You will hear the Chief Executive of Best Value, an American chain of conven

You will hear the Chief Executive of Best Value, an American chain of convenience stores, talking about a change in the company’s working practices.
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    Thank you very much for inviting me to talk to you about the introduction of Performance Management at Best Value.
    Best Value operates nearly five thousand convenience stores and seven distribution centres in the United States. When I took over as Chief Executive, three years ago, I found poor industrial relations, and little or no sense of loyalty. A consultation process existed, but wasn’t taken very seriously by management. Internal communications varied enormously, with a few staff missing out on key information.
    We realised we had to do something to bring out the best in people, and we decided to adopt Performance Management to emphasise to the whole of our large workforce that there were many positive aspects to being one of our employees. If staff could develop a sense of fulfilment in their working days, we believed, it would both benefit them and be fundamental to the success of the rapid expansion we planned. We were convinced that in comparison, the effect of raising wages or reducing working hours would be minimal.
    One decision we had to make was how to introduce Performance Management. We decided to start by focusing on a small number of units, but ones where we would have the greatest impact. And that meant the seven distribution centres, even though they presented more of a challenge than the stores. We felt that if we succeeded in raising morale there, it would have a knock-on effect on the stores.
    So what is ’Performance Management’? It’s a systematic, data-based approach to managing people, identifying the specific behaviours that we need from our staff and reinforcing those behaviours through recognition and reward. One of our first tasks was to identify the key behaviours needed to carry out the responsibilities of every post. This was the starting point for ensuring that each employee was best placed to use their own specific talents. I’m pleased to say it’s working very well. Then we gave every employee a checklist of ten behaviours they need if they’re going to perform their jobs well.
    Managers and supervisors check each employee’s performance at least once a day, and give them feedback and symbolic rewards - a variation on the gold star system. Staff are brought together to celebrate achievements by their unit and hear about each other’s successes. We’ve realised that it isn’t the results, but the social interaction and recognition that provide the real rewards for employees.
    Let me give you an example of Performance Management in action. When we replaced our California distribution centre with a state-of-the-art facility, we decided to train all its managers in Performance Management before we took on any new staff. The managers then applied the approach when the centre was up and running, and achieved amazing results: average staff attendance at work was ninety-five per cent as opposed to around eighty-five per cent in other centres. This made it the most cost-effective by far.
    In Texas, we have our first distribution centre established with completely new staff, and all the supervisors and managers were trained from the start in Performance Management principles. That centre now gets the right products to the right place at the right time, virtually one hundred per cent of the time. That’s better than we’ve managed to achieve elsewhere, and contributes to the high degree of satisfaction in the stores it services.
    With Performance Management, the desired behaviour becomes routine, so it gives a long-term payoff. And once employees understand their roles more clearly, and have changed the way they work, it’s much easier to agree on realistic objectives. This makes it less likely that the company has to cut costs, or take other emergency measures.
    To round off, let me say that Performance Management has really transformed Best Value. And the important thing to remember is that it works for everyone.