Performance management, done well, enables your business to capitalise on strengths, and identify and tackle weaknesses. In boom times, this is good news: it keeps you moving forwards, mapping talent for the future, and effectively applying oil to the wheels of productivity. However, in trickier times, like now, performance management often takes on a new persona. It’s seen only as a tool for things such as redundancy. Yet, used effectively, performance management can be at the centre of business survival and growth in lean times.
Here are our top 5 reasons why your organisation should in invest in performance management right now:
1. Engage Employees
Downtime can spell disaster for employee engagement. And without excellent levels of engagement, you can’t hope to weather the storm of the hard times. You need all employees pulling on the ropes, getting you to calmer waters. Disengaged employees aren’t productive employees, and they also have a tendency to leave, taking their skills with them.
During downtimes, employees have a tendency to keep their thoughts quiet. It’s a case of keeping their head down. This is even easier for them at the moment, likely hiding behind computer screens, by working from home. However, you need to know what’s going on for them so that you can get the best from them.
How does performance management help? Performance management identifies employee disengagement and uncovers why. This is invaluable information which enables you to re-engage employees and get them highly productive once more.
2. Reduce Unnecessary Costs
Unfortunately, many businesses currently need to use redundancies as a way to cut costs so that they can, hopefully, survive this difficult time. Open any newspaper and there are tales of new redundancies on a daily basis.
It’s not a pleasant process, and it’s far from easy to do legally. Given that redundancies are often required for financial reasons, the last thing you want to happen is getting into hot water because they haven’t been carried out legally. The latest ONS data shows that disabled employees have currently got higher than average redundancy rates. Given that unfair dismissal and discrimination employment tribunal awards can run up to tens of thousands of pounds, struggling employers cannot make mistakes with redundancy.
How does performance management help? Performance management enables you to fairly and robustly identify poor performers and track efforts to rectify this. Whether due to straight-forward performance issues, or ranking for redundancy, performance management makes things fair and documented.
3. Communication in the Cloud
One issue that many businesses are facing, with an increase in the number of employees working remotely, is that communication on the big issues is floundering. It’s taking enough effort to get the details of everyday business life in hand, let alone communicating about career ambitions and talent mapping.
How does performance management help? Right now, it’s easier than ever to get powerful, insightful and cloud-based performance management tools to make communication about the big issues easier. With transparent and straightforward communication between managers and employees, time isn’t wasted on missing communication.
4. Drive Retention and Productivity
During tougher times you need to hold onto your valuable talent, and you need that talent to be productive. Performance management is the key to showing your employees that you are interested and invested in them, challenging them to better themselves. Providing timely and useful feedback is welcomed because it gives insight.
How does performance management help? Without performance management on a continual basis, employees can feel invisible. Their goals and aspirations can feel unheard. Performance management instead lays out the plan, defines goals, and tracks progress. Employees benefit from performance management systems that enable them to see their future with you, and they’ll productively work towards your shared goals because they are actively motivated.
5. Priorities Matter Right Now
At the moment, businesses need to be ruthless about what really matters. Whether you’ve got team members on furlough, or there just isn’t the cash flow for everything you want to do, teams need to be able to prioritise with razor sharp focus.
The problem is – how do teams identify their priorities? Performance management can give clarity to team goals, as well as identifying the strengths and weaknesses that impact progress. It’s not just about getting the job done, but getting it done well.
How does performance management help? Performance management puts data and facts behind goal-setting. Value is actively driven across teams as a whole. And you can measure it too, with KPIs.
When the going gets tough, performance management is a prerequisite for getting through to the other side with as few battle scars as possible.
