice on how to achieve high performance, particularly in a declining economic climate. Others are interested in finding new solutions to the perennial problem of talent management, particularly how to link talent management with business performance.

But even more encouraging is the comments from practitioners who want to influence HR thinking for the future in order to play a key role in helping organisations adopt a longer-term perspective. Some practitioners see the high-performance agenda as one where HR can really make a difference to the long-term future of organisations and thus their reason for signing up being To work with a group of people who can influence the approach to the human capital agenda that faces organisations in this environment.

The latest figures on skills gaps quoted in issue 25 of Impact indicates that there are many opportunities for HR to contribute to the high performance agenda: lack of experience, particularly amongst those recently recruited, poor motivation, and inability to keep up with change are three of the cited causes of skills gaps. These are all areas where HR do have something worthwhile to contribute. In doing so not they only improve performance in their own organisation but help UK organisations more generally move up the value chain according to John Philpott, the CIPDs Chief Economist.

See the current edition of ImpactBut most people would agree that developing a high-performance culture is not easy. It takes time and commitment from people at all levels in organisations, it cannot be achieved by a single heroic figure at the top.

Our caf event identified a number of enablers and barriers to high performance working. These are summarised below, together with some questions to help assess where your organisation is currently and uncover potential areas for change.

Enablers to high performanceQuestions to explore in your organisation

Shared purpose"Having a sense of purpose unites people" Is there a sense of shared purpose in your organisation?

How is this communicated and reinforced?

Would all employees, including those that have recently joined, be able to communicate what the organisation's core purpose is?

How does this influence performance?

Clear strategy

Need to live the strategy the strategic wish list needs to be brought to fruition Is there clarity from the top about the future direction of the organisation?

How doable is the strategy?

Are there enough doers to make the strategy happen?

Are there clear accountabilities for implementation?

Strong leadership authentic, honest, trust-worthy

Enabling CEOs have a future perspective and think about succession planning" What does strong leadership look like in your organisation?

Is leadership distributed throughout the organisation?

How good is your talent management system at identifying emergent leaders?

Do leaders have the support that they need to be effective?

Are they helped to learn from their mistakes?

How do leaders demonstrate that people are really valued?

Performance management

Be lean and mean but not in a destructive way. Is PM an integral part of everyday management behaviour, or is it discrete and compartmentalised?

How aligned is individual/team performance with customer satisfaction ratings?

Are managers rewarded for moving outside their process and systems comfort zone?

Is sufficient attention paid to team/department level performance?

What are the practices for getting new employees fully up to speed?

HR

There is an opportunity for HR to make a contribution, especially when the financials are bad. Are you focusing on the areas that make the biggest difference e.g. enabling great professionals to become great leaders?

Do you slavishly follow best practice strategies, ignoring context?

How do you ensure that the employer brand is well defined?

The barriers to high performance covered similar themes to the enablers, but the questions that were raised were slightly different as indicated in the table below.

Barriers to high performanceQuestions to explore in your organisation

Performance management - lack of clarity

What do we mean by high performance? What metrics should we use? Do you have a clear sense of what good and bad performance looks like?

Are poor performers, i.e. those with values that are not congruent with the organisations, dealt with swiftly?

How good are your leaders at overcoming inertia in the workforce?

Are the implications of striving for certain targets clearly understood?

Middle managers

Middle managers may not be good leaders they should be our area of focus and then they would become enablers. How engaged are your middle managers?

How supportive are they of what senior management are striving to achieve?

How well do they communicate messages from the top leadership lower down the organisation?

HR

Is HR integrated into the business, or is it still isolated? Does HR deliver what the business needs, or what it thinks the business wants?

Does the reward system reward the behaviours that the organisation wants?

So what could HR do to help organisations become more high-performing? Some of the questions raised above clearly require discussing at senior level. The question is what is the best forum for discussing these questions? Is it at leadership away days, that HR facilitate? Or is there a need to find space in the regular management meeting structures that HR attend to cover some of these topics?

Recognising that change doesnt have to come from the top, and we are gathering examples of where organisations are trying to encourage more bottom-up change approaches, another approach HR could take is to get different business areas/teams to engage in a dialogue about the enablers and barriers to high performance in their area. Having helped surfaced these you could then get the department/team working with Lewins Force-field model to identify actions to strengthen the enablers and minimise the barriers.

Involving departments/teams in this type of activity is likely to help build a sense of shared purpose; something that was identified as a key enabler to high performance as indicated in the enablers list above.

In order to avoid change fatigue syndrome, encourage the department/team that you are working with to pick one/two areas that they are passionate about changing and that they can get on and do without having to wait for a decision from further up the organisation. The following questions used by sports psychologists1 to help individuals maximise performance may help the department/team get a clearer focus on what they want to change:

Are the planned actions within your control?

Are the planned actions realistic?

Will the planned actions make a real impact, or do they simply paper over the cracks?

Will the planned actions have an impact in a relatively short time frame?

A final thought, encourage the department/team to share lessons learnt and celebrate success!