Fuelling Talent Management With Continuous Performance Management

Performance Management is coming of age. We have talked and written plenty about the shift towards the more conversational, on-going and regular check-ins taking place between line manager and team member. These are the features of Continuous Performance Management.

History shows that performance management has been somewhat disconnected from other aspects of talent management – other than its use in reward decisions when performance ratings were popular.

Looking Forward

We believe that continuous performance management will now begin to take centre stage as organisations recognise its increased value-add when integrating it with other Talent Management practices. The value in your performance management system comes from not just setting goals, regular check-ins and achieving objectives, but when these activities connect with development plans, corporate values and play a role in succession and career planning.

Start From Now

Of course, the start-point is the embedding of an engaged with and accepted continuous performance management process that has clear and perceived value to the individual, the line manager and the organisation as a whole.

Getting the buy-in and effectively bedding down the process is crucial – our Good Practice Guide will take you through the essential steps to do this efficiently.

Viewing The Same Information From Different Perspective?

Once up and running, stakeholders will each have a different take on the information, viewing it through their own specific lens. For example, the individual team member will want to see their own progress against their own goals – and what to do next. Their manager needs to quickly and easily see the goals and projects each team member is working towards and any hurdles that may be stopping them. And the HR and L&D leader will want to take a more overarching view – not from a compliance perspective – but to observe how widely and interactively the system is being used. They’ll use the information to inform company-wide development plans, and report objective achievements to the senior leadership team.

But how can this performance or achievement data, go beyond simple goal management?

The Link With Learning And Development

Performance check-in conversations between manager and employee are an ideal time to consider training and development needs. If continuous performance management is also integrated with a 360-software tool, development actions discussed in development meetings can be set as specific objectives or goals so that progress and achievement of these can be tracked, just as any other goal. And feedback via the 360 questionnaire can be gained on the performance and action on an individual.

For the employee, this level of integration makes huge sense: they see how their goal achievement and performance are connected with their training needs. Managers can spot development needs and then look for opportunities for on-the-job training, coaching or exposure to certain projects, and L&D teams get to understand any firm-wide training needs. Using the software system’s dashboard, performance hotspots can be identified where specific development intervention may be needed.

The Link With Career Planning And Succession Planning

And then there is career progression. Seeing a potential career pathway laid out in black and white helps to foster long-term loyalty to the company and greater engagement with career options. Linking performance management data with that of career path mapping can show the individual what needs to be achieved.

The data from high performing individuals, who consistently achieve their stretch goals, can feed into talent reviews and succession planning meetings. For the individual, they get to see how they can stay in the organisation and develop. For the line manager, they can use the data to start career conversations or input to talent reviews and for the HR team, they can use the performance-related data to inform succession planning.

At The Root Of This Is The Data Dashboard

Driving all this information is the data dashboard: collating information on every individual and analysable by department, function, location, manager…

Enter the Talent Performance dashboard.

The dashboard’s primary function is to help you stay relevant and on-track, by communicating to you the most up-to-date data, and configuring that data differently depending on who is interrogating it – and the questions being asked.

Individuals can track their own performance. Managers can spot specific difficulties such as seeing what targets will not be met. HR can see specific hotspots around the firm and can easily cut and slice data for reporting purposes, to present onscreen or cut and paste graphics into reports. It means that performance management, is not a process in isolation but one which feeds into and from other HR processes to generate greater value overall.

When each of us has access to this type of clear data we are better equipped not only to spot where we or others need support, but can incite increased focus, and momentum in what we are doing or what our team is doing.

As you head into 2021, it’s time to get your Talent and Performance Management working together and take both to the next level.

Get in touch to request our Good Practice Guide and get started today.