Evaluate employees regularly
You may get the most amazing people coming into your organization, but if you don’t set expectations and measure their progress, then they, like your organization, aren’t going to grow.
“Put together a performance plan before they come on board so they already know what the clear expectations of the job are,” Gummer says. “Once you have that, you can evaluate folks as you go along.”
He says to evaluate your new people at least monthly. Once people prove themselves and get acclimated to the job, then you can relax that to quarterly or semiannual reviews. With any evaluation, whether it’s a brand-new hire or a seasoned employee, you have to ask a lot of questions though.
“Part of that evaluation is what’s going right?” he says. “What do we need to do differently? How can we help you be successful? The success of the person, as much as it needs to be driven by our colleagues, the manager has to take responsibility in their successes and wants to do what they can to help them be successful.”
In addition to simply asking those questions and reviewing their performance, it’s also important to create action steps to move the employee forward in their job and career.
“Any performance plan that we have here has a development plan as well — what can we do to help that person as we move along?” Gummer says. “[How can we] make sure they’re taking advantage of the training we have here and make sure they’re taking advantage of workin
g with other colleagues that we have here and putting together different programs to help them be successful?”
Remember to keep both the end goal and action steps to get there in mind when putting together a development plan.
“It has to be results-based and efforts-based,” he says. “That is, we have to get results if we’re going to continue to be successful overall, but we have to know what gets to those results, and those are certain effort goals. You need to measure both of them, but the ultimate measure tool is the result.”
Besides simply measuring employee performance, you also need to identify their skills and desires and those who have the capacity to move into leadership roles in the future.
“Evaluate them on leadership qualities — what they desire to do, what they would like to do within the company over time and where we see them headed — and then create opportunities or experiences to help them get that recognition that they need in order to be considered for other positions in the future,” Gummer says.
This process of molding people into leadership roles can take years.
“It starts off, you take care of the immediate needs and to make sure they can be successful today, but you have to have an eye to the future as to where that person might be and be willing to put in some additional training,” he says.
That may mean sending them to an outside coach or having them attend internal programs. Other times it may mean sending them to external programs and conferences around the country that are available to them.
“Part of it may be moving people to different positions within your company for different periods of time and getting them to have those various experiences as you see them move up in the organization,” Gummer says. “If you think that they’re going to continue to want to move up in the hierarchy, they have to have a variety of experiences. They can’t be one-dimensional.”
The last piece of this though is to make sure you stay in touch with your employees’ needs and desires and aren’t trying to force people into leadership roles who don’t want them. Instead of having a preset group of people who are identified as “leaders” and get all the special attention, Gummer and his team instead identify every person’s needs and desires and focus on giving more to those who want it.
“People change what they want to do over time,” he says. “To slot somebody or predestine them to something is not what we’re about. We’re about, ‘Does this person want to move upward in the company? Do we see their performance as supporting that?’”
It’s also important to touch base with people in those regular reviews to see if their goals or desires have changed at all. Oftentimes, someone may have wanted to climb the corporate ladder, but if he or she is now starting a family or caring for an ill relative, that person may not want the additional responsibilities that he or she desired in the past.
“That’s why we need to have constant communication so we’re not trying to get them to be something they don’t want to be,” Gummer says. “We have to stay focused on the employees’ needs as well as our own, and if there’s change, we have to take another avenue.”
If you’re able to take these approaches with your people in developing them, then, like Comerica, you’re likely to see long-term growth and success.
“If you want to be able to have a company that’s successful over a long period of time, leadership development is an absolute must,” Gummer says. “Sitting down with your folks and knowing what they want and discussing with them what you believe their potential is and getting them to agree to a development plan and executing on a development plan is what’s going to assure that that person is growing in the company as the company grows.
“If you don’t do that, you’re probably destined for a very short tenure in your company, whether that’s selling out someday or just closing up someday. If you have a desire to make your company an enterprise and not just a small business and have long life, then leadership development is very important to do that.”
How to reach: Comerica Bank, (800) 589-1400 or www.comerica.com
