Aligning employee performance with organizational goals.

• Author: Heffes, Ellen M.
• Position: HUMAN RESOURCES

What's the real objective of the employee performance-review process? The ultimate motive is to measure employee performance against relevant goals in order to drive higher individual and organizational performance. Previously relegated to an annual event, leading companies are now making the employee performance management process as much part of the daily routine as logging into email daily.

In August, the Human Capital Institute (HCI) partnered with Workscape--a provider of integrated HR solutions and services in Marlborough, Mass--to better understand the trends behind how U.S. organizations are approaching employee performance management.

More than 70 percent of 690 respondents were from mid-size firms of 1,000-5,000 employees. Business services (24 percent) and health care (17 percent) were the two dominant industries.

Surprisingly, even in the current economic climate, 66 percent of those surveyed admitted an inability to realign employee goals with corporate goals as they ebb and flow throughout the year. In those cases where respondents can define and adjust employee goals dynamically throughout the year (23 percent), nearly half wait until performance review time to do so.

"According to this research, despite overwhelming agreement that employee performance management's purpose is to drive greater organizational and individual performance, a large number of organizations (68 percent) equate performance management with a function that...