With the millennials slowly moving into leadership roles, most organizations are rethinking their performance management strategies. The traditional definitions of performance management can no longer be applied, with companies shifting their attention to a culture which values people over processes!
In the changing technological landscape, more and more companies are finding it complex to have an effective performance management system in place, one that provides effective measurement strategies and makes every opportunity of interacting with an employee into potential learning.
Let’s dig deep into what constitutes an effective performance management system and various strategies to have one within your organization.
Here Are A Few Effective Strategies for Performance Management!
Some of the latest strategies to ensure you have an effective performance management system are given below!
1. Continuous Feedback:
Having conversations about performance makes for good feedback and when it is done on a continuous basis, you help your workers shape their work effectively. Good performance feedback reinforces strong skill sets and positive behaviours while showing opportunity areas with a clear path for improvement.
Managers should check in with employees and teams periodically not just to provide feedback but also gauge overall progress. The point to be noted is that such feedback does not have to wait until an annual review is conducted. Instead, it should be given in real time and integrated into the company culture.
There are various ways to collect feedback such as free tools like Google forms, survey monkey or even just a basic email request.
2. Communicate Goals And Objectives:
Expecting good performance out of employees who have not been introduced to your company’s goals and objectives is an unrealistic outlook. They will never be able to meet company goals if they are not clearly outlined, which is a very important aspect of effective performance management.
To be able to do the same, set company goals at the beginning of each quarter, and make them visible to everyone in the organization and have departments, teams and employees set objectives that align with the company goals you have established at the beginning of each quarter.
Have managers frequently discuss performance and progress on goals with their teams, both during weekly one-on-ones and through ongoing feedback exchanged. At the end of each quarter, review the successes or shortcomings of all objectives to inform your decisions for setting the next quarter’s objectives.
3. Performance Management Software:
Performance management software can really streamline your performance management strategies. Pick out software that meets your company’s needs and helps you make effective decisions. If you already use one and it’s not saving you any time, and your team complains about it or results in low employee engagement, it may be obsolete and in need of an upgrade.
A good performance management software is one that offers both traditional and 360-degree reviews, is employee friendly and has an easy to use dashboard interface, allows for quick and actionable reporting and of course, fosters employee development.
The software will help your employees stay on top of things so that your company is running smoothly and efficiently at all times. Provide a type of performance management software through which employees can see into each other’s progress and give and receive feedback from managers and colleagues.
4. Employee Recognition:
Employee recognition is one effective way to guarantee results in the workplace, which can be achieved by practising preemptive management. This simply means that your employees always know what is expected of them so there is never any guesswork or need for consequences in the workplace.
With the expectations openly discussed and goals known to everybody, all the employees start on the same footing, making it a fair playing field. When employees feel that they are being cared for, that their efforts don’t go unnoticed and that they have a positive contribution in the overall progress of the business, you get highly engaged resources, all because of an apt rewards and incentives programme in place.
Along with employee recognition practices which need to be in play, it should also be seen to that managers catch slipping employees early on and provide appropriate feedback to them. This is the basis of ‘Preemptive Management’, which means communicating with your employees and letting them know what is expected, what is not and how to meet the goals that have been set.
5. Discuss Results:
Fruitful meetings that touch various points of discussion and not just a bunch of people gathered together for formality sakes, forms an essential part of an effective performance management system. Set aside some time to meet up with your team and see if the goals and objectives are being met.
There can be different agendas for every meeting such as following up on peer reviews, discussing the next phase of projects, discussing company data, revenues, marketing and campaign success etc. These meetings should be mandatory for the whole team and can be held weekly, monthly or as per the needs of the organization.
Hold meetings only when you have something worthwhile to share or discuss and if you have solid reasons to believe that the employees are on the right track and the company is on a positive road, meetings can be held less frequently.
All in all, it is important to keep your entire team in the loop and have the organization running smoothly and efficiently at all times.
Every company is different from the other. However, the human resources everywhere need a similar kind of push in the form of encouraging them, helping them grow and bringing out the desired performance from them.
