Simply Good Performance

My husband is a partner in a small IT consulting company. Over the years he’s come home occasionally in frustration, talking about another help desk or dispatch employee who left because of the stress of the job or to move up in their careers. After a bit of commiserating, I always ask him what training and performance management they did with the exiting employee. While his responses vary, they tend to focus around providing a detailed manual, assigning Suzy (not his real name) to help and answer questions, and allowing the employee to interview for the one or two upwardly mobile roles that became available each year.

While none of these things are bad, they are likely not helping the company or its employees identify changes that could help employees perform while minimizing the stress. Enabling employee performance doesn’t need to be complicated, it just needs to be thoughtful, planned and have built in accountability.

I like to take a Human Performance Improvement (HPI) approach when helping companies diagnose and solve performance challenges. Simply put, an HPI approach evaluates the job in terms of its objectives, how it fits into the company’s strategy and objectives, and the criteria for success. It also looks at 3 key areas - People, Processes and Technology - that support or enable the job.

In the case of a help desk employee, we look at the key performance indicators and incentives the employee is measured against - length of calls, customer service ratings, or number of tickets resolved. Sometimes we find that the KPIs run contradictory to the employee’s actual experience - for example, they may be held to a 5 minute maximum call time, but find that half of their calls require longer in order to help the customer resolve their issue. Realigning the KPIs with reality and with the company’s actual goals (satisfied customers on the first call), can improve performance and reduce employee stress.

It’s also important to evaluate performance for any knowledge or skill gaps, and ensure help desk employees can easily access help resources when they need them. For example, if your company just launched a new product did the help desk receive sufficient training on that product? Are they receiving regular updates with bugs and fixes? Do they have an easily accessed and navigable resource they can refer to while helping customers? If the answer to any of these questions is “no”, there is likely a need for additional training and usable performance support resources.

None of these changes are complicated, but all of them can be hugely impactful. Simply Good Performance means setting your employees up for success and making is easy for you to support them.