5 Strategic Performance Management Tips
The key to a successful business goes further than a clear, well-defined strategy. For a good strategy to succeed, there needs to be a way to ensure that good execution takes place in every aspect of the company. For example, if a company’s organizational goals are to be effectively met, there needs to be a strong strategic performance management process in place.
Through ongoing support and communication, HR typically plays a key influencer role in ensuring a performance management program’s implementation is nothing short of successful.
What is Strategic Performance Management?
Strategic performance management is more than cultivating a work environment conducive to the needs of all employees. It involves a series of supporting processes to be present such as strong leadership, healthy interpersonal relationships, continuous and constructive feedback, and collaboration.
Clarifying the purpose and intent of what a performance management process requires can sometimes be very challenging to many leaders. Therefore, it is important to first recognize the primary responsibilities that fall into the category of performance management, including:
- The establishment of expectations for work performance, and the planning of ways to meet these expectations
- The monitoring of employee performance through various performance appraisal methods, such as check-ins and feedback
- The offering of rewards and praise for good performance, and managing poor performance effectively
- The regular rating of performance through constructive summaries and reviews
- The continuous development of a capacity for optimal performance within the organization
- The necessary coaching and action planning for managing performance-related issues
Strategic performance management helps organizations to apply their strategy throughout the entire organization in order to ensure all goals are being met. The foundation of this is that with regular, simple, realistic, and appropriate guidelines and expectations, leaders can better ensure their employees will endorse and drive company success.
Why is Strategic Performance Management Important?
Any workplace that includes interdependency amongst its workforce (e.g.; everywhere) can and will benefit from strategic performance management. Organizations who choose to ignore this facet of HR management tend to suffer from unmet goals, a loss of time and resources, and unresolved conflicts and differences. When a company tries to link individual goals with organizational goals, the potential for these symptoms to arise diminish almost entirely. In place, the company sees an increase in efficiency and effective collaboration along with timely completion of projects and tasks.
The primary benefits that will be observed and measured once an organization introduces strategic performance management include:
Engaged Employees
By providing on going feedback, clarity of direction and the promotion of personal / professional development for employees in every department and at every level, significantly increases the chances of an organization’s strategy being effective.
Strengthened Leadership
Key essential skills are required for leaders of people including Giving Feedback and Coaching. The development and leveraging of these core leadership competencies are a critical factor to realizing goals and for ultimately pushing through effective problem-solving, critical thinking, and decision-making.
Improved Communication
When a strategy is communicated well at a widespread level, employees can consider their goals and tactics identifying where it is they specifically add value, which leads to clarity of direction and improved productivity levels.
Business Objectives Achieved
A successful performance management strategy is evidenced by key strategic initiatives and core business objectives attained. When an executive team can review that its critical projects and goals have been met, there is much reason to celebrate these successes.
5 Strategic Performance Management Tips
After adopting an effective process and management strategies, a company should soon begin to see organizational growth and success. Try the following performance management strategies to begin the process in your own organization.
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1. Communicate Company Goals & Performance Objectives
When performance expectations and company goals are not explicitly outlined, it can be challenging for employees to know whether they are succeeding in their work or not. Too often are leaders unclear when outlining goals and company objectives, and the chances of employees asking follow-up questions when they are unclear can be quite low. Clearly stating performance expectations and organizational goals should be the first step towards strategic performance management.
2. Regularly Offer Performance Feedback
Tools and tactics often used to monitor progress include goal-tracking software, holding one-on-one update meetings and real-time feedback. The more of these strategies you use when managing goal completion, the more likely it is that employees will feel confident in staying on the right track in their efforts.
Effective performance feedback is essential to a strong performance management strategy. It works to reinforce strong skill sets and build desired behaviors while providing an opportunity for guiding employees towards a clear path for improvement and development. Consistent feedback is the best way to reassure your employees and their efforts.
3. Take Advantage of Performance Management Software
With the rapid development of technology, many traditional employee performance review strategies have become obsolete. Seeking out a software that is employee-friendly, has a simple and intuitive dashboard interface, and allows for quick and actionable reporting is a central component in fostering employee development in the modern world. An HR performance management software that is conducive to modern organizational demands allows you and your employees to stay productive and timely in your deliverables and helps to ensure your company stays running smoothly and efficiently.
4. Utilize Multi-Rater Feedback
A more modern approach to performance feedback exists in the form of multi-rater, also known as 360-degree reviews. Most performance management software programs are conducive to this feedback strategy. Multi-rater feedback can be very useful because the feedback discussion looks to include peers, colleagues, direct reports and even customers. Ultimately, this approach allows for a more well-rounded and inclusive feedback experience vs a single perspective from only the person’s manager.
Multi-rater / 360 Feedback can prompt employees to self-reflect once summary results have been presented. There should be HR oversight involved to ensure the process is managed with confidentiality and the assurance of respectful and constructive feedback.
5. One-on-One Discussion Meeting Outcomes and Results
Progress reports or progress meetings may already be a familiar term within your workplace, but consistently setting aside time to meet with your team and check in on the progress towards goals will always be an important part of the effort in reaching those goals.
The frequency of these meetings can vary widely depending upon the organization. Some companies may benefit from holding them monthly, others may choose to have them on a weekly basis. However often, it should be communicated clearly to the entire team that attendance is mandatory. This ensures that the progress feedback generated from these update meetings is accurate to the state of the project or goal.
The content of these meetings can also vary widely, because most topics will be content or project specific. However, some general objectives you should aim to cover should include:
- Following up on completed projects/goals – offer real-time assessment
- Offering a Start / Stop and Continue approach to balancing performance feedback
- Recognizing those team members who are actively meeting their goals and objectives with rewards and incentives
- Discussing plans for the next phase of projects
- Discussing company data (i.e. revenue, customer involvement, marketing and campaign success, etc.)
Take our Strategic Performance Management Infographic to go!
Strategic Performance Management
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Final Thoughts
Regulating performance management is a central pillar of any Human Resources department. Companies should be focused on yielding successful performance results, and about the support of its people who got them there. Utilizing their skill sets advantageously, recognizing their successes, encouraging them where they falter, and seeing them as valuable individuals is how you can cultivate a work environment conducive to success.
