If you want your people to S.O.A.R. ®.... Management needs to L.E.A.D.

 

The Value of a Powerful Performance Management Process

Keeping people engaged and focused is critical to the success of any organization or business. How to make that happen requires a concentrated effort. It is not enough to pay them money and leave them alone. Managers and leaders must be equally engaged in the process. Having said that, it is not enough to do a performance "review". A review is a one-way street; a monologue between the manager and their direct report.  The manager tells and the employee reacts.  Sometimes they don't listen, they just sit in the same room. We need to have a dialogue and a two-way conversation. 

That is why we call our performance management process a Performance Development Plan. To create a plan to improve the performance and productivity of the employee and to create a plan to develop them into the kind of person they are fully capable of becoming. A Performance and Development Plan or PDP. 

No More Performance Reviews Needed

The performance management process is a formal framework for

(1) reviewing and managing performance over the last period,

(2) setting goals for the next period,

(3) developing plans for expanding their own capabilities, and

(4) determining their involvement in achieving your business results.

This document provides a forum to hold frank discussions relative to expectations concerning their role in the business. The goal is to continuously improve their performance and the business by delivering improved results through best practices. All conversations should be held within this framework and kept confidential.

In a recent study, it was found that employees find this type of review can accomplish a lot, and these PDP’s (Performance & Development Plan) have a real impact on employees when they are done correctly.

  1. Satisfaction with reviews correlates with job satisfaction. Employees who are satisfied with their review process are more engaged and less likely to be looking for new jobs.
  2. Employees know the secret to fixing their own reviews. Employees have a vision for how to make reviews more effective. While they expressed trust in good managers, they prefer broader input and more positivity in feedback.
  3. This recognition directly impacts business results. Recognized employees are more satisfied with reviews and perceive an impact on a wide variety of their performance metrics.

So, what does all this mean? More than an inconvenience, these discussions about performance can transform people and organizations when the process is properly designed. We have built a process that links the job description and the hiring and selection process with the learning checklist and worker training systems and the performance development plan. One HR system that makes it easy to do, significant, practical and useful.