Effective employee-manager communication greatly benefits organizations.
If it isn’t effective, employees won’t feel like their needs are being supported. They won’t work hard to accomplish their strategic goals and objectives to better the company.
Performance management is a key part of building strong communication and ensuring all employees are conducting their roles to the best of their ability. Companies can create effective strategies and workflows using performance management systems and retain historic performance data to track everything easily.
Performance management is a communication tool used to identify, measure, and develop the performance of employees, teams, and departments in support of the overall business goals and objectives.
Essentially, it’s the ongoing, continuous practice that incorporates goal-setting, feedback, check-ins, and engagement surveys during employee performance cycles. The continuous communication between managers and employees is used to achieve the strategic objectives of the organization.
Conducting performance management ensures that each employee is actively engaged, growing in their work, and invested in your company’s success for the long haul. When done correctly, performance management begins when a job is defined and ends when that hired employee leaves your organization.
While performance management is typically the role of a manager or department lead, an HR professional should contribute by encouraging managers and supervisors to take responsibility for managing performance within their team and plan for performance improvement across the organization.
Performance management can impact your business significantly, no matter the industry or size of your organization, because it has the power to make or break employee performance and engagement. When performance at a company is well-managed and employees are working at their full potential, organizations reap the rewards.
Because performance management is about understanding and motivating employees to perform effectively, while supporting the broader goals of the organization, not only will the company achieve peak performance and reach new heights, employees will do the same.
Employees in every department and within every role will know exactly what’s expected of them, which will hopefully motivate them to improve their skills, development, and deliver the results needed as per their employee success plan.
While some companies think checking in with an employee once or twice a year during a performance appraisal is enough, those that utilize performance management are likely to get better results, since they can more easily solve what isn’t working and double-down on what is. Employees will benefit from a continued push to reach their goals and progress, rather than rushing to meet objectives once employee performance review season rolls around.
Basically, performance management is about measuring and improving the contribution of the employee to the organization, and should never be overlooked.
Remember that the goal of your employees is to achieve the company mission and vision, but this isn’t possible unless their own mission and vision aren’t accomplished, too.
of employees want their managers to provide them with proper feedback and opportunities for enhancing their performance level.
Source: Enterprise Apps Today
Performance management is an essential tool that helps employees to realize their full potential while assisting management and HR to get the most out of the workforce. Since performance management is a process that aims to bring individual goals together with group and organizational goals, it’s a strategic and formal process.
When building a strategy, here are the common components you should include.
Employee check-ins have the power to make or break the feedback culture. These casual one-on-one conversations are typically between an employee and manager about the employee’s performance, progress toward their goals, and what they need from their manager to be successful within their role.
Frequency matters when it comes to employee check-ins. They should be performed weekly to create a comfortable tone and to urge an ongoing and evolving conversation. This helps to build a strong feedback culture where employees feel heard rather than simply managed, and can receive feedback thoughtfully.
No employee wants to be left in the dark regarding how they’re doing at work – they want to know how they’re performing. Because they want to be sure they’re doing a good job, managers need to regularly communicate with their employees regarding their performance.
Every manager must touch upon employee performance attributes, like:
The more feedback a manager gives to an employee, and vice versa, the better for everyone.
Part of a well-thought-out performance management strategy will enable SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) goals to be aligned throughout the organization. Goals can be created or cascaded down by managers. The goal management functionality also facilitates the tracking of goal progress.
To make sure goals are driving employee engagement, it’s crucial that managers work to ensure their employees’ personal goals are closely aligned with the organizational goals, and that progress toward these goals is part of their regular check-in conversations.
In addition to SMART goals, other types of goals that are a part of performance management include:
One of the most valuable elements of performance management strategies is the 360-degree performance review. This method is when employees are given the opportunity to both receive and give constructive feedback regarding the performance of their peers, managers, and direct reports. This creates a well-rounded view of their performance, instead of only receiving feedback top-down from only their manager.
