Great, Good & Gone!

‘Small’ one year toddler of my neighbor was playing with a ‘big’ toy car of my son. She was trying her best to push the car out of the flat into the wings of the apartment. She succeeded in pushing only the first pair of wheels out of the door but the rear pair got stuck and would not come-out despite her best attempts. She then decided to board the car and although she succeeded in sitting on the top of it after quite an effort, she could not only manage to face the rear of the car. The she tried to push the car-out again. The car, however, would not budge from its place. I was really impressed by the little girl’s valiant efforts and instinctively wanted to go and help the ‘angel-faced’ in her efforts. For me, it would be just a matter of a slight finger-push to the car to roll-it-out into the gallery. But then I thought, would she really appreciate my help? I may help her out of the parental ego of patronizing but that would take away the pleasure of performance and achievement out of her. There would be absolutely no incentive to her after my help. And, then suddenly, she managed to pull the car into the gallery. Both she and the car tumbled into the gallery rather than a smooth drive. But as she gathered herself up on her feet again, she had a winning smile on her face. I am glad, I did not help! On her part, the cute Barbie-like girl, learnt to perform and the joy of performing forever!

Performance is a powerful engager. For most organizations the key lies in creating a true culture of performance that acts as a powerful engagement tool.

Just last week, Biscuit maker Britannia Industries pink slipped 42 executives in a single day, at the same time rewarded the top performers with bonuses as high as 150%. This is not a surprise to those who know that at Britannia this is part of the ongoing performance management process, which differentiates employees into three categories - the great, good and under-performers. Each year, under-performers (usually 20 to 30) are put on a performance improvement plan and progress is consistently and carefully monitored. In those cases, where the level of performance continues to be below the acceptable benchmark and there is no noticeable improvement, employees are transitioned. The Rs 4,600-crore Britannia, which has 250 managers, has been growing at strong double digits every year for the last four-five years. In future as Britannia faces tough competition from rivals like ITC, Kraft and Parle and as it forays into a new category of cereals, the Industry experts believe that companies like Britannia are bound to get tougher on performance expectation from employees.

Britannia’s ‘great’, ‘good’ and ‘gone’ performance management policy is justified because it truly rewards the performers and motivates them to perform even better in future. The notion of treating everyone equally is flawed. That can never happen and companies like Britannia have understood and implemented them well. More than anything it helps in fostering a culture of performance that acts as a powerful engagement tool for those who do! In sharp contrast most of our government set-ups have followed a performance management policy that has never segregated performers from non-performers. Hence there was no incentive to perform. I read in the newspaper that even the government is now considering performance-based incentives to employees. Hindustan Lever Ltd (HUL) and Procter & Gamble (P&G) rewarded their India -CEOs with hefty hikes for robust growth at their respective operations. ‘Unilever for its part recorded a 15% growth in sales from emerging markets as against just 5% in the developed world. P&G's three companies India — P&G Home Products, P&G Health & Hygiene and Gillette India — registered double-digit growth in the last fiscal year.’ Both companies believe in paying for performance and paying competitively to all its employees.