Confectionery and soft drinks company Cadbury Schweppes has boosted staff performance by shifting from individual appraisals to pay based on business results.
Over the last four years the company has doubled shareholder value through an international performance management programme across the entire company, said Chris Bones, group organisation effectiveness and development director.
Pay was linked to the programme, which assesses performance by measuring the amount of profit each business unit made after costs of generating the revenue were subtracted from the total.
Bones said the company believed that individual performance appraisals did not create any value and in future all the paperwork will be reduced to a one-page summary.
"I don’t think the performance appraisal system has made a great deal of difference to the way we’ve achieved what we’ve achieved," said Bones.
Over the last four years the company’s performance management programme ensured that all staff feedback and training are linked to the company’s goals of doubling shareholder value and achieving earnings per share growth of at least 10 per cent.
The company’s top 150 executives were audited against a set of leadership imperatives and given development or in some cases replaced.
"That’s a very tough process to go through. It started with the board and went down," said Bones.
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The company has also stopped using top management schools such as Harvard and Insead and runs its own executive training instead.
"That seems to differentiate us from a lot of other practitioners who are pushing training out," said Bones.
