Implementing a Performance Improvement Culture

When the new management at one of Malaysia’s largest financial institutions decided to implement a performance driven culture across the organisation, it realised that a system for managing under-performing staff was just as important as a system for managing top performers. It then engaged us to review its current performance management system and make recommendations for improvement on its current system for managing its under-performers. Following our recommendation, the bank institutionalised a performance improvement plan or PIP process across the organisation where 5% of its staff were annually placed under this process. The objective behind this implementation was clear, i.e. to get the message across to all levels of employees that the organisation was performance driven.

Following the implementation of this system, we developed a customised one and one half day training module for the bank and trained a total of 3000 managers on how to successfully manage their subordinates placed under a Performance Improvement Plan. This project was completed within a short time span of three months and following the success of this project, we were retained to carry out this similar exercise across its Singaporean, Indonesian and Thai operations.

 

Reorganisations

Due to a realignment of its business operations following a merger, one of the country’s top asset management firms realised that it needed to rationalise its workforce. This resulted in it identifying close to 140 employees as redundant. It consulted us on how best to implement this reorganisation. We then in concert with its legal team helped devise a mutual separation scheme which was targeted to the identified employees.

Following the development of this scheme, we also conducted a workshop to guide each of the managers whose staff were being made redundant on how to approach the Mutual Separation Scheme discussion with their subordinates in a respectful and legally correct manner. As a result of attending these workshops, the managers felt more confident on how to approach their staff affected by the Mutual Separation Scheme and to walk them through the process. As a result of this, the organisation achieved a 100% acceptance rate with the employees affected commenting that they harboured no ill feelings as they felt that the organisation conducted this exercise in a respectful and humane manner. This in turn helped the organisation nurture and maintain employee morale during that difficult phase.

 

Managing Staff and Leadership Skills

A manufacturer with operations across four states in Malaysia found that there was a culture of favouritism at the workplace. Due to this, morale of the workforce was dipping and affecting its overall productivity. In assessing the cause for this, the company discovered that while most of its managers had the technical acumen, they lacked the human relations and leadership skills necessary to manage their staff humanely yet effectively. They hired us to conduct a customised workshop for 150 of their supervisory and management staff focusing on:

1. The legal/compliance requirements for managing staff productivity (such as absenteeism, late-coming, and medical leaves) and performance, and

2. How to coach, counsel and lead their subordinates.

We successfully conducted this workshop where we received an “excellent” overall evaluation prompting their training department to contact us and inform us that the rating of our training effectiveness was the highest for any training it had organised within the past five years.

 

Management Retainer (Compliance and Coaching)

A leading construction and property development conglomerate contacted us to help them drive their employee performance systems forward. We recommended that a framework for a performance improvement plan or PIP be put into place and following this, we were placed on a management retainer relationship where our consultants would visit them twice a month and conduct personalised coaching for their managers involved in conducting Performance Improvement Plan or PIP discussions with their subordinates. Our coaching helped the managers ensure that all their employees placed within this process were fairly managed and their performance issues properly documented. As a result of this, the company has been able to prevent any employee performance issues from escalating to a legal dispute.