Talent Management - July 2008 - (Page 31)

supply right and, most of all, how were they treated? And that gets the short [end of the stick] in most performance management processes.” In today’s retail market, performance management cannot be solely based on a sales target; it has to be about the total customer experience so employees see a real connection between their jobs and how they treat customers. “Once I embrace that the money I receive and the job I have is not dependent upon the company, but is dependent upon the customer deciding to do business with the company, then my whole relationship with the customer changes,” Tate said. “Yet, when we interview most employees, they see the company as the benefactor of everything they get. But the reality is [that] when the customer decides not to [spend their] money [at] the company, nobody wins.” It seems easy then. Retail organizations just have to train their employees on customer service and then assess them on that interaction. But that’s not all. The whole structure of the business needs to shift to support that relationship. “If I’m getting dinged [because] I don’t handle every customer in a certain amount of minutes, and my productivity charts are low because I answered two extra questions for a customer, then I’m not going to choose to be courteous or polite,” Tate said. “Any customer service training needs to be connected to performance management and the day in, day out fabric of the business. The problem [we] see is it’s disconnected.” To ensure performance management is connected to the rest of the business, Tate said the process must be simple. Each employee should have a few clear performance goals, there should be clarity in those goals, measurement of the goals must be outlined, managers must coach and provide tools for reaching those targets and, lastly, there has to be an accurate evaluation of employee performance. “This is a malaise across the United States: [Performance management is] too cumbersome,” he explained. “They have way too many performance expectations that people are accountable for — the employees get mixed messages. A good performance management system at its very essence will make sure people have clear expectations.” The Best Buy Experience At Best Buy, everyone has a name, not a number. This is most evident in the company’s performance management process — driven not by the bottom line, but by employees’ strengths, weaknesses and needs, and their managers’ ability to provide appropriate development opportunities. July 2008 talent management magazine www.talentmgt.com 31 http://www.talentmgt.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Talent Management - July 2008

Talent Management - July 2008 Editor’s Letter Human Performance Leading Edge Learning Connections Guest Editorial Passive Candidate Recruiting: Evolving with a Changing Workforce How Do They Feel? Sec Regulations and Executive Compensation Performance Management: A Retail Perspective Train the Non-Trainer Management-Go-Round: Developing Future Leaders Netflix Creates Its Own Script for Talent Management Intuit Spotlights Strategic Importance of Global Employee Recognition Make HR a Profit Center: Automate Technology to Gather Tax Credit Data Offshoring and the Impact on Talent Management Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources Full Potential

Talent Management - July 2008

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