This can be incredibly useful for employees as they get a better understanding of their strengths, while also providing new opportunities for development and where they need additional coaching. Having these varying perspectives allows for employees to get a full picture of their strengths, weaknesses, and new ways that they can grow.
Tip: Use performance review templates to structure your feedback and discussion better.
Not sure what matters most to your employees? That’s where an employee engagement survey comes in.
As the name suggests, the main reason that organizations carry out an employee engagement survey is to discover if employees are feeling engaged or disengaged. While there’s no right way to measure engagement, you can start by implementing employee engagement software to your company’s tech stack.
Doing so can help organizations solicit and track feedback from their employees, recognize employee achievements, and promote positive activity.
Some commonly assessed factors within these surveys include:
Aside from measuring engagement, it has the added benefit of giving employees an opportunity to voice their concerns and comment on what is being done well within the company. These results, in turn, highlight areas for improvement and development.
A little recognition and praise can go a long way, and it’s a big part of performance management. Whether you decide to use feedback apps or collaboration tools that can empower employees and encourage them to celebrate small successes or simply announce an employee’s success in a team meeting, they can give a big workplace productivity boost.
Managers should be offering recognition and rewards for goals met, values demonstrated, and work well done keeps employees engaged and working toward your organization’s goals.
of employees will stay with a company for longer if it invests in their professional development.
Source: ClearCompany
Now that we’ve laid out a clear understanding of why performance management is important and the components you’ll need to include to get it right, let’s break down what the performance management process will look like.
Before the performance manager discussion officially begins, here are some things that managers, supervisors, and HR professionals should be sure to do.
During the performance evaluation, remember to:
Once everything is said and done, below is what you should remember to do after the conversation has come to a close:
Between HR, leadership roles, and C-suite executives, performance management should be top of mind in order to ensure that employees are completely aligned with the business to see success on all sides.
Once you have a strategy in place, it’s time to invest in performance management software to get it all streamlined.
When on the hunt for an application to help your business regulate performance management, look for features like:
Tools that incorporate these features can be used by any business looking to improve and promote the effectiveness of their employees while using a tool that makes it all easy.
When you need an application that can help establish employee performance standards while also evaluating an individual’s job performance, then it’s time your organization implemented performance management software. Doing so can help your business facilitate both meaningful and ongoing discussions between managers and their direct reports.
Typically, these tools are implemented into a tech stack as an easy way to support HR managers as they conduct employee performance reviews, maintain a record of discussion topics, iron out employee goals, and give constructive feedback. They can be a standalone tool or part of an HR management suite.
In order to be included in this list, software must:
* Below are the top five leading performance management software solutions from G2’s Fall 2023 Grid® Report. Some reviews may be edited for clarity.
Lattice is an easy-to-use people management platform that allows people managers to develop engaged and high-performing teams. Lattice makes it simple to share feedback, facilitate one-on-ones, set up goals, administer employee engagement surveys, and so much more.
“I really enjoy the Perform module as it contains the critical components an employee needs to chart and track performance such as goals, one-on-ones, and performance reviews. It also contains a public praise mechanism by which our team can provide continuous feedback, routed directly into our shared Slack channel so everyone can see when someone gets props!”
- Lattice Review, Rebecca A.
“It would be useful to have freeform text updates outside of the scope of the weekly update process. For instance, our business is currently operating on quarterly cycles for goal review and creation. At the end of each quarter, we have to use the "weekly update" feature to evaluate progress on all of our goals for that quarter and provide additional information in one place. Not the end of the world, but it would be a nice addition.
- Lattice Review, Matthew J.
Culture Amp is an all-in-one human capital management solution that can do it all. It offers employee engagement solutions that will drive development, increase retention, and bring meaningful changes.
“The new design changes ensure that I can support my team in their professional career progression. The way objective setting, feedback, performance reviews, and 1:1 meetings interact with each other makes it easy to track progress, show development opportunities, and give praise. The transparency allows everyone to be on the same page and makes my job easier.”
