Here are some key things I recommend taking on board when managing performance in your business.

Frequency

Performance management is a day-to-day activity. Informal performance management should be happening everyday as managers interact with employees on day-to-day activities providing feedback and guidance. 

Employees would like regular and immediate feedback, not less!

The formal side of performance management typically happens once a year at a minimum. If you are only sitting down once a year to give your employees feedback this is not enough. How can an employee respond or make improvements on things that are now in the past!

The pace of your business should determine the frequency of reviews, which could be quarterly, twice a year - a mid-year and an end of year review or just an end of year review - if you are a small business more regular formal reviews may just not be practical.

Preparation

The key to performance reviews is preparation. Meetings should be set with reasonable notice so that both the employee and manager can prepare their feedback and allow time during the meeting to discuss performance, especially if you are only meeting to discuss end of year reviews, this cannot be completed in 15 minutes, make sure you will not be disturbed during the meeting.

To help with your preparation, ask your employees to conduct their own self-assessment and share that with you ahead of the meeting. This helps you understand their perspective on their performance, and if you are aligned great! If their self-assessment is not aligned with your assessment of their performance, you need to take time to try and understand this, you may have to delve deeper into their assessment in the meeting, remember it’s their assessment so you should just seek clarity to help you understand their perspective. 

The feedback should be specific to the objectives set, if an objective was the completion of a project, share feedback on how they tackled the task, what they did well, were deadlines achieved and any obstacles they had to overcome. 

Being specific will provide clarity on the performance grade you will be awarding. 

If your manager gives you a performance grade without any background and it’s not what you were expecting – how would this make you feel? Setting the scene and providing specifics helps you and the employee understand the end result.

1-2-1’s

I cannot recommend regular 1-2-1’s with your employees enough! 

These should be happening at least once a month, more if you have a new starter, a coaching need, or the pace of your business dictates this. Have a set agenda for your 1-2-1’s, to include KPI’s. If there is a clash with the scheduled meeting time, make sure you reschedule the slot. Take notes of all of your 1-2-1’s and by doing this you will have all of your data for your performance reviews and your preparation is done! You already have all your specific feedback lined up for your formal performance reviews.

Coaching

Did you know that by conducting regular 1-2-1’s you are establishing a coaching practice with your employees?

Consistency is key! Regular 1-2-1’s with set agendas lead to opportunities for you to coach. The agenda doesn’t need to be onerous just include, action items update, KPI’s, current projects / hot topics and personal goals. Over time the flow of your 1-2-1’s will improve, and they turn into coaching conversations, the employee will know what is expected of them at the meeting, they will come prepared, and the conversation will focus on what good looks like and what support they need.  

Make sure your feedback is constructive and transparent to ensure trust between you and your employee is maintained.

There are many benefits to this consistent practice:

• employees like time with their manager
• it provides an opportunity to talk about concerns and questions
• helps cultivate relationships
• decreases interruptions
• better time management and helps employee prioritise
• employees will feel that what they do matters, and they work with people who care about them.

Did you know that organisations with engaged employees outperform those with low employee engagement by 202%!

Follow up

So, the performance review is complete and during the meeting you identify a training need and discuss options for a training course, some coaching or project exposure or you have an employee who has high potential, and you discuss setting a development plan for them. Make sure you follow up on these actions! An employee will leave the meeting feeling valued that the business is willing to invest time in their development and the worst thing you can do is forget about this and not follow up on these actions.

I have been in this position, at the end of my performance review my manager said great year, really pleased with performance I can see your potential for the next level, and we should write a development plan to get you there. I was on cloud 9, so I left the meeting and set about writing my own development plan, at my next 1-2-1, I presented this to my manager, ‘thanks’ they said, and it was placed in their in-tray and that’s where it stayed! This is a sure-fire way to disengage your employees! Engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave. And guess what I was disengaged, and I left!  

If your business doesn’t have a set performance management flow or process and you feel this needs to be set, schedule a call with me today. I’d be happy to discuss your business aims and help you find the right balance in performance management practices for your business.