Effective performance management is beneficial for everyone within an organisation. When these systems work well, employees perform at their best and they are more likely to engage with their companies’ goals and take pride in their jobs. As a line manager, you play a vital role to ensure these processes work properly. Because you have direct daily contact with your team, you’re ideally placed to support them to meet the relevant targets and to identify and resolve any potential problems that may impact on performance.
The following guide should help you to master this important element of your role.
Set out clear objectives
Success performance management is about setting clear objectives for your team. All employees should understand what your organisation as a whole is trying to achieve. Your team should understand what role they play in helping to meet these targets and the competencies and skills they require to do their jobs effectively. They should have a clear idea of the standards required and how they can improve their performance to contribute to the growth and development of the organisation. When staff members have this knowledge and they see how their personal performance affects the bigger picture, they tend to be more motivated and focussed.
Offer team members the right training opportunities
People can’t fulfill their potential unless they have access to appropriate training opportunities, one of your most important tasks as a line manager is to identify the best ways to enhance the knowledge and skills of your team members. There are a host of training options to take advantage of now. For example, learning and development experts GP Strategies Ltd provide tailored courses in a range of formats, from traditional instructor-led programmes to game-based courses, on-the-job training, e-learning packages and even augmented and virtual reality courses. By putting careful thought into the types of skills development programmes you offer to your team, you are ensuring they perform at the highest possible level.
As well as offering courses where appropriate, you may benefit from implementing mentoring programmes that enable experienced members of staff to pass on their knowledge and skills to more junior personnel.
Provide effective feedback
Feedback is an integral part of any performance management system. Employees need to know what they are doing right and any areas where they could improve. This means running effective appraisal systems. Instead of this being seen as a tick box exercise, these systems should provide you and the members of your team with a genuine opportunity to highlight and address any problems. They should also be connected to robust rating metrics and a fair and attractive reward system.
Make sure you know your stuff
When the focus is on managing the performance of your team, it’s easy to forget the importance of having the relevant knowledge and skills yourself. The fact is, all managers who have a responsibility to ensure personnel reach the required performance standards must receive training to help them do this effectively. This training should set out the objectives of performance management. It should include the systems to be used to ensure standards are met and what your role in this process will be.
Managing the performance of your team will always present certain challenges. As long as you follow advice like this, you will help steer the employees you are responsible for to success.
