Head Tale

I was recently out for supper with a bunch of friends including one high level manager who oversees a Canada-wide IT team for a large corporation.

It was interesting to compare notes about our workplaces.

He said he is all about high performers and strongly believes in performance management, expecting high results but also rewarding those high performers with above-industry salaries, perks and benefits to keep them.  I can’t remember the exact phrase he used but he said he sees three levels of employees – high, average and poor performers – and focuses on only working with high performers to ensure they can produce great work and, at the end of the day, save the company money.

I told him I’ve come up with my own phrase to describe those three levels of workers:

Rock Stars are solid at all parts of their job and basically “make the place run”.  Although there may some different views about who the Rock Stars are and/or what makes them Rock Stars, I think one good sign is that these people are widely regarded as Rock Stars by other employees who will look to them for guidance, advice and inspiration.

Rock Steadies are your average performers who do their jobs in a serviceable fashion but often don’t go “above and beyond” or have some deficiencies – sometimes in performance but just as often in other soft skills – that prevent them from reaching the next level.

Rock Bottoms are the problem employees – those who take up a lot of your time as a manager because they’re not self-starters or they have constant conflict with other employees or they’re simply not a good fit for the role (the role of probationary reviews is a topic for another day!)

(Full disclosure – since I’m writing this, I’m sure you think I see myself as a Rock Star and am patting myself on the back.  But that’s not true.  I have very kindly been called a “Rock Star” by various colleagues including many who reported to me which I take as a high compliment.  But I have also been called a “Rock Bottom” (er, not in those words) by some who don’t like my approach or style which reinforces I’m probably solidly in the middle.  That’s okay – I’d guess that only 5-10% of your entire workforce, at all levels, are Rock Stars. 80-90% are Rock Steadies and 5-10% are Rock Bottoms.)

Anyhow, I told him I am also all about high performers as the ideal employees for any organization and that you should do anything you can to keep them. But working in a unionized environment presents unique challenges because strong results in performance management are basically meaningless since there is often no reward tied to the PA process – salary increases, bonuses, heck, even a perk like unique swag to recognize high performance – is potentially grievable or could cause more problems than it solves.

I’ve seen a lot of Rock Stars leave the unionized environment of the library over the years (and I always joke that since I stick around, that only reinforces my status as a Rock Steady, or, depending who you ask, a Rock Bottom!) and I think that’s a huge loss.  I think any organization – for-profit or not – benefits by finding unique and creative ways to keep their Rock Stars happy and moving the organization forward.