Are you ready to make 2023 your best year?
Well, let us dominate then!
Many professionals are embracing the power of performance management, and you should too.
With the right strategies in place, you can maximize employee engagement and unlock a competitive edge.
Take advantage of these 7 performance management trends to conquer the year ahead!
1: Set Flexible Goals
Gone are the days when we can eagerly get together in a strategy workshop and plan our entire year out with rigid Objectives and KPIs and assign due dates for each quarter.
We need to learn to be more flexible with goal setting.
Instead of setting rigid annual goals for your teams that come from the top down, allow for flexibility.
Ensure your team members understand their goals and their contribution towards the achievement of the goals.
Goals should shift according to the top priorities of your team within a given quarter.
Companies should adopt quarterly dynamic-based plans to allow for a more agile planning process to keep up with technology and industry trends.
It is also important to allow individual employees to identify their own goals and take ownership.
2: Integrated Performance Approach
Does your company have a person who is in charge of Organisational Performance and someone else for Individual Employee Performance?
If it does, you should reconsider that.
It’s time to disrupt the organogram with a new Sheriff in a town called “Performance Unit Office” which is responsible for both Organisational and Individual Employee Performance.
This will help break the silo approach to planning and reporting.
The focus of a Performance Unit Office is typically on monitoring and evaluating the performance of the Organisational scorecards and Employees' performance.
Another aspect to consider is linking other business processes such as financial, risk, and project management to your performance management process.
e.g., breakdown some of your KPIs into financial cost centres for CAPEX and OPEX budgets.
Identify KPIs that are linked to risk management in the form of inherent or residual risk.
Find KPIs that need to be broken up into Projects with clear milestones for monitoring and reporting on progress.
This will bring about a more holistic view of the business.
3: Continuous Feedback
“Annual Appraisal is an old term.”
Ditch the infamous once-a-year awkward appraisal process that both Managers and Employees never look forward to and replace it with more frequent appraisals.
If your company does quarterly planning and reporting then you should be doing quarterly appraisals.
This only makes sense, right?
So how should we give feedback then?
Well, firstly have conversations from a “data point of view”.
Don’t be emotional when holding conversations with your team members.
Feedback should be a continuous, open conversation between an employee and their manager and doesn’t necessarily need to be recorded formally.
Even a weekly “Howzit going” conversation can spark dialogues to improve working relationships.
One-on-one check-ins help identify performance issues early on rather than forcing managers and employees to wait for weeks to discuss them.
If the employee is successful, the team and the Organisation are, too.
This will help employees feel more confident when performance review time comes around, making it a more positive experience in your company.
4: Different criterias for different folks
Often performance management practitioners paint a one size fits all brush on evaluation criteria for all employees.
Employees must be evaluated based on the skills that matter to their job role.
Rather than saying “Our company uses a 5-point rating criteria based on our policy” allow managers together with their employees to customise the criteria based on the individual's job description and KPIs for the year.
This may seem like a lot of work at first but think of the smoothness of evaluation conversations when expectations are clearly defined.
It is very important to have a compensation plan in place that is transparent, clearly defined, and easy to understand.
Managers should discuss this before completing performance agreements so that there is no ambiguity in what to expect.
5: Digitalizing Performance Management
Spreadsheets and "fancy" presentations are static tools that don’t allow fast adaptability and real-time information regarding the status of your approach.
If your company is still using Excel to manage performance, you’re losing out big time on software tools out there.
Automation has been gaining steam over the past few years and is likely to become even more popular this year.
An ePMS System can help streamline processes like goal setting and feedback collection, allowing business leaders to focus on more strategic initiatives instead of managing mundane tasks.
Make sure you adopt a performance management system that’s not only focused on appraisals but a holistic solution covering performance development and career planning for employees and helps keep constant communication between peers to improve employee morale.
Here is a short video on a holistic performance management system: 👇🏽
6: Data-Driven Insights
"If data is the new gold, then conversations are the new diamonds."
Along with automation, performance analytics can provide and kick off the right conversations to understand “where we are” and “Where are we headed” as many managers will drive their meetings with the use of visual dashboards from automated systems.
Managers can gain insights into what motivates their workforce and how they can improve overall performance.
An eCOMM System can help provide visible information to colleagues to keep them in the loop for all business activity.
Performance insights can be displayed on TV screens with each department's live analytics running which can be a great way to keep up the competition between departments and colleagues with visible leaderboards.
Overall, conversations need to be driven by data going forward.
7: Employee Engagement
In addition to data-driven decision-making, employee engagement will be key for successful performance management in 2023.
Companies need to focus on creating an environment where employees feel valued and appreciated so they are motivated to give their best effort every day such as communicating effectively with employees and involving them in decision-making processes.
Providing a healthy work-life balance is crucial for companies to adopt this year to avoid burnout syndrome.
Companies are increasingly recognizing the importance of keeping employees engaged and motivated, and are investing more in training and development programs to help them grow and succeed.
This can include things like mentoring programs, leadership development, and on-the-job training.
Core values are something that should be discussed continuously and not just a fancy chart stuck at the reception desk.
The “core values conversation” needs to be continuously brought up in meetings.
Create a KPI for % compliance to Core Values and ensure this is brought up in quarterly evaluation meetings to see how team members are living up to the values of the company.
To wrap up,
Performance management is an essential part of any successful business, and with the right strategies in place, you can maximize employee engagement and unlock a competitive edge.
By embracing the trends of flexible goal setting, integrated performance approach, continuous feedback, and different criteria for different folks, you can ensure that your company is well-positioned to dominate in 2023.
Remember, the key to success is to be flexible, break down silos, and focus on data-driven conversations.
With these tools in your arsenal, you can create a positive and productive work environment that will drive your business to new heights, and remember:
“It takes leaders with a vision to help people with dreams.”
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