Shift performance management to drive business growth

There’s no doubt­ing the fact 2020 has brought huge changes to the way we work and do busi­ness. Our slow­ly evolv­ing meth­ods and pro­ce­dures have been forced into hyper­drive. Light was cast on out­dat­ed process­es that con­tin­ue to hold busi­ness growth back.

But while it’s long been no secret that con­stant and clear feed­back is what enables every­one to move in the right direc­tion, it’s only recent­ly more com­pa­nies have realised the annu­al process of eval­u­at­ing the work of employ­ees, and pay­ing or pun­ish­ing them accord­ing­ly, is increas­ing­ly out of step with their over­all goals.

Per­for­mance man­age­ment is bro­ken and it has been for a long time. This year has only under­scored just how crit­i­cal it is com­pa­nies fix it. Employ­ees have long come to fear tra­di­tion­al per­for­mance reviews and their unnec­es­sary bot­tle­necks, which slow down the flow of much-need­ed feed­back and guid­ance, and adds to exist­ing frus­tra­tions. With­out con­tin­ued, clear insight on how to best meet the needs of the busi­ness, employ­ees are unable to be effec­tive in their roles.

Many organ­i­sa­tions are now mov­ing to more fre­quent growth and devel­op­ment-focused con­ver­sa­tions between man­agers and employ­ees. Chang­ing atti­tudes towards per­for­mance man­age­ment aren’t just dri­ven by busi­ness needs though. Jack Alt­man, co-founder and chief exec­u­tive of Lat­tice, a peo­ple man­age­ment soft­ware plat­form that enables peo­ple lead­ers to devel­op engaged, high-per­form­ing teams, believes some­thing big­ger is at play.

“Con­tin­u­ous peo­ple man­age­ment high­lights a shift from account­abil­i­ty to growth,” he says. “Employ­ees want more than a pay­cheque. They want to under­stand how they impact the big­ger pic­ture and how they can suc­cess­ful­ly accom­plish their career goals. Con­tin­u­ous feed­back gives employ­ees ongo­ing insight to under­stand and adapt to busi­ness needs and expec­ta­tions, so they can become top per­form­ers.”

If noth­ing more, 2020 has demon­strat­ed the need for busi­ness­es to be agile to the chang­ing cli­mate around us. As our world shift­ed, the human resources func­tion has need­ed to stretch beyond just com­pli­ance into a strate­gic arm, charged with enabling the con­tin­u­al suc­cess of their peo­ple. The need to sim­pli­fy and dri­ve effi­cien­cies has become increas­ing­ly clear. To meet these evolv­ing needs though, HR tech­nol­o­gy is rapid­ly piv­ot­ing to focus on sup­port­ing this new mis­sion and meet­ing new busi­ness and employ­ee needs.

“HR tech­nol­o­gy should mir­ror trans­for­ma­tion of the HR func­tion,” says Alt­man. “As HR’s mis­sion and scope evolve to meet busi­ness needs, lead­ers should look for tools that not only enable per­for­mance man­age­ment, but also pro­vide insights into the engage­ment and growth of their teams.”

With employ­ees active­ly ask­ing to be more involved in their career growth, com­pa­nies are look­ing for new ways to ensure man­agers give this sup­port and new tools to help make these dis­cus­sions more col­lab­o­ra­tive and struc­tured. Soft­ware that’s able to pro­vide trans­paren­cy and align­ment enables both employ­ees and their man­agers to hold more struc­tured and impact­ful con­ver­sa­tions.

Top-tier per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware solu­tions are eas­i­ly used by both peo­ple teams and employ­ees alike. They pro­vide a sin­gu­lar fron­tend expe­ri­ence for employ­ees, while offer­ing deep ana­lyt­ics to peo­ple teams and man­age­ment. They also enable man­agers to share guid­ance and growth paths while giv­ing peo­ple lead­ers bet­ter under­stand­ing of how top per­form­ers are expe­ri­enc­ing the com­pa­ny. They take into account the near-term and longer-term needs of their employ­ees as they grow with­in the com­pa­ny.

We’re all liv­ing in espe­cial­ly dis­rup­tive times, when com­pa­ny suc­cess depends on rapid piv­ot­ing. The abil­i­ty of organ­i­sa­tions to engage and bring their staff with them will be what helps them get through these tough times and beyond.

To learn more about con­tin­u­ous peo­ple man­age­ment or Lat­tice please vis­it www.lattice.com

Pro­mot­ed by Lat­tice