Tips for Navigating Performance Management Training

Performance management in essence “does what it says on the tin”, allowing managers to ensure that employees are performing in a way that contributes effectively to their business objectives; where goals are established and performance is measured against these goals. Performance management, however is often misunderstood, with negative connotations associated with it, a common assumption being that the process is intended to enable employers to “manage” people out of the business.
Our Performance Management training is reflective of the fact that we prefer to move away from this way of thinking, as we consider that the best employees within a company should have their performance managed as much as those who are new or struggle. Let’s look into this further and explore the positive aspects of integrating an effective performance management process into your Organisation and how it can benefit your business.
Why is Performance Management Training essential for your Organisation?
If a business has an effective performance management process in place, it can help to unite your employees, ensuring that everyone understands what the business is trying to achieve.
Crucially, if implemented correctly, everyone will know what is expected of them in their individual role within the business, the skills they need to fulfil their role, the Organisational standards required and how their contribution towards achieving their objectives will be measured.
Often referred to as a Performance Management Cycle, the process should be a continuous one, encompassing positive steps that bring together employees within the Organisation, improving performance levels as well as individual feelings of achievement within the business, which in turn continues to spur on a good work ethic. This can therefore “snowball” further positive achievements.
Here are a few simple steps that you can follow in making sure that your performance management is successful and achieves the results it sets out to.
Objective Setting – Encourage direct reports to take ownership of their own objective setting, as opposed to the onus being entirely on line managers. We have noticed a trend in more Organisations requesting objective setting training for direct reports as well as managers, especially ahead of appraisals. Interestingly this provides a good gauge of how well they understand the overall picture and where their specific role fits into achieving Organisational and departmental objectives, as well as helping with that all important buy in.
Consistency – Whether you operate a monthly, quarterly, bi annual or annual process, it’s important that this remains consistent. Some of our clients operate an appraisal on the anniversary of each employees start date to avoid having to do appraisals in one big batch and potentially disrupting the operational side of the business. Others prefer to conduct appraisals at a set time of the year.
There are pros and cons for both methods, but it is important to remember that performance management should be a continuous process and we recommend regular interaction and feedback
Provide Performance Management training – OK, so this sounds a bit obvious, especially coming from a training provider, but we firmly believe that getting this right should not be left to chance. Consider your existing management team and ask yourself how consistent they are in their approach to performance management. The chances, those who are consistent have received a clear message from the Organisation and are well informed about what is expected of them and how they should deliver.
We fully understand that sometimes it is powerful to deliver messages about Performance Management internally so we also offer Train the Trainer solutions specifically around this topic.
For more tips on implementing a Performance Management strategy, or to learn more about our Performance Management training, please call us on 01295 675506 for a free consultation.