Performance Management- Keep your A-Players on your team!
Performance Management…even just writing those two words I imagine supervisors everywhere rolling their eyes and sighing loudly. The pencil-whipped annual reviews, the stressful meeting and the disgruntled employee that always result…why do we put ourselves though the torture?
Well, there are two pretty compelling reasons. First, if you actually start to think of performance management as an ongoing process of employee development instead of a time and place to tell your employee everything they have done wrong in the past year (or at least as far back as you can remember anyway), it will prove to be one of the best things you will ever do for your organization. It is a process that will elevate your good employees and weed out those that are not suitable for your company. If that doesn’t make you want to investigate this idea further maybe this will- your A-players not only want it but will leave you and go where they can find it.
Strong statement? Sure, but this is serious stuff and not something that can be broken down in a single blog but consider this; You are the A-Player on the team 1) you want to hear that you are appreciated and that your employer is invested in making you even better and 2) if there is no performance management in place, the B and C-Players are getting away with murder. And who is picking up the slack? That’s right! Your A-Player….and how long do you think it will be before this super star decides to take his talents elsewhere?
Hopefully, long enough for you to grab a good book on the subject or consult a professional and begin to seriously manage your staff so that everyone is on the same page, working from the same playbook and achieving the level of performance that you know they can accomplish.
Proactive Training…why is this a crazy idea?
I am such a strong believer that people want to do a good- if not great- job at work. I have never heard of anyone waking up and saying, ” I think I am going to go be a screw-up at work today.” People want to succeed. So if this is the case then why do so many companies feel that they do not have a good, talented workforce? They ask where can they find people that can get the job done…maybe the question should be, “what can we do to empower our current workforce to be successful?”
There are a lot of answers to this question including setting realistic goals and making sure they have proper equipment and tools to get the job done. In my eyes though, the most frequently overlooked way is to make sure that the employees are trained. Manager’s favorite lines to this are, “they can learn on the job” or “they have experience so they should know what to do”. Both of these are true- but they are not enough. It is imperative that a company is SURE the employee is trained. This is too important to leave to chance.
A manager I was having this discussion with really believes that training is spoon feeding the employee and that they should take it upon themselves if they feel they are lacking a skill or knowledge in an area. Okay, fair enough, as long as you are fine with the idea that the employee may or may not know what skill or knowledge is lacking. Proactive training is not such a crazy idea as long as the employee AND the employer are active in the process and get to enjoy the fruits of the labor.
HonestlyHR 
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