Performance management is an HR function employers tend to avoid.
Employee Performance Management- There is no reason employers cannot have in place a clear performance measurement process, without it seeming like a ‘performance review’, or having employees feel they are being micro-managed.
The key to performance management is goal and timeline establishment.
Each and every goal should have a series of steps or achievements required to achieve the overall goal – and a timeline around each one. In this way, goal achievement becomes project managed.
Where one step is not achieved in the required or expected timeframe, other project steps need to be restructured.
Planning workflow in consultation with your team in this way enables the team to understand co-dependency across the team and also enables team members an insight into other’s workloads.
When team members share a common goal, they become much more invested in collaborative progress.
Your job as the team coach is to remove impeding obstacles and to monitor overall progress.
Daily performance monitoring.
We recommend daily catchups at critical progress points. Catchups are literally 5 minute stand up meetings to make sure everyone is clear on overall progress.
Agile planning processes encourage daily stand up meetings during the two week sprints – the outcome effectively is that the team performance manages tasks forward.
Once you have your team working in this manner, performance management becomes an entirely different and much more transparent process – and remains focused on task completion rather than method of completion.
Regular communication one to one with employees about their project progress is also a positive influencer when it comes to high performance – as long as it’s kept short and to the point.
Regular catch ups are not at all overwhelming compared with annual performance reviews and they tend to contribute really well to a ‘no surprises’ culture.
If you are not already in regular contact with your employees about various aspects of their performance and how they are tracking, you should try the ‘regular catch up’ concept.
Employees will start to relax a little when you give them regular positive reinforcement, which will inevitably give you insight on where they want to move toward in your business – and a deeper understanding of the culture of your own organisation.
Having a deeper level of insight into what’s going on with your employees usually means you will more than likely be able to provide more support than you would have been – in itself adding fuel to the overall project management function.