Did you know that most people would rather go to the dentist than give a performance review and most people would rather be stuck in a lift than go to the dentist (apologies to all dentists) so where does that leave the priority of performance managing your workers? Pretty low.
If you do not performance manage your team, you are running your business on a half-empty tank. You are missing the opportunity to stimulate and grow your star performers, missing the opportunity to address issues and poor performance and missing the opportunity to increase the productivity of your team. Your business could perform so much better than it is!
Not only do most employers and line managers not enjoy performance reviews, they generally have never received any training and have very little idea about how to manage the whole process. Often managers believe performance reviews are the ‘be and end all’ of performance management, but in reality performance reviews are only one aspect of performance management.
Additionally, there is so much new information around, that managers do not know whether to even do reviews any more. Many large corporates are advertising the death of the performance appraisal, while new technology emerges such as using video games as an effective and fun performance management tool. This trend is only likely to continue, given that the younger generations are quickly rising to management level and have a solid background in gaming!
One of the pluses of these new tools is the ability for instant feedback (clearly appeals to the selfi generations) self-regulation (self-goal setting) and point scoring. These new performance management games can be highly engaging and increase employee participation. Using these games, performance management becomes more integrated into daily work life, and assists people to design their own objectives and reach goals (receiving ‘wooos’ along the way from peers and managers). It is all about rewarding good behaviour, which is the basis of getting the best, out of people, at work.
Despite the media reporting on the death of performance reviews, the importance of feedback to worker motivation and productivity has been proven in studies since the early 1800’s. While companies may delete the traditional performance review, performance management is not going anywhere.
Some of the latest thoughts revolve around not only gaming apps but conversation frameworks that involved regular scheduled conversations around specific areas such as productivity, strengths and talents, growth and innovation.
If your business is struggling, your team is not motivated and it has been years since you actually reviewed your performance management strategies, talk to Kathryn MacMillan directly and engage her to run a session to train your managers and assist your business to reach better productivity and profit outcomes, through the latest performance management techniques.
Read our previous blogs on different aspects of performance management here:
- What Are The Different Types Of Performance Reviews?
- How Can Performance Reviews Benefit Both Employees And The Organisation?
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