One way that we can further the growth of our company and the people who help us run it is through good performance management. I am not talking about your once a year check the box form and the employees cut and paste the same answers in the box year after year. I am talking about a plan of action that makes an impact, to the employees, the company and the managers who deal with performance. Most employees hate doing it, managers hate giving them and they take so much time, by the time you are done with them, you are ready to not deal with them for another 11 months.
So what is performance anyway? It is the action of accomplishing a task and delivering a result. Really it seems simple when you break it down like this. Why is it so tedious and painful to help employees accomplish a task? Many companies try to make it so complicated that it isn’t realistic. So, how can you simplify the process and make performance reviews more meaningful in your workplace?
- Relatable – Many of the goals we see on performance management plans are very lofty, or maybe just too wordy. Employees need to understand the fastest and easiest way to achieve their goals, while maintaining a clear direct line to the overall goals of the organization and how they can directly impact the goals.
- Easy – No one has extra time to blow. Not your employees, not your managers and most of all, not business owners. Why do we want to make something so complicated that it takes our people hours upon hours to complete it? Employees should be able to complete the simple process in about 30 minutes. The managers should be able to meet with the employees for 30 minutes and be done with the process.
- On-going – Performance Management is not something that you can just do once a year and then put it away until next time. Performance Management should be a process that happens throughout the year and does not always require a formal setting. When was the last time your managers had a lunch one on one with their employees? You can create an environment that will allow employees to feel that they are valued as part of your organization. Which in turn, will make them more willing to give you their true feedback, both at the prescribed time for performance management and throughout the rest of the year.
Overall, it is not easy to make these changes or to make your performance management an overnight success. This is a continual change in the right direction; this year you work on creating a relationship of trust with your employees, next year, you work on changing the formal process in your organization. Buy-in from your management team is also a must, if you can’t get them to buy-in to your overarching vision on such a small change, you may not have the right person in the right position, but that we can tackle that in our next blog post.