The Key Elements of Performance Management

Managing performance effectively is becoming increasing important in today’s service and knowledge based economy. However, many businesses and organisations are still unclear about what performance management is or how it should be used. To try and provide some guidance in this area, I have summarised the key elements of an effective performance management process below.

In my view, the overall purpose of performance management is to maximise the contribution of individuals and their work teams to enable a business or organisation achieve its strategic goals. I also believe that performance management is applicable to all levels of an organisation and not just for front line staff.

My own personal (good!) experiences of having my performance and development managed effectively included the following:

For me to be able to take responsibility for my own performance and maximise it, I needed to know what my boss and organisation expected of me. A number of organisations I worked for were very good at this and set expectations by:
• Describing what needed to be achieved through the setting of personal targets that were linked to the business’ strategic aims.
• Describing how I was expected to behave and deliver my personal targets.

Once the expectations have been set, my boss did not just leave me to ‘get on with it’, but should sat down with me every 6-8 weeks to discuss and review my performance against their expectations ‘continually’ reviewed on a regular basis, for example every 6-8 weeks. In this way any issues were quickly nipped in the bud.

My boss also conducted a formal review of my performance once per year to formally record progress and successes. They reviewed:
• What had been achieved against my targets set at the beginning of the year.
• How the targets had been delivered. This was determined by reviewing my behaviour against the organisation’s competence standards and values. It was not acceptable for me to deliver on my targets at any cost.

Clearly for the performance management process to be effective something needed to happen as a result of it. The outcomes from the continual and annual reviews ranged from a recognition of efforts and achievements, sanctioning of my bonuses as well as the occasional consequential action for non achievement. In addition, I agreed a personal development plan with my boss outlining the learning actions for the coming year.

I valued being set clear expectations and then being empowered to deliver on them. I found the process of having my performance and development proactively managed as a very engaging and rewarding one that helped me to perform to my best and achieve my potential.

If your people and business are not achieving their potential it is probably time to review how the performance and development of people are managed in your organisation.