Today we celebrate greatness, in the form of one of the greatest baseball players ever, with the anniversary of the birthday of Ty Cobb. Coming up to the majors as a center fielder for the Detroit Tigers in 1905, he emerged in 1907 to hit .350 and win the first of nine consecutive league batting titles. He also led the league that year with 212 hits, 49 steals and 116 RBIs. In 1909 he won the league’s Triple Crown for the most home runs (9), most runs batted in (107), and best batting average (.377). In 1911, he led the league in eight offensive categories, including batting (.420), slugging percentage (.621), hits (248), doubles (47), triples (24), runs (147), RBI (144) and steals (83), and won the first American League MVP award. He batted .410 the following season, becoming the first player in the history of baseball to bat better than .400 in two consecutive seasons.

Cobb set a record for stolen bases (96) and won his ninth straight batting title in the 1915 season. He faltered the next year, but came back to win another three straight titles from 1917 to 1919. He left the team in 1926 and signed with the Oakland Athletics, hitting .357 and becoming the first-ever player to reach 4,000 total career hits before retiring after the 1928 season. His record of nine consecutive batting titles as well as his overall number of 12 will never be succeeded.

While Cobb certainly had quite a bit of natural ability, he was also a very dedicated baseball player, forever working to improve his craft. He might not have taken well to criticism but he did work to improve all aspects of his game. One of the modern ways to improve employee performance is through an annual employee performance review. Recently I read an article in the Houston Business Journal entitled “6 Ways To Make Performance Reviews More Productive” by Janet Flewelling. I found her article provided some interesting perspectives on some of the ‘nuts and bolts’ work that you can put into your Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) or UK Bribery Act anti-corruption program that can be relatively low-cost but can add potentially high benefits.

One of the ways to drive compliance into the DNA of an organization is through incentives such as making it a component of a year-end discretionary bonus payment. Indeed the FCPA Guidance states, “DOJ and SEC recognize that positive incentives can also drive compliant behavior. These incentives can take many forms such as personnel evaluations and promotions, rewards for improving and developing a company’s compliance pro­gram, and rewards for ethics and compliance leadership. Some organizations, for example, have made adherence to compliance a significant metric for management’s bonuses so that compliance becomes an integral part of management’s everyday concern.”

Most Human Resources (HR) experts will opine that properly executed performance appraisals are crucial to organizational productivity as well as the development of employee skills and employee morale. Moreover, they can serve a couple of different functions for a best practices compliance program. First, and foremost, they communicate to each employee their job performance from a compliance perspective. However, one key is not to approach the performance appraisal review as an isolated event but rather a continual process. This means that instead of trying to play catch-up at the last minute, supervisors should provide feedback and assess job performance throughout the year so annual reviews are grounded in a year’s worth of experience. This includes the compliance component of each job. The second area performance appraisals impact is compensation. As noted above, the DOJ and SEC expect that your compliance program will have both discipline and incentives. But those incentives need to be based upon something. The score or other performance appraisal metrics will provide to you a standard which you can measure and use to evaluate for other purposes such as employee promotion or advancement to senior management going forward.

In her article Flewelling provides six points you should consider which I have adapted for the compliance component of an annual employee performance appraisal. 

1. Prioritize reviews in your schedule – You should schedule the employee performance appraisal at least several days in advance, rather than when a time slot suddenly opens up. You would make sure that you allot sufficient time for unhurried give and take between the reviewer and the employee.
2. Review the entire year’s performance – You should resist the attempt to focus the discussion on the latest compliance experience. This is called recency bias. If a compliance issue arose in the past month or so, you need to keep it in perspective for the entire review period. Moreover, by focusing a review on a recent problem you may obscure prior accomplishments and make an employee feel demoralized. Take care not to go too much in the opposite direction as recency bias can work both ways, and one should not let a favorable recent compliance event overshadow the full review period.
3. Do not hesitate to critique – Be generous with praise where it is warranted, but do not hesitate to discuss improvements needed in the compliance arena. Many supervisors are reluctant to confront and indeed desire to avoid confrontation. However remaining silent about an employee’s compliance shortcomings is a disservice to both the company and the employee.
4. Do not dominate the conversation – Remember that you must give the employee time for self-appraisal and to ask questions or to comment about the feedback received from the compliance perspective. If there are specific questions or concerns raised by the employee you need to be prepared to address them as appropriate.
5. Understand the employee’s role – You need to understand and appreciate that if the recent economy has resulted in many employees assuming the responsibilities of more than one position. If relevant to the employee, acknowledge that fact and take it into account in the review. This is certainly true from the compliance perspective as many non-Compliance Department employees have cross-functional responsibilities. If they claim not to have the time to handle their compliance responsibilities you will need to address this with the employee and perhaps structurally as well.
6. Anticipate reprisal – Although it is rare, you can face the situation where an employee who is very dissatisfied with a review may refuse to sign it. The employee may be offered the opportunity to add a statement to the review. Also point out that the employee signature is an acknowledgement of receiving the review and does not signify agreement. If the employee still refuses to sign, have a second supervisor come in to witness the refusal. This may be particularly important from the compliance perspective.

Flewelling ends her piece by noting, “A proper annual review requires considerable effort from employee supervisors. It should be a full-year process involving regular guidance and feedback and perhaps several mini-reviews along the way. But rather than viewing it as onerous, supervisors should keep in mind that it is a tool for making their departments work more efficiently and yields better results for everyone involved.” I would add this is doubled from the compliance perspective. Nonetheless the potential upside can be significant from your overall compliance program perspective.