Aligning Performance Management Across Countries At Different Stages

Problem

"In my role as Technology Executive I have to manage 3 different development centres across Europe (Rumania, Spain, Germany). All of them with a different mentality and company background. Spain and Germany were relatively new sites (<2 years old), whereas in Romania we have people which are with us for almost 20 years. So how to align performance figures, when those sites have so little in common?"

Actions taken

"Performance Management is not only a driving vehicle to ensure your strategic goals will make it to the market. There is also a strong human aspect associated, as most employees will see it as THE method to evaluate their value for the company. To tackle that sensitive topic, I have created my personal agenda for those sites. Those included skill development, focus areas for the upcoming 12 months AND a collaboration component. Each development lead had one major development project, which required support from a peer from another site. As you can imagine, the presentation leads to a lot of resistance and arguments on why this is not possible. In order to take all arguments seriously I had both individual sessions and joint sessions (one peer from each site, which are supposed to work together). It was super important to stick in those talks solely on facts. It turned out that after several sessions and follow up discussions we had a unified goal set for the entire company which included collaborative tasks and shared KPIs."

Lessons learned

"This is a good example of turning an obstacle into an opportunity. What seems to be a problem upfront - aligning goals across several sites, turned out to be a good vehicle to foster collaboration. It is important that mutual agreements and transparency key to get that concept also working in reality. If you are facing the same issues in your organisation, please feel free and reach out to me."