- Culture Amp Review, Chris H.
“The training contents can be enhanced a little bit more. Managerial content is much more than the ones for employees. The training for managers is really cool, and you can catch up on the soul of the time. But for employees, content should be enriched a little bit more.”
- Culture Amp Review, Gokhan K.
If your company is in need of a solution that simplifies employee performance and growth tracking by automation while enabling people to become their best selves, go for BambooHR. Managers will have complete visibility surrounding employee performance, OKR tracking, one-on-ones, engagement surveys, and more.
“BambooHR is an amazing platform to run many different elements of your daily operations out of, as well as the bigger picture and less frequent tasks. Rather than having multiple systems, websites, or accounts to manage for your company's hiring, payroll, benefits, etc. processes - having somewhere (and with great customer support) that is an "all-in-one" has been incredibly helpful for our company's efficiency.
I personally help manage multiple EINs for our parent company and have been a part of the implementation process for a few of them. We have had great support throughout every step of the process. Whether it be via chat, emails or a phone call, everyone on BambooHR's team is kind and helpful.”
- BambooHR Review, Kristen P.
“I wish the announcements were more customizable. The template is pretty generic - I wish it was more of a true email template like you get with Constant Contact or working in a PDF. It makes our weekly announcements look pretty generic - you can't really format the pictures or text very well. I also wish the org chart was more customizable.”
- BambooHR Review, Amy M.
HiBob HRIS is an HR platform for modern businesses to help improve employee experiences. It powers productivity, engagement, and retention. It offers personalized recruiting and onboarding, in addition to pay, benefits, and career development information.
“HiBob's interface is easy to use and collates everything that HR personnel may require. It's easy to monitor and amend employee time off as required and allows for the easy separation of each holiday policy. Reports can be drafted effortlessly, saving hours of potential work time. The people directory is also greatly helpful. It allows you to filter based on any property, so I can easily manage work anniversaries, identify where in the world various employees work, and so on. I am easily able to group employees for any task I have.
The inclusion of the org chart is also a particular favorite feature of mine, as it helps to visualize the hierarchy of your company. You can easily identify which members of staff are responsible for each employee, and allow for a comprehensive view of team members across your organization.”
- HiBib HRIS Review, Jake W.
“The recognition feature (kudos) is very lightweight compared to any other piece of recognition software (can't link recognition to values or specific projects. Can't add images, gifs, hashtags.) Despite great security and permission groups at a field level, the Kudos feature is lumped into the Announcements and Polling feature, and if you give employees access to Kudos they also get the ability to send out announcements and polls.”
- HiBob HRIS Review, Kim C.
When you’re in need of an all-in-one tool that helps HR professionals streamline payroll, workforce management, talent, benefits, and more, look no further than Paylocity. This flexible application makes it easy for its users to tackle even the biggest HR and payroll challenges so that they can focus on the task at hand.
“I like that Paylocity provides a one-stop place for employees to retrieve all information related to them and the company! As a small employer, it’s extremely satisfying to provide features and benefits from Paylocity products that you would think could only be provided by large organizations.
"When recruiting people to join our team and providing them a list of all the employee-friendly benefits that CRP provides, and the ease of access through Paylocity, everyone is very impressed. From recruiting to exit interviews and everything in between, Paylocity makes our HR department stand out!”
- Paylocity Review, Rachael S.
“One thing that is hard about Paylocity is that it can be somewhat complicated to learn. However, there are so many trainings available that if you take the time to watch through training videos and just dig into Paylocity, you can learn it. I just wish there was a way to set up auto-emails for specific things."
- Paylocity Review, Kayleen J.
Performance management is a crucial part of the success of any business. When done correctly, it can ensure that all members of each department are aligned with the objectives of the company and fully understand how they can benefit the organization for the long haul.
If your team works hard and continues to hit goals set out by performance management plans, then consider merit pay for their commitment to improving their performance.
Get the best performance management software to track and establish employee performance standards better.
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