Jack Altman's presentation at BambooHR's Elevate Virtual Conference

1. Performance Management That
Puts Employees First

2. Hi! I’m Jack Altman
Founder and CEO of Lattice, a
performance management platform for
growing companies.
We have 300+ customers around the
world including Birchbox, Cruise,
Glossier, GitLab & New York Public Radio
Jack Altman
CEO & Co-Founder

3. 1. Why you need to transition from pay for performance
to employee development
2. How to move towards employee-first performance
management
Agenda

6. www.latticehq.com

7. www.latticehq.com

8. “The reality is, even when companies get
rid of performance evaluations, ratings
still exist. Employees just can’t see them.
Ratings are done subjectively, behind the
scenes, and without input from the people
being evaluated.”
87%
of Facebook employees wanted
to keep performance ratings.

9. How can you develop a performance management
solution that puts employees first?

10. Growth
Give your employees
opportunities to learn new
skills and provide pathways
for career progress
Care
Show employees that you
value their efforts
Impact
Provide the opportunity to make
an impact both day-to-day and
on the company’s mission.
Create a culture focused on employee
development

11. Shift towards employee-centric performance
management
Instead of..
Evaluating employees
Doing feedback once a year
when it’s convenient for the
company
Implementing a tedious
feedback process
Do..
Develop employee so they can
grow their careers
Empower employees to share
real-time feedback, so employees
can get value before it’s too late
Give managers a light-weight
process for providing feedback

12. Build a process that makes employee
development a year round activity
Old Way: Pay for Performance
New Way: Employee Development

13. Employee-Centric Performance
Management Includes Four Key Elements

14. Ask employees to set 2–4 goals per quarter
These define what an employee should focus on and how they’re able to
make an impact on the company.
Managers and reports discuss goals at the end of each quarter
Talk about what caused goals to be met or not, whether the goals turned
out to be worthwhile to pursue, and how you might be able to set better
goals next cycle.
Don’t tie goals directly to compensation.
You can and should discuss goals during performance reviews as part of
an overall assessment of an employee’s performance, but there should not
be a one to one correlation here. (Revenue generating roles are a possible
exception.)
Set expectations with goal setting

15. Managers and reports need to have a weekly one-on-one meeting.
Leverage the manager-report relationship
“[One-on-Ones] are the the employee’s meeting
rather than the manager’s meeting. This is the
free-form meeting for all the pressing issues,
brilliant ideas and chronic frustrations that do
not fit neatly into status reports, email and other
less personal and intimate mechanisms.”
Pro tip: Get outside during your 1:1s
Ben Horowitz
Co-founder & Partner at a16z
Former CEO of Opsware

16. Celebrate wins publicly
Allow employees to recognize each other for
their daily accomplishments.
Note constructive criticism
Provide a mechanism for employees to
remember constructive criticism for in-person
conversations.
Empower peers to share
feedback in real-time

17. Take moments to reflect on development
progress
Run at least two review cycles per year
Development Review
This review exists for the benefit of employees.
It’s an opportunity for them to receive and give
feedback with nothing on the line other than to
be heard, be recognized, and learn what they can
improve upon. Development reviews are an
opportunity for employees to take a step back
and reflect.
Compensation Review
One review cycle should be tied to compensation
and promotions. Make sure to communicate the
timing of the review to the company so employees
are not constantly asking about raises throughout
the year. This review cycle should have some form
of quantitative questions, so you can compare
performance.

18. It’s time to move towards
employee-centric
performance management
Takeaways
Build a performance
management process that
makes employee development
a year round process:
a. Employee Goals
b. Development Reviews
c. Manager 1:1s
d. Real-Time Feedback

19. Thank you!
Software
Sign up for a free trial of Lattice
lattice.com/trial
Resources
Check out our videos, articles, & books
on performance management.
lattice.com/library
Community
Become a member of our people
operations community
lattice.com/resources-for-humans
Here’s how you can learn more about Lattice and modern
performance management: