Every week, I review blogs that cover talent development to find the very best talent development posts. This week, you’ll find pointers to pieces about performance appraisals and coaching, motivation and talent management, lessons from physics for leadership development, hiring and retaining talent, and a strategic view of human resources.
From the Human Capital League: Performance appraisals are not built for coaching
“People are sick of performance appraisals. Really: they’re bad for your health. Coaching is getting a lot of attention as a more effective way to engage and develop your employees. So it’s not surprising to see performance appraisal vendors jumping on the coaching bandwagon, looking for ways to adapt their legacy tools and approaches. It’s ridiculous to think that performance appraisals can deliver on the promise of coaching: they were designed to solve a completely different problem.”
Wally’s Comment: Coaching is something managers should be doing with team members every day. It’s part of the job. The formal performance appraisal in most companies is a verbal report card. Even so, there are people who suggest that the way to improve the performance appraisal process is to turn the formal meeting into a coaching session. Jesse Goldman gives you the reasons why that’s not a good idea.
“How much is it worth to you to keep your ship alive until journey’s end? Hopefully a lot more than British Sea Captains from the 1700’s. At least until they were compensated differently.”
Wally’s Comment: Kevin Grossman draws on history and economics to show how empathy and compensation can work together.
From DDI: Wanted: Quantum Physicist, for Leadership Development
“I’ve never met a quantum physicist who switched careers to go into HR. My guess, although I have no evidence of this, is that once you become a quantum physicist you don’t spend a lot of time thinking about career changes, and if you do, you don’t think about leadership development. But on the slim chance that one did, I bet he or she would have a thing or two to say about how we’re going about cultivating great leaders.”
Wally’s Comment: Matt Paese, Vice President of Executive Solutions for DDI, looks to physics for ways to create a more dynamic view of leadership development.
“As the economy improves, hiring and retaining talent become the issues. How do companies hire employees needed for the business and retain strong performers?”
Wally’s Comment: Read this article for ideas on how process and work environment interact and how you can use them to improve the quality of who you hire and who stays with you.
From HR Tips: Taking a Strategic View of Human Resources
“HR Strategy Yesterday we received an HR Tip request from a reader about HR Strategy. Our reader writes, “Please help me on how to design and plan an HR strategy for an organization.†We love it when our readers reach out to us with questions or seek advice, so here is the answer to your great request.”
Wally’s Comment: This post is hardly a “tip.” It’s more of a meditation on how to create and effective HR strategy.
