Effective Performance Management

Organizations have come to realize the great impact that an effective Performance Management (PM) system has towards growth. An effective PM system is one which creates synergies between employees’ goals & aspirations and the greater vision & strategy of the organization whilst resulting in increased business productivity. Investing in this type of PM system is the starting point of getting organizations to priorities performance.

One phenomenon that is becoming apparent in business, is that great progress in terms of growth is becoming more and more dependent on a confident and skilled workforce. The individual employee needs to feel that they are a valuable asset, which increases their motivation, level of engagement and dedication towards their responsibilities. Providing adequate resources in the form of training for personal and professional development keeps employee competency levels high. Additionally, adopting a bottom-up approach that supports the employee in structuring clear and reachable performance goals will work in favor of achieving high-level strategic goals.

Perhaps the difficulty that businesses have been facing is the time it takes to manage and appraise the performance of each and every individual employee manually, which makes the task very cumbersome. However, with much gratitude to the existence of technology, organizations are a click away from improving strategy, boosting employee engagement and achieving their goals. Consequently, productivity is improved and a higher quality of work is produced. An automated performance management system makes the process of managing and appraising performance quick and easy.

With the buy in of leaders from from IT, HR and Executive Management; the deployment of a performance management system coupled with adequate change management and training will definitely increase productivity, better monitor performance and help outperform competition. The collaboration between management and employees on continuous performance feedback is very crucial as it creates a positive communication environment. And therefore resulting in SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely) goals being reached.

The performance management conversation need not be done through frustration and desperation, but as we have observed it requires integrated and effective communication across the different management levels. Luckily automation of this process also lessens the burden and allows organisations to prioritise on other growth related activities, like creating new products & services, creating a conducive environment for employees and maintaining fair incentives for high-performers. Therefore, performance managed effectively eventually guarantees the success of both the employee and organization.