What needs to be done?
Today’s businesses need to thrive and grow in a climate were goals shift often, strategies evolve and employees switch various teams as to undertake multiple projects.
Today’s employee performance is driven by skills, attitude, ability to innovate and rapidly adapt to changes by working through multiple teams.
Today, workforce capability and employee retention are compelling indicators of business success, and thus the performance management system should actively encourage mid-level employees to improve through coaching and development, while treating high performers very well.
Today’s performance management must shift toward a process of continuous coaching and improvement rather than the traditional annual performance evaluations. Skills are built over time, and successful performance management must be focused on constantly developing them rather than ranking them at a moment in time.
So today, managers and leaders:
- Connect the individual with the organisation’s goals so that everyone knows the rules. Individual performance objectives and expectations are clearly identified and agreed to; the employees take ownership of their performance and act on their own to improve their capabilities; managers have a better framework to assess an employees’ performance through the use of results, actions and behaviours.
- Use performance management to build skills so that employee learning and development starts to happen. The organisation is developing the employee and the employee is involved in setting meaningful objectives. Defining clear development plans provides employees with practical steps they can take and the skills necessary to work towards developing the organisation by achieving its goals.
- Teach managers to give better feedback so that appraisals become relevant for everyone. Coaching, mentoring, feedback and assessment are skills of managers to be developed, to enable them to have productive conversations with employees so that objectives can be adjusted and modified to suit changing business conditions, enabling managers to work on the business, rather than in the business.
- Coach everyone: Search for opportunities for employees to see themselves as valued contributors as even though some employees are hyper achievers many others work at the middle level of performance. Motivate middle-of-the-road employees by giving everyone coaching, development planning, and training to improve.