The H.R. Doctor is In - July 11, 2016

Affirmation and Recognition 

He saw that I was busy reading a document very carefully.  That was what I was focused on. That was what I had been focusing on for at least 10 minutes.  Yet he came over to my desk and politely at first, but more insistently later on when I initially didn’t respond, asked if I could spend a few moments with him.

The HR Doctor learned a long ago as a “servant-leader” that the best way to help ensure successful administration and successful relationships is to pay attention to behavioral cues occurring right in front of you. I stopped reading and realized how important it was to build on our close relationship going on for over two years.  He wanted to tell me something that was important to him, and, therefore, important to me.

In this case the message was that he had to go out to pee.  He couldn’t do that unless I opened the door and let him out.  Canis Majoris (aka “Major”) is my amazingly handsome three-year-old yellow lab canine. He is gentle and great fun to be with — unless you happen to be a snake or a gopher.  He wants very much to please and doesn’t want to annoy. He wanted to convey an important message this morning, and it turned out to be in my very best interest to pay attention to him, despite my reading.  I’m glad I appreciated the urgency of what he was trying to tell me.

Major and my other beautiful dog, Isibindi, a Rhodesian Ridgeback mix, spend a lot of time communicating with each other and with me. They wrestle with each other, ambush each other, run at near warp speed all over our property and diligently serve as chiefs of security and greeters of our guests.  

Their behavior with me has one common feature every bit as important in public administration and supervisor-subordinate relationships as it is with the training and care of four-legged friends. It is the importance of learning to understand and pay attention to what is being said whether the message is being delivered in clear, understandable language or by means of nudges, barks, scratches or whines. The common questions asked regularly by my canine companions and by my friends and colleagues at work are: “How am I doing?”  “Am I doing okay?”  “Am I doing what needs to be done successfully?”

When Isibindi races out the front door and runs 500 feet to our front gate to bring me the morning paper, he comes in with tail wagging and eyes bright. As he stands in front of me looking hopeful, he is practically assuring me that he’s already read it and that I needn’t bother since it will contain nothing of interest to me. He is also saying, “Please tell me that I did just as you wanted me to, didn’t I?”  “Have I earned continued affection and a treat?”

With respect to human work colleagues, and, in fact, all of us (including kids, spouses and significant others) requests and hopes for affirmation are very important to us. The “treats” are not primarily food pellets, although donuts can be very effective as forms of recognition.

In a bureaucracy, the formal tool is the performance evaluation. Isn’t the purpose of the evaluation to answer those basic questions of “How am I doing?” Isn’t the purpose of an evaluation to encourage continued great performance and behavior? Isn’t it also to praise and recognize excellence, and to document needed improvement?

While understanding the great importance attached to paying attention to and encouraging our fellow creatures, it is very hard to understand why many supervisors lose consciousness when it comes to the value of evaluations.  Meeting the needs and hopes of subordinates at work is not helped at all when we don’t devote the time and attention to the need for affirmation. If we really cared about our performance evaluation processes would we not stop using “check the box” forms which may not be clearly job-related? 

These same people suffer from a serious problem when it comes to using a calendar.  They don’t seem able to make a personal commitment to be on-time in the evaluation process.  Some supervisors, knowing full well that a person’s service anniversary date is tomorrow, may delay for weeks or months before carrying out a perfunctory box-checking on an outdated form.

That type of supervisor doesn’t appreciate her role as a coach and developer of the skills and attitudes of others.  Unfortunate and disrespectful delays may then be followed by a three-minute meeting with the person being evaluated.  The script may be as sad as saying “This is your evaluation, sign here.”  There is no real coaching, discussion of strengths and areas for improvement and only limited recognition of the person’s contributions. Rising-star employees working for this kind of supervisor will switch employers as soon as they can. This is a classic form of bureaucratic malpractice and yet it need not be that way.

“Check the box” forms, known more formally as “trait-based evaluations,” may even attempt to place a numerical value on a human being — maybe even to a decimal place value.  The HR Doctor’s more favorite model — more job-related and more valuable — can also meet our bureaucratic craving for documentation.  It is a “behavioral evaluation.”  It asks the rater to respond directly to job-related questions about the employee’s behavior and performance.  The rater then proceeds to answer the questions focusing on the employee being rated. Responses are likely to be short-answer narratives citing actual examples.  Examples can include:  How well has this colleague completed projects in a timely manner with proper attention to benchmarks and progress along the way?  How well has this colleague kept supervisors informed of project progress and problems so that there are no unfortunate surprises?  How respectful has this person been to members of the public, clients and colleagues?

How well has this colleague worked in our diverse workforce understanding and recognizing the need for proper conduct at work?  How has the employee adhered to organizational policies? 

How well has this employee served as a teacher or role model for other employees? How well has this employee supported agency goals and policies? Has the employee made constructive and innovative suggestions to improve processes?

These are only a few examples of behavioral questions that can link directly to job descriptions and provide much more meaningful feedback than giving a person a score of 3.2 on the trait of “appearance” or “initiative.”

If Canis Majoris had not persistently communicated his needs earlier today, I probably would have had a significant mess to clean up.  Instead, by carefully listening to the cues he was giving me, by appreciating their importance and by giving him timely praise and recognition, I got to pet him, shake hands with him, let him out and enjoy a moment of watching him fly around the property before settling in to the all-important “perfect” spot.

Recognizing the vast differences between proper human resources in relation to human colleagues at work and trying to be a good steward of care for my amazing dogs, I would argue nonetheless that affirmation and recognition are critically important regardless of species.