Now considered a reactionary method of employee management, performance reviews and appraisals are dirty words in many corporate organisations because of  their negative connotations and associations. It’s not conducive to fostering confidence if employees need to sit through a session telling them about the areas they have failed throughout the year and it’s a risky undertaking for managers and team dynamics when a “post mortem” is conducted on a year’s performance. The new focus on performance management is beneficial to both the individual and the organisation and allows both to develop parallel to one another in a mutually-beneficial way. It’s proactive and progressive and probably where you want your organisation to be.

Performance management makes sure we define what we are measuring, the most appropriate ways of measuring, setting goals and targets and contextualising the employee’s position within the overall business objectives.

Nurturing Strengths and Positivity Through Performance Management

Performance management is a consistent and continuous process and, rather than honing in on the negative aspects of your employees’ performances it gives you a chance to engage with the positives. It might seem as though it requires a lot of effort- because it does, at least initially, but once you have got the right steps in place the time it takes to complete the performance management process decreases significantly.

While individual performances were once measured in a controlling and hierarchical way, new approaches are more flexible than controlling and allow for balance in terms of employee satisfaction and career development in order to help the organisation realise its goals.

Your Check List for Implementing Performance Management

• Make sure you define and establish what the purpose of the job is and what the required duties and responsibilities are.
• Also define what the performance goals are and ensure you have measurable outcomes.
• Go through each of the responsibilities and goals and prioritise them.
• Set performance standards for each job component.
• Ongoing discussions are recommended and you should give feedback on the employees; performances at least every quarter.
• Make sure you maintain a record of performance and file incident reports in the individual files.
• Expand your feedback system beyond the management team to a 360 degree feedback system which can include customers, peers and people working under the employee.
• Make sure the relevant training and development programs are in place should the employee not be meeting the required benchmarks.