Top Thomson Reuters executives set managers a new goal

In a message to all “people managers” at Thomson Reuters, the company’s chief people officer, Peter Warwick, said their performance goals will include the following “people-focused goal”: “create a high-performance culture by managing effectively, differentiating performance, developing talent, and building diverse teams”.

Writing on behalf of the executive committee, he listed the following areas in which managers’ performance on the people goal will be measured:

“1. Differentiate Performance: supporting overall performance distribution guidelines set by the company.

“2. Build Diverse Teams: ensuring there are diverse and/or female candidates on the hiring slates for all of your external hires, internal hires and promotions, initially at the director level and above. If you do not have an open director and above role in 2013, you should instead indicate how you contributed to the development of diverse and/or female candidate pools for all anticipated external hires, internal hires and promotions.

“3. Manage Effectively: demonstrating core management behaviors, which will be assessed using a short, confidential survey taken by your direct reports. These behaviors are defined as follows:

“■ Encouraging employees to speak their minds

“■ Communicating clear priorities

“■ Upholding standards of behavior that others can follow

“■ Delivering timely and candid feedback

“■ Recognizing people for their contributions

“■ Demonstrating a genuine interest in employees’ career and development

“■ Motivating people to go above and beyond

“■ Holding people accountable for their actions and decisions.”

Managers are expected to start the process of setting goals on Monday and complete them and approve development plans by 8 March.

“As in the past, the way in which we achieve our objectives is as important to measure as actually achieving them,” Warwick said. “Therefore, this year we are requiring that an employee’s overall performance rating be weighted 70% on business goals and 30% on our focus areas (Customer, Performance, Collaboration and Talent). More information will be coming soon as part of the overall goal-setting launch, including additional details that underlie these four focus areas.”

He added: “2013 will be a year of real progress for Thomson Reuters, in large part due to the role you play every day as a manager. By formally measuring this essential element of your job, it is our hope that we can better recognize inspiring manager role models and better help you develop the skills required to be a truly effective manager.” ■