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The Key to Achievement: Performance Management

What do successful organizations frequently have in common?

In addition to a robust talent management strategy, they also have a firm and comprehensive performance management system in place.

In its simplest form, performance management means you’re not just measuring, but also rewarding the performance of employees, in the context of a set of predetermined goals and metrics.

When a performance management system is effective, the value to an organization is tremendous and includes employees that are more productive and engaged, as well as boosted morale overall.

Creating a strategy to manage the performance of employees is the best way you can improve the performance of your workforce, from the bottom to the top.

The Components of Performance Management

While every strategy for managing and measuring the performance of employees is going to vary based on the industry, some of the primary components you frequently see across the board include:

• A coming together of individual goals within the environment of larger and more overarching corporate goals.
• The goals of the company should be broadly communicated to the entire organization.
• Monitoring progress is a necessity, and through this monitoring of this progress, it’s then possible to identify gaps and weaknesses, which can then be addressed through training and development, or coaching from company leaders.
• There should be a system of defined and well-documented feedback in place.

Many organizations also opt to utilize performance management as part of their compensation management strategy—utilizing the monitoring of progress and achievement as a way to determine a pay-for-performance system.

Keys to Creating Goals for Performance Management

While a good or even great performance management system can increase a company’s profitability, improve engagement and lead to more talent retention, a poorly-run management system can have the opposite impact.

Some of the top performance measuring and appraisal systems are based on the science of human psychology, and share common characteristics, including:

• The creation of defined and challenging goals. Typically, the more difficult a goal is to attain, the better the performance of employees.
• When a company is able to create goals that are also self-serving in some way, or are easily translated to personal feelings, the result is more achievement.
• Communication is key. There has to be constant and consistent communication to accompany measurement and appraisals of employee achievement.

The Intersection of Training and Development with Performance Management

There’s an increasing amount of intersection between the efforts of companies in terms of training and development and their performance management strategy.

Learning management systems are being used as a valuable part of the process to identify potential gaps and weaknesses, and then once it’s possible to immediately identifying these issues, it becomes easier to resolve them.

With the modern and extensive capabilities of today’s learning management systems, it provides just another layer in the ability to more precisely track and monitor employees—an indispensable tool in a successful performance management strategy or system.