Performance Management in 3M

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Performance Management (PM) is the 3M Company’s name for its highly successful program of positive reinforcement to achieve specific, measurable gains in job performance. At 3M Company in Canada alone, it produced savings “in excess of $2.56 million” from January to September 1978. Furthermore, says Henry J. Marsh, personnel develop¬ment coordinator of 3M Canada, “I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a total of $4.3 million by the end of the year, including savings of $1.835 million in 1977.

Marsh began the program in 1976, a year after it was introduced by the 3M parent company in St. Paul, MN. (See “How Behavior Modification Improves Productivity at 3M,” TRAINING, October 1976.) Performance Management was developed by 3M’s Education and Training Department to help first-line supervisors increase their effective¬ness through measured results, in¬creased productivity, employee satis¬faction and personal growth. Continue reading

Training and Job Performance

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Just as eating is the only reason for cooking and providing transportation the only reason for making cars, so job performance change is the only reason for train¬ing. However, the training field is not characterized by high degrees of accountability or concern for job per-formance change. Managers demand sales, not selling activity and pro¬duction, not plant operation. Why then, do they generally demand training rather than job performance change?

Job performance change is not to be confused with behavior change. Striking the keys is the typist’s be¬havior; the memo produced is an as¬pect of job performance. Any time a trainee passes a test or masters a skill, his behavior undergoes a change, but the job performance may or may not change as a result. Continue reading

Job Performance, Job Satisfaction and Pay System

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A lot has been written and claimed about the relationship among job performance, job satisfaction and pay. One theory suggests that contented workers, like contented cows, produce more of whatever they are supposed to produce than do discontented workers. Pay, on the other hand, has been an enigmatic part of the formula. Motivation Theorist Hertzberg claims that pay has a limited effect as a satisfier. Other researchers like Cherrington and Luthans claim money has more of an impact. At the extreme is CEO/author Richard Sloma, who says that there are only three keys to motivation and satisfaction— money, money and more money. Continue reading