5 Easy Ways to Learn More About Performance Management

For many managers, whether they’re new to the game or a seasoned veteran, performance management is no easy feat. 96% of businesses that responded to a recent survey said performance management is important to their organization, yet only 64% said they have an effective approach. With so many options and routes available, it can be difficult to know where to start. We’ve put together some of the best performance management articles from the pros to help you navigate the world of performance management advice.

Performance Management Tips for the First-Time Supervisor

“The process of giving employees regular feedback about their performance isn’t going away. Why? Because deep down inside, we want regular feedback about our performance. “No news is good news” just isn’t a performance management philosophy. So it’s critical that supervisors learn how to deliver feedback.” – Sharlyn Lauby, Author/Speaker

Knowing the essentials for giving feedback should be at the top of the list for new managers.  Sharlyn Lauby (@Sharlyn_Lauby), HR consultant, hands out ten tips in this post on her blog that will get any new supervisor ready to go and even help the most experienced managers with a little refresher.

Our favorite performance management tip: Talk about the past but focus on the future. Lauby explains why having a focus on employee performance to come is so crucial in performance reviews.

Fix, Don’t Nix, Your Performance Reviews

“Overall, there are problems with our hiring systems. But we don’t scrap them. There are problems with our comp systems. But we don’t scrap those, either. Why should performance reviews be different?” – Jonathan Segal, Partner in Employment Practice Group of Duane Morris

In this Entrepreneur article, Jonathan Segal (@Jonathan_HR_Law) sites some of the most common reasons management pros come down on performance reviews but do these reasons mean we should get rid of them? There are so many valuable benefits performance reviews bring to an organization. Segal lists these out and combats some commonly cited pitfalls.

Our favorite performance management tip: Train supervisors! Segal makes it clear that performance management doesn’t become seamless and effective unless you provide real training on how to effectively manage it. That means including more than just HR staff.

A Guiding Principle and 8 Tips on Remote Team Performance Management

“Ultimately, we determined that there is nothing different or unique about reviews and performance management for remote workers at all. The best way to ensure your team is performing at its peak is to provide regular, consistently managed feedback and to give your team the opportunity to evaluate management performance as well.” – Mandy Ross

Managing a remote team? This post from the Sococo blog gives a quick rundown on how to keep performance management on the radar even when the whole team isn’t in the same office. From avoiding the ‘us and them’ mindset to creating a robust management framework, these tips will help you keep everyone on the same page.

Our favorite performance management tip: Empower workers to provide upstream feedback. This is precisely what a great performance management tool will allow managers to do. By eliminating the stress around feedback implementation, you can get your whole team to participate in a culture of feedback.

Performance Management in the Gig Economy

“Most organizations, however, are not set up to benefit from their increased investment in agile talent. Research by PMI describes most problems in project performance as being the result of alignment issues. Our findings concur. And the alignment gap is greatest when it comes to performance management. What can we do to close the performance alignment gap?” – Jon Younger and Norm Smallwood

External workers such as freelancers, gigsters, and consultants are making up the gig economy and bringing in agile talent to your workforce. But how do you keep performance up to par when it comes to these external professionals. Learn how to close the performance alignment gap in this post from Harvard Business Review.

Our favorite performance management tip: Acknowledge excellence and share the news. Performance management is so much more than simply righting wrongs and sometimes this gets lost in the anxiety workers can feel around reviews. Ease the stress by making performance reviews about ALL aspects of performance, not just the bad stuff.

3 Ways Companies Are Changing the Dreaded Performance Review

“The job performance assessment got its foothold because labor union contracts required annual reviews to grant merit raises, explains Jason Averbook, CEO of TMBC, a company that works with organizations to redesign annual performance-review systems. But in today’s fast-paced knowledge economy—with clients and employees alike expecting things in real time—a once-a-year check-in just doesn’t get the job done.” – Stephanie Taylor Christensen

Do you know why the performance review originally started? This post from FastCompany explains its origins and what companies need to do now to move this out-dated practice into the future.

Our favorite performance management tip: When your manager—and even a fellow colleague—is empowered to reward you financially for the value you bring, you both win. Peer-to-peer rewards are gaining traction with performance management outliers and with good reason, it can hold as much value as a bonus from a manager and encourages teamwork.

Of course, we have some great performance management tips right here as well. We’ve written about facts you need to know before embarking on employee feedback, and the ten things new managers need to know about performance management, and created a primer on how to make performance feedback count. Looking for other ways to supercharge your performance management? Let Trakstar help. Sign up for a demo and learn more!