Now more than ever, more and more companies worldwide understand the importance of performance management as a key for an effective organization. Thus, they have decided to incorporate it into their daily routines as a tool for continuous monitoring and improvement. But what is performance management and how has it evolved from the old practices of yearly appraisals?

Read more: The 6 largest HR trends for 2020

What is performance management

Performance management is a total of management practices that assist and monitor employees’ performance at work, help them develop personally and increase employee satisfaction. While traditional management required time consuming reviews once or twice per year with long questionnaires, uncomfortable conversations and questionable results, performance management adapts a continuous, collaborative mindset of management. This new feedback culture allows managers to have an overview of all projects, track performance, overcome obstacles, empower teams, and collect information for quality conversation among team members. A successful performance management system can have an impact both on both the short term and long term.

The process of engaging with employees’ development combines some important steps: performance cycle creation, goal setting, continuous feedback and evaluations. By taking into consideration successes and mistakes, the whole organization can improve, talent development becomes a priority and possible problems are recognized and fixed quickly. To achieve successful performance management and incorporate it into the workplace culture, the use of a performance management system is essential to structure, and supports all the processes and strategy.

What are the benefits of a performance management system

A performance management system will ensure that personal goals are aligned with the company’s objectives and that all the tasks are met in an effective, timely organized manner. The vision and the long term will be divided into smaller actions that will create the roadmap to success. Employees will embrace this new culture since they will feel that they are valuable members of the team and will use the performance management system to better organize their daily projects and take control of their development. Even more, they will be able to ask for assistance at every step of the process and will be reassured that their hard work will be recognized and rewarded.

Read more: The changing face of performance management

How to start

A first step for successful performance management is the creation of a performance cycle. Managers can set an actionable plan to decide the goals, future checkpoints, feedback and evaluation that they want to be done in a certain time period.

After this, the next step is setting goals. Managers can provide inspiration to each team member and discuss the separate goals to be achieved, while employees can assess the company’s objectives and embrace personal goals. Moreover, these goals need to meet specific, targeted criterias. Thus, the goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, acceptable, realistic and time-based.

SMART?

Specific: Goals should be clear and described concretely. That’s why the goals should be as exact as possible.

Measurable: The goals should be able to have visible results and be quantified. That is why they are often expressed in percentages and numbers. This way, they are meaningful and motivating.

Achievable: Before starting working on a goal, some decisions should be made. Is it feasible? Is there sufficient support to achieve the goal? Is it action-oriented and can it lead to results? If employees feel that the goal is not easily achieved, they will not accept it. This is why the goals should be agreed upon and be attainable.

Relevant: The goal must be challenging, but realistic. An inaccessible goal does not motivate people. Goals should be reasonable and resourced.

Time-based: Goals must be realized within a certain time. When do we start with the activities? When are we ready? When is the goal achieved? It is important to be time-based and time and cost limited.Now that we are ready to start working on our goals, it is essential to ask for regular feedback and get help from other team members during any step of the process. This becomes much easier with structured templates that help ask the right questions. When the goal is completed, it will be a great chance for reflection. Now, it is the time to evaluate the past process and decide what the successful points were as well as those that need improvement. You can always bring your colleagues into this step.

Why TruQu?

TruQu is a performance management tool that facilitates your entire performance management process! Companies are now able to assist their teams and employees in their development process by changing the yearly culture of appraisals with 3 steps: 

Set Goals. Request Feedback. Reflect. 

Every employee develops a personal digital file that can be retrieved at any  time and supports the conversations among team members. Employees take control of their personal development, while managers can automate everything related to talent development and new assessments; and have an overview of all the projects!

How this works:

• Each member of the team can set goals, add intermediate results and specific action points in between to reach their short and long term goals.
• The manager can assist the team by creating customized performance cycles or use TruQu’s ready-made ones.
• The rest of the team can check which stage of the process the goal is in and then contribute respectively.
• Feedback can be asked for at any point of the process.
• Templates can be used for holistic review and targeted feedback.
• Reflection reports can be created to provide an overview of your entire development process.

What are the benefits of TruQu:

• Improves personal development
• Accelerates productivity
• Provides insights for promotions / raises etc.
• Better communication within the team
• All projects are organized
• Time-saving
• Self-directed employees
• Everything digitally in one place
• Continuous dialogue
• Fully-automated
• An all-in-one tool

You can now start your development journey with TruQu. TruQu will become your digital coach in learning and development.

Get started and enjoy the ride!

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