Traditional performance management processes aren’t fit for purpose. Yearly and half yearly appraisals of performance against business objectives that are fixed once a year are redundant – what business realistically stays the same all year round? Even without mergers and acquisitions, there are too many variables for a business growth plan to remain valid for more than a month, let alone 12.
Expecting people to be able to meet performance objectives set at the beginning of a year, while their roles, their environment and their organisation are fluid, is unrealistic and unfair. And if an individual is given fixed targets to meet in a landscape which is ever-changing, collectively teams are unable to drive a business forward – or even keep it standing still.
The future of performance management is the ability for individuals to have a tangible connection with where the business is going and how they fit in with that. This may change on a daily basis – what’s important is that the person knows they have a role, that their role is valid and valuable, and that their goals are achievable.
Within this environment, HR should think much more creatively about the culture of the organisation, how every individual can feel valued with their contribution and how that contribution can be measured in a much more agile way.
This requires a continuous coaching base that puts people first. Managers need to be much more skilled in coaching – they don’t need to become executive coaches, but they must have the ability to manage with coaching skills. The focus of HR shouldn’t be on delivering courses, it should be putting in action learning as an ongoing tool and instilling that within the organisation’s culture.
A business can’t grow if its people are constantly pushed towards a rigid set of objectives. Objectives shouldn’t be listed on the same pro-forma that’s been used for a year or more. They should be set daily; managers should be coached to recognise that there are myriad factors that can affect how a person performs, and what they can achieve. What may be a perfectly reasonable target one day could be impossible the next thanks to anything from external markets to internal software faults.
Equipping leaders with the coaching skills to connect people to the objectives of the organisation in a much less rigid way will ensure changes – whatever they may be – will not render performance reviews redundant. What are the goals of the organisation? What are the goals of the individual? What issues are they facing in that moment? How can those issues be overcome? How can we measure and reward overcoming those issues? These are daily questions, not annual or monthly. We can only grow by remaining agile, individually and collectively.
Learning is not a one-off, standalone exercise. It’s a continuous practice of doing, reflecting, improving, incorporating new ideas and techniques, and adapting to the changing environment.
