At Ward Williams HR, we talk to HR professionals on a daily basis about their performance management processes. We have witnessed that over the past year that organisations have continued to become more employee-focused and less process-driven. With these exciting changes happening, we’re excited to announce our predictions for 2018.
- The shift from quantity to quality of conversations and feedback
Last year, was the year that Continuous Performance Management moved from being a disruptive HR trend to being widely recognised as the most effective approach to managing performance. Companies of all shapes and sizes have been shifting from annual appraisals to more frequent ‘check-ins’ with real-time feedback and the redesign of performance management process is now a high priority.
As organisations continue to embrace this new approach, attention is now being turned to how to make performance dialogue more meaningful.
To achieve this, companies will need to provide:
- Employees and managers with a framework for having high-quality discussions and giving effective feedback. Performance management frameworks or systems should encourage future-focused, developmental dialogue supported by in-the-moment, qualitative feedback.
- Training for managers in everyday coaching skills.
- Separate performance measurement from performance improvement conversations and feedback.
- Simplification of Performance management systems
As employers become increasingly concerned with employee experience and how to improve performance at work, we need to start with the simplicity of our workplace processes.
In previous years, performance management became increasingly complicated as organisations focused on measuring performance and linking it to pay. However, we’ve now come to realise through research that these processes do not actually result in reliable data and actually damage employee performance and engagement.
Companies will need to strip out complexity such as annual appraisals, ratings, calibration meetings and competency assessments, focusing instead on regular, quality performance conversations and feedback.
- Increase of quality and learning goals
Learning goals are the individual employee goals related to the skills and competences that the individual needs to develop in order to increase the success rate of business goals. It has been found that many people find setting development goals more difficult than setting business goals. But there has been seen to be a slow improvement on this and slowly becoming part of the standard performance management process in most organisations.
- Companies to shake up how they manage performance-related pay and bonuses
Companies are continuing to discard annual appraisals and employee ratings. This is a great step forward and leaves employees feeling more valued and results in a more productive workforce.
However some companies are struggling to understand how to handle performance-related pay and bonuses under a continuous performance management model. This is because of the inadequacies of performance ratings and that there is little correlation between ratings and actual performance. At Ward Williams HR we believe that some companies will abandon performance related pay entirely, and instead, base pay decisions on market rate and responsibility and bonuses on team or company performance.
This removes the subjectivity inherent in performance-related pay and saves everyone significant time and effort.
- Focus on manager impact on performance management rather than completion rates
In 2018, companies will increasingly be evaluating the quality and impact of performance management dialogue between managers and employees.
Given that managers account for a large variance in employee engagement and that only a small percent of employees agree their performance is managed in a way that motivates them, HR professionals will need to be monitoring how often performance check-ins are taking place and how frequently feedback is being given. HR will also need to understand the impact these interventions are having on employee morale and performance. This will provide them with the insight they need to understand who their best managers are and which managers need coaching and support to better develop their teams.
To find out how Ward Williams HR can support your business with Performance Management.
Please contact Sally Phillips 07887 877521 or email sally.phillips@wardwilliams.co.uk.