Difficulties with employees, absenteeism, poor quality work and other performance issues are bad for organizational success. It’s important to have a proactive strategy to manage these problems long before they occur and force you to terminate the culpable employee. For most successful organizations, a holistic performance management plan is the right approach. Keep reading for tips on implementing this strategy to optimize the employee lifecycle at your organization.
What Is Performance Management and How Does It Help?
Performance management is the strategic process that organizations use to keep their employees informed of their respective roles/objectives and are well-equipped to succeed at those roles. When your employees know what they need to do to succeed and have the proper skills and tools to do it, your organization will succeed as well.
In other words, performance management provides a roadmap that employees and their employers can follow to cross individual and organizational goal lines. The purpose of having such a game plan for your company includes the following:
- Boosting your employees’ motivation and morale
- Increasing employee retention rates
- Improving performance consistency across various departments
Creating a Proactive Performance Management Roadmap for Employers
No performance management plan is created equal, so it’s important to customize yours based on your business type, industry, and specific goals. Despite wide variations in details, each such process often includes these five fundamental stages of the employee lifecycle:
- Onboarding: The process begins at onboarding when you’re introducing each new hire to their roles and goals that they need to pursue to succeed at your organization. Be sure to follow onboarding best practices while you’re at it.
- Training and coaching: Once you’ve onboarded an employee, you should offer them ongoing training opportunities. The extra investment is a win-win for you and your employees. Firstly, your staff gets the resources they require to easily achieve their goals. Your organization succeeds because its employees are well-equipped to complete the assignments you hired them to do.
- Regular communication with employees: Make sure to touch base frequently with your employees. This will help you learn about any performance challenges they’re facing and ways you can support them to succeed at work. Also, regular conversations keep employees up-to-date on your expectations for their roles and your assessment of their progress toward achieving their job objectives.
- Proactive corrective measures: Waiting to intervene only during an employee’s annual performance review may be too little or too late in some cases. Instead, have regular chats with each employee and take any necessary corrective action right away. Make sure to document any such action in detail just in case it’s part of the reason for terminating the employee in question.
- Termination (if need be): If all goes according to plan, performance management should help you avoid having to fire an employee. Your plan should still provide for termination if it ever becomes necessary. It’s important to have written protocols in place for handling termination and proper documentation to support your decision.
Having a robust performance management plan in place can help your organization optimize the employee lifecycle and make the most of your workforce.
Create a Proactive Performance Management Plan with Stan McKnight
If you are having difficulty creating a performance management plan for your business, contact us today. At Stan McKnight Associates, we specialize in helping companies make the best use of their human resources.