I had a new client come to me recently because they needed help. They had a strong vision, a great team and one of the most important things in the work that I do – a genuine desire to create a great workplace.
They had a lot of initiatives in place but something just wasn’t quite right and they couldn’t understand why.
Our solution? Working through a process to define their performance ecosystem.
Now I’m no biologist – far from it. So let me explain how an ecosystem relates to HR and performance. An ecosystem is a group of interconnected components, formed by the interaction of a community of elements within their environment.
In HR, it’s about how each one of your people and culture initiatives interact with each other to help form your culture and drive the objectives of the business. The initiatives could be anything from your performance reviews, to your communication structures, even down to your Friday afternoon wind-down drinks.
There are some fundamental elements of getting your performance ecosystem to operate efficiently and sustainably. All of your people and culture initiatives should tick the following boxes:
So, back to my client. What we were able to do was workshop what people and culture initiatives they had in place and how they were ticking each of the boxes. We also looked at new ideas to really drive their culture and vision. Once this was all in place, we rolled the performance ecosystem out to the team, who now understand and can articulate how each of the HR functions interact with each other and how they are linked to the vision of the business.