It may be a farming term but it is a concept the packaging industry would do well to embrace. In farming terms it means selling off weaker or poor quality stock and buying better quality to improve the breeding stock.
For the packaging industry since the onset of the recession, whilst there can be no doubt that people have been let go, there has been a tendency to ‘’muddle along’’.
However, it has never been more important to ensure packaging companies are maximising their performance, so active performance management is critical to future success.
Effectively managing performance through appraisals, targets and training will mean the weaker performers being weeded out. It may seem harsh and certainly the way it was handled at GE under Jack Welch with the bottom 20% of managers being fired as a matter of policy did little to soften it. Ultimately, poor performance in highly competitive markets puts everyone’s jobs at risk.
Of course the other element of the processes, bringing in new blood, is not easy and requires active process and planning for effective recruitment.
This involves proactive recruitment and talent management both internally and externally. The best companies will be identifying staff who have potential and preparing them with projects and secondments to provide challenging learning opportunities.
In addition, looking externally and having an active programme to identify star performers in packaging sales, packaging technology and packaging production, across the industry, and monitoring their progress, will help in plugging gaps in internal talent and perhaps making step changes in areas like markets sectors, innovation and operational effectiveness.
This last point is one of the most valuable in the concept of improving the herd as development and progress from within inevitably becomes incremental sooner or later.
One thing is for certain: unless packaging companies have an active programme for improving performance they will fall behind and be vulnerable to competitors and ‘’game changing’’ innovation. To ensure there is a steady, if not necessarily rapid, flow of new talent and new ideas is essential.
Dani Novick is managing director of print and packaging recruitment specialists Mercury Search and Selection, which is sponsoring the Rising Star category at this year’s UK Packaging Awards. Visit www.mercurysearch.com
Loading ...
And of course people being ‘performanced managed out of the company’ means that recruitment companies can earn more money by putting new staff in! At no point in this sales pitch for your recruitment company do you mention training or identifying areas of weekness with existing staff. It might even be the sales directors fault that they have been ‘muddling along’ Yes in every business accross different industries there are people being carried but some times there is more to it than just getting rid of people
There is absolutely no disagreement with what you say. The article indicates it is the industry, i.e. employers, which has had a tendency to muddle along. Performance management is about identifying and improving performance – yes if under performance continues people will have to go but improving performance is the aim.
The article also states that employers should identify their own potential new talent and groom them to come through.
Having said that the article makes the case for renewal. There is no doubt that the same people doing the same things year after year in the long term can get stale. As harsh as it is that is not good for companies and therefor not good for the job security of everyone within the organisation. When companies need to make a step change or simply start to run out of fresh ideas new blood is often the best way to achieve this.
Finally you indicate the article is a sales pitch which I think is a little unfair. It expresses an opinion which is what was required. This approach was company policy at GE for many years and I doubt if jack welch did it at the behest or for the benefit of recruiters.