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Performance Management

Boost Performance Through Collaboration and Informal Learning

Charles Coy

A collaborative workplace is one in which information flows freely, employees are appropriately networked within the organization and the value of working together to solve problems is well understood.

At their best, teams focus energy and productivity and drive results. Performance Consultant Emma Hamer puts it a different way: “Similar to the effect that your tennis game is going to be better when you play with a higher-level opponent, the immediate (and measurable) impact on individual employee performance is that working with talented others in a real team (as opposed to simply a group of similarly skilled individuals) ups everyone’s game.”

Hamer’s research suggests the minimum effort an employee must dedicate to a job in order to remain employed can be placed at approximately 30 percent. Top performers, on the other hand, averaged over time, put in as much as 80 percent effort. The difference between the two is discretionary effort and is materially impacted by management quality and team dynamics.

The problem with collaboration is people do not always want to work together. Some of the best prefer to work alone, finding the inertial drag of the taskforce or project team to be an exercise in organizational bloat and inefficiency. Further, people do not always like to link their performance or success to others’ actions.

But technology can act as a great connector. Instant messaging, real-time conferencing, e-mail, knowledge management systems and social networking technology all have changed the landscape of workplace collaboration in fewer than 20 years. These knowledge redistribution vehicles are at the core of collaboration and performance in the 21st-century organization.

The typical knowledge worker has access to an abundance of channels to seek out expertise and knowledge networks, and this access will grow in the coming years. Further, all of these modes of collaboration drive toward one central theme — informal learning — that can improve employee performance.

Companies surprised that people do not talk to one another should break down cubicle walls and replace them with sofas and espresso makers. Or to quote Hamer, “How can you expect people to collaborate across walls if you keep them stuck between walls?”

If collaboration begets informal learning, which can improve employee performance, the forward-thinking organization must consider how best to reward productive collaboration and measure its performance impact.

In order to accomplish this, practitioners may first have to battle the bad reputation associated with traditional processes. The employee performance appraisal too often is linked with a strong focus on individual achievement and seems to offer little by way of reward for productive collaboration and informal learning. To get around this, talent managers might consider making collaboration a part of the appraisal process. Include it as an explicit line item for review, and build in convincing rewards for success in teamwork. Workplace collaboration can and should lead to improved outcomes for employee performance.

Collaboration as a concept is attractive, but it is not enough on its own. It exists in many diverse forms, anchored by cutting-edge technology and age-old human workplace behaviors. In any incarnation, sensible collaboration fosters an environment ripe for informal learning and the exchange of ideas and innovations.

Being able to track informal learning, alongside formal training programs, and then account for the outcomes of learning in performance management processes is the job of human resources strategy and technology. Break down cubicle walls and incorporate collaboration as an explicit requirement of the high performer — then reward it appropriately.