Integrating learning and performance management

Hello. My name's Nick Wilton, I'm from Oxford Brookes Business School, and today's talk is on integrating learning and performance management.

The session objectives for today's talk is to do a number of things. Firstly, we'll start by outlining the connection between employee learning, human resource development, and performance management. We'll then go on to look at how learning interventions can positively impact on employee performance, the role of learning in proving employee performance. We'll look at the role of performance and development reviews in supporting performance improvements, and in particular, how learning and development form part of that review and planning process. We'll then look at a case study, a well referenced case study, looking at Adobe, and that check-in approach to performance management, which was a particularly novel approach to performance management, which is becoming more and more prevalent. Then we'll look at key considerations in addressing individual and collective performance through learning interventions. Learning not simply at the level of the individual employee, but at the level of the collective, the organisation as a whole, and how learning can shape performance improvements through learning. And then, we'll look at key questions in determining appropriate learning interventions to improve performance. We won't look in huge detail at "HRD", or human resource development activities, but we'll look at some of the key questions that organisations have and the type of tools that organisations could use in order to intervene and improve performance.

First, some background. The talk so far in performance management, I'm sure they've covered off this question, is that performance management is, quite often, very good at looking backwards, looking back at reviewing previous performance as the basis on which tend to make particular administrative decisions, such as the rating and ranking of employees, the distribution of reward, who gets a bonus, who doesn't, how much, and so on. But also questions around promotion, career development, and who gets interesting opportunities in the course of their career. However, performance management is often accused of not being terribly good at looking forward and planning for future performance. Obviously, learning is a key element of that planning process. So, it's particularly important for performance management, perhaps even more important that rather than just looking backwards to focusing on the review element of performance management, there's a particular need for organisations to look at how employees need to learn and develop moving forward in order to fulfill a whole range of different things. For example, how do we realise the performance potential of employees? How do we make sure that individual employees are performing to their optimum effort in the workplace and we're getting the most out of them we possibly can? How are we making the best use of their skills and capabilities? But also planning is also necessary to address and remedy any under-performance issues that might have been identified in the review process. But it's not just about organisations. Performance management is also about seeking to bring together individual aspirations for career development with the organisation's need. So, learning it a key part of making sure that individuals are kept motivated through realising their own career aspirations - what do individuals want to do moving forward, what roles do they aspire to and how learning might help them get there. At the organisational level, there's also learning as a critical component of an organisation's ability to cope with changing internal or external circumstances. So, internally, organisations may be investing in new technologies, changing structures, changing processes, all of which will require some element of individual and collective learning in order to make those changes successful. Externally, changes to the market, changes to the economic, the social context, changes to the political context, turning in a particular environment will require potentially employees to perform differently in their roles. They might need new skills and competencies to be mastered, and obviously the way in which individuals master those competence and skills is through learning. Then finally, looking forward again, organisations and organisational individual learning are key ways in which individuals and organisations themselves can future-proof themselves. They can protect themselves from the shock of future changes, protect themselves from future uncertainty, and whatever those changes might bring in an organisation's ability to learn and respond in a flexible and agile way, are seen to be critical to success in the contemporary economy.