Brandon Gaynor Verizon | 5 Steps to Effective Performance Management
In theory, managers know they must be managing performance, that they ought to be using the review or appraisal system, which they ought to be having dynamic discussions with their staff about their performance.
According to Brandon Gaynor from Verizon, there’s an understandable difference between knowing you must do something and doing it. And when managers don’t manage, the business suffers so do their staff. So what is the answer? These are five steps I’ve seen applied, by my clients, with very positive effects:
Step One — Help managers to know why performance management is very important to the business
Do managers need help in understanding the worth of managing performance? Do they have to grasp why effective performance management may be a critical commercial issue and the way effective performance management impacts business success?
Only through getting this clarity can a manager gain the boldness that there’ll be some real business benefit derived from their efforts. Otherwise, why bother?
Step Two — Help managers understand why performance management is very important to their staff.
Do managers know that research shows that what people seem to need, and need quite badly, is to be managed? That they need a powerful, mutually supportive relationship with their manager supported interest and clarity?
Much of what ‘well managed’ means is effective performance management. The manager’s role within the satisfaction and therefore the engagement of their staff cannot be overstated but often must be explained.
Step Three — Help managers embrace their right to manage performance.
Frequently the managers I work with seem to feel the necessity to achieve permission to undertake probably the foremost important part of their role — managing performance.
They know there are expectations of them as managers but they do not feel they need somehow earn the correct to manage. Do managers have to understand the rights they need to manage? Do they know what those rights seem like in practice?
Step Four — Give managers the tools and techniques they have to manage people’s performance.
Do managers have access to a spread of tools and techniques which may make the seemingly complex much, much simpler? How can we expect managers to understand, as an example, that there’s an easy thanks to giving feedback about even the foremost ‘difficult’ performance issue so the difficulty may be understood and accepted by the staff member?
Managers just don’t have the time to figure these processes out for themselves so that they either waste lots of your time (and staff goodwill) on ‘trial and error’ or they solely hand over.
Step Five — make sure that managing performance may be a top priority for your managers.
Do managers have ‘managing performance’ listed in their description, their job objectives, or anywhere else? I’ve got heard many managers tell me that there’s nothing written down or agreed that describes their responsibilities as a performance manager.
So why would a manager dedicate time and energy to an activity that they’re not held accountable for, that there’s no reward, which appears to be a nearly very cheap priority of the business? How can organizations expect their managers to undertake the complex work of managing their staff’s performance if:
a) The manager doesn’t know what is an efficient performance manager feels like a practice in their organization.
b) The manager isn’t held in control of the effective performance management of their staff — It’s not seen as an integral part of their job but something to be done when all of the ‘real work’ has been completed.
c) They’re not acknowledged or rewarded for effective performance management?
In summary:
It’s all about developing the ‘will’ and also the ‘skill’. Helping managers to know the importance of effective performance management, helping them develop the abilities and so holding them in charge of applying those skills in practice
