Appraisals often put fear in the hearts of both managers and employees, but well-conducted performance management can enable a really effective working relationship between manager/supervisor and team member. It used to be said, "No news is good news" and you judged how well you were doing by the lack of criticism, but today employees expect a regular flow of information and feedback on their contributions.
In fact, where managers do provide that regular flow, performance is high, because the pre-requisites for high performance are being met. These are:
1. Know what to do: Know how your role contributes to the overall company vision and goals and know the standards and expectations around your role and your responsibility and authority to deliver.
2. Know how to do it: Be provided with the resources you need to deliver results and where training and development is needed, receive this as early as possible to enable you to perform well.
3. Know how you're doing: Receive regular feedback on your performance, both reinforcing the things you do well and constructive support to help you develop where needed.
Here's a checklist for setting up a performance management system:
- Define the purpose of the job, job duties, and responsibilities.
- Define performance goals with measurable outcomes.
- Define the priority of each job responsibility and goal.
- Define performance standards for key components of the job.
- Hold interim discussions and provide feedback about employee performance, preferably daily/weekly; summarized and discussed, preferably quarterly but at least half-yearly. (Provide positive and constructive feedback.)
- Maintain a record of performance through incident reports. (Jot notes about contributions or problems throughout the quarter, in an employee file.)
- Provide the opportunity for broader feedback. Eg Use a 360 degree performance feedback system that incorporates feedback from the employee's peers, customers, and people who may report to him (every couple of years); encourage the employee to ask colleagues for feedback.
- Agree a development plan a)for those areas where the employee is not meeting expectations, b) for further career development.
- For the appraisal, use a structured approach to review performance against objectives and, if the company has a competency framework, to review competencies. Both the employee and the manager will prepare their review on this template, then in the meeting discuss their findings and agree the appraisal. Where the above points are done and feedback is frequent, this should be a relatively quick and painless meeting as all the information is already known. Openness and transparency takes the fear out of appraisals and makes them a great opportunity for the manger and employee to develop a strong working relationship. For more help on how to manage for performance contact me.
