Employee performance is what keeps your business moving. If your team is not performing, it’s most likely that the business is not performing either. So how do you strike a balance between motivating your team and not being too overbearing or untrusting? It’s called Performance Management.
In this article, we discuss what exactly performance management is and cover the top ways to improve performance management for your employees and see results for your business.
What Is Performance Management?
In simple terms, performance management means monitoring and evaluating your employees’ work. However, there’s more involved than making sure of your employee’s organisational goals. As an employer, you are responsible for creating an environment that fosters employee engagement; where each staff member can perform to their best, accomplish their individual goals, and deliver quality work.
There are several components to effective performance management. The most important components include:
- Strong leadership
- Healthy relationships at work
- Collaboration
- Constructive feedback
With these elements in mind, let’s explore some top tips to improve your employees’ performance management.
Top 5 Tips for Performance Management
If your employees aren’t performing to an expected level, there are several ways that you can change that. To help you get started, here are our top 5 tips for improving performance management.
1. Be Clear on Company Goals
The first aspect of improving performance management is ensuring that you are clear on your company goals and that every employee understands them too.
When your employees don’t know the expectation and goals of the company, they may have trouble tracking their own performance. What’s more, is that if an employee is unclear about the company’s goals due to the neglect of management, they are less likely to ask for clarification.
Outlining your company goals should be your starting point for improving your performance management. If your company goals change, let your employees know as soon as possible and talk about what the changes mean for their roles.
2. Work Together on Performance Objectives
The next step towards enhancing the performance management of employees is to collaborate on performance objectives together.
The best way for your employees to achieve company goals is to work on their personal goals in their job. Once you’ve set out the company objectives, be sure to talk with your employees to help them determine how their professional goals contribute to the larger company goals.
During this step, it’s important to hear what your employees have to say. You want to make sure that they’re challenged – but you still need to be realistic when setting goals.
Beyond that, ensure you have a system in place for tracking your employees’ performance and progress.
3. Schedule One-on-One Meetings
Regularly scheduled one-on-one meetings are a key component of organised performance management.
These meetings give managers uninterrupted time with their direct reports to discuss a multitude of issues, including:
- Project progression
- Under-performance
- Potential blockers
- Issues needing to be resolved
- Performance feedback
One-on-one meetings are a great way for managers to get to know and understand their employees more, build a social rapport and foster individual employee recognition for exceeding expectations.
Schedule one-on-ones at regular intervals and prioritise your employees’ needs during this time. The frequency of one-on-one meetings and regular feedback depends on your company and employees’ preferences but they typically range from monthly to weekly.
Successful one-on-ones will help you better manage your employees and the company’s overall performance.
4. Regularly Provide Feedback
One-on-one meetings may be a dedicated time to provide your employees with feedback, but they should not be the only time you give feedback.
If you have feedback for your employee now, don’t wait for your monthly or weekly meeting to give it to them. Instead, you should provide feedback on an ongoing basis and as the opportunity arises.
For example, if you’re impressed with something your employee accomplished, they shouldn’t have to wait weeks to hear praise from you. Likewise, if you see an area of improvement for your employee, it’s important to make sure that you let them know as soon as possible so that they may immediately start working on it.
Providing regular unstructured feedback improves employee morale, which, as a result, improves the overall performance of your employees.
5. Use Performance Management Software or Consult a Professional
As mentioned, you want a performance management system in place for tracking employee performance and progress. You can simply track this using standardised documents, but if you want a more streamlined approach, consider using performance management software.
Performance management software can simplify how you manage individual performance and give both you and your employees a reference when it comes to one-on-one meetings and performance expectations and reviews.
If you don’t feel comfortable using software or prefer a more personalised performance management system for your business, consider enlisting an human resource consultant to help you develop a strategic performance management plan and help you execute it to show results.
Performance Management to Better Your Bottom Line
Performance management is key to operating a successful business and executing your strategy. Without it, neither your company nor your employees have a direction.
HRonHand provides a performance management toolkit to help businesses get this function right. It includes the following:
- Managing Employee Performance and Conduct Guide plus a Checklist
- Performance and Misconduct Policy
- Performance Improvement Plan Review
- Performance Improvement Plan Letter
- Record of Meeting Template
- Notice of Meeting Letter
- Letter Advising Stand-Down During Investigation
- Summary of Dismissal Letter
- Letter Regarding Termination
- Warning Letter
Get your Performance Management Toolkit today and strengthen your employees’ and company’s performance.
