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What is interesting about recent data released from the unemployment perspective is that, unlike in most recessions, productivity has not gone down. This is generally likely to mean one of two things: a) that people are working longer hours and their longer hours aren’t being documented or b) there have been a lot of layoffs in the general and administrative type of functions through our economy. If the latter has happened, it tells me that when the economy recovers, it’s going to come back solidly from a job perspective, because productivity generally suffers during recessions. And if it hasn’t in this one, then that’s because companies are really lean as far as thei...

As times are getting tougher, people are wondering about what the future holds and what they can do to protect their jobs, and how to do their jobs the best they can. One of the things I’ve learned, especially in the commercial sector, is the need for understanding the numbers that are important for your job. What is the performance index—is it the number of clients you serve, is it the renewal rate of the clients you serve, is it the revenue that you’re servicing? Whatever the number is, you need to maximize it. If your job does not have that number, then work very hard to create one number or two or three that you can use as a guide post or as a goal around which you perf...

I often see people becoming confused between effort and output. In most organizations, the ultimate success depends not on the effort you put in but on the output you create. So if you say to your manager that you spent 60 hours the previous week working on a project and you have no results to show for it, it clearly indicates that a) you didn’t know what you were doing or received poor direction or b) you did not have a clear sense of why you were doing it. Either way is an unhealthy way of continuing to operate. Remember, in your job don’t confuse effort with output—effort is only an indicator of where you may be at. Output is what determines success, growth opportunities...

I have written in the past about results, relationships and performance. One of the credos that I live by is that measurement improves performance. There is a certain amount of room for interpretation of this statement, but I fundamentally believe that it is true, given that you are using the appropriate metric. In the HR business, a common metric that we use during hiring is cost-per-hire, which is what it costs an organization on average to hire an individual. But in certain situations, this might be the wrong metric to apply when trying to judge the performance of an organization. Let’s consider an Organization A with 1000 employees, which is growing at the rate of 100 new employe...

One of the difficulties that people often face is trying to keep their personal and professional lives separate. While many people claim to be able to do so successfully, I am one of those individuals that are incapable of doing this—my life tends to roll into one giant muddle. So, as I think about my list of business goals for any given quarter, it is not unusual for me to include a personal goal—this could be something like exercising more regularly—with a measurable outcome such as managing to curl, say, 40 lbs in each hand—or spending more time contributing to the community I live in. There are two ways to incorporate personal goals: one is to make a separate list...

In my last post, I spoke about setting goals. Setting your Top 1-5 goals will provide you with focus and enable you to prioritize. You will focus more on outcomes than on tasks. The process will also make you think about and give you clarity about your line of sight in the organization. In addition, having a few specific goals will enable you to be more committed about achieving them, and make them more attainable. Questions that you can ask yourself when setting the goals include: How important is this goal? How confident am I about the pathway chosen to attain the goal? Is it measurable? Is this goal consistent with the organization’s core values and objectives?...

A good way to remain focused at work is by setting goals to be achieved within a finite time. At Kenexa, we have been following the norm of setting Top 1-5 goals for many years now. The Top 1-5 consists of goals that are based on either one’s day-to-day job or a special project you have been working on. These goals need to tie in to our organizational objectives or benefit one of our clients. They are required to be tightly set, with specific timelines for completion. As we set these goals, we need to think about resource needs as well—do we have what we need to fulfill the goal, or do we need to tie in with someone else to complete it, and of what nature is this dependence?

Are you truly engaged at work? Do you feel you are a good fit for the job you do? Are you passionate about what you do? Are you able to go beyond the call of duty because you want to do so? Do you feel your efforts are well recognized? Do you wake up each morning eager to go to work? If you cannot truly answer “Yes” to all of these questions, you are not really engaged. The opposite of engagement is not disengagement; it is apathy. If all you find yourself doing is clocking in your eight hour-workday and going home, feeling that you have done your day’s work and that’s it, it is truly time for you to start thinking about moving on. You are not doing anybody any good,...

Another aspect of relationships is the credibility created by setting the right expectations and then by meeting those expectations. Take the case of the builders A and B that I spoke about in my last post. They are both bidding for the same job, and they look at the design and then need to submit projections for the materials required, the cost of building and the timeline for completion. They also need to factor in the many things that can go wrong, such as lack of availability of a particular material, or delayed delivery of supplies, or inclement weather. At the same time, each knows that he needs to outbid the competition in order to get the job. Furthermore, each needs to walk the fine...

Two of the many factors that influence performance are relationship and results. I have spoken about this notion in an earlier post. Another factor that comes into play here is a person’s individual perception of someone’s performance, which again is affected by his or her relationship with that person, and the projected and actual results. Say you decide to build a new house. You shortlist two builders, let’s call them A and B. You show them the design and they give you very similar quotations for the work. You choose A, and decide to start the building. Builder A gives you a timeline as to when he thinks the project will be complete, and he actually delivers on his promis...