Effective Performance Management: Three Strategies for Implementation
By Amanda McCollum | August 9, 2023
Performance management processes are in place to monitor and evaluate team members and ensure the needs and strategic objectives of the organization are fulfilled as a result.
It’s about addressing issues and setting goals in real time, often through collaboration and open communication between employees and management.
Various components can hold back performance management processes. Poor or nebulous targets is one. Lack of transparency is another, including a lack of clarity from team members’ perspective as to why a target is in place, or what metrics are really designed to measure. Lack of relevance is yet another question: What does keeping score tangibly achieve for the company’s bottom line?
There are also risks posed by lack of dialogue between management and employees, as well as absence of accountability and consequences. McKinsey researchers observed, with a note of caution, that the point isn’t for employees to feel a sense of “win or leave” that is prevalent on athletic teams. That’s one polar end, but the other outlook is having no real expectations at all.
Consequences are not always punitive and can include those that fall on the entire company or team, not just the individual. Not meeting sales targets, for instance, means less profits, and this challenges the ability to invest back in the company.
Like other workplace tools, performance management is a two-way street involving communication between a team member and their supervisor. At its best, it delivers continuous feedback, in many cases in real-time, rather than happening a handful of times throughout the year, potentially feeding disengagement.
Employees are allies. Treat them that way.
A traditional pitfall to performance management has been to treat it like an annual exercise, such as by confining it to a performance review. But another mistake is to inadvertently create a situation where team members feel like they are pitted against supervisors, because supervisors’ only role is to assess benchmarks and assign “pass” or “fail.”
People can naturally become defensive if they feel they are being confronted about performance. A simple shift in language is often very powerful. Rather than speaking in terms of “you,” supervisors and executives must motivate in terms of “we,” as in, “What we can do to achieve X” or “How we can tackle Problem Y together.” This is subtle and simple on the face of it, but it may create a fertile ground for collaboration before manageable situations become problems.
If mistakes or shortfalls are happening, you want team members to come to you and feel confident that you are in their corner when it comes to mutually finding a solution.
Emphasize the how as much as the why.
People may not be able to get from Point A to Point B on their own. Even in terms of designing tasks, this is an important principle. Can you be predictive about areas where things could fall short? Can team members be part of the task design phase?
Are goals cascading with multiple phases and desired achievements within them? Do they relate to the long-term outlook of the business? How aligned are those to employee skill sets? All of these questions and considerations, taken together, bring a holistic approach to performance management that makes it seem as much about company goals as individual performance goals.
Think of everyone as a valued contributor.
You’re looking to unleash and harness the innate capabilities within each team member – which do exist and are part of why you hired them in the first place. In your own case, lead with curiosity when it comes to things that need improvement. To increase engagement, is it possible that some team members are in the wrong roles or not doing enough duties that bring out their innate talents? Consider how interests, talent, and company needs can intersect to create advancement opportunities for employees across the organization.
Effective performance management has the potential to boost team member satisfaction, because they’re likely to take initiative and innovate. And at that point, everyone wins.
