My invitation to speak at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development conference.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)  performance management conference 12th October 2010

I’m really pleased to have been asked to speak at the CIPD performance management conference on 12th October. This has come about from me writing my letter ‘Excessive bureaucracy hinders performance management’ and I admire the CIPD for asking someone to speak who has written a controversial response to their research.

I was pleased to see a couple of supporting letters and also a challenging one from Nora Hutson, from Surrey Police, who I will be speaking with. She pointed out the risk-averse legal advice that is given to public sector organizations and I will be using the analogy of wildebeest to demonstrate how the new Performance Landscape can no longer support this approach. Often a dispute is resolved with a payment to the aggrieved employee, on the basis that this is the cheapest option, which does not take into consideration the effect this has on other employees. Word of what has happened spreads rapidly around any organization and has a demoralizing effect and can damage employee engagement.

Organizations delivering public services need an engaged workforce and one way to achieve this is for each organization to ensure that all of their employees have a clear understanding of the new landscape and how their contribution supports it. It also needs to be made clear what level of performance is expected from each individual and that the organization cannot carry passengers.

Posted by Alan