Performance Management
Performance Management or Performance Leadership is an important part of building a high-performing organization. Too often this is thought of as something that is 'done' to others. Ideally, every individual has a sense of taking responsibility for his or her own performance, for assessing how they are doing, and for taking the initiative to build skills in areas that are needed. Of course, part of this responsibility rests with the manager whose partial role is that of developing others.

The DELPHI Group believes that individual Performance Management has several essential elements, including:

    Clear role/job description
     Clear expectations and accountabilities
     Clear goals and measures
     Frequent feedback & coaching
     Skills assessment as well as results assessment
     Opportunity for skill building
     A linkage with overall organization goals

Example of a Performance Management Initiative

A mid-sized manufacturing operation had always done annual individual reviews, however they were seen as a burden by supervisors and as ineffective by employees, who were only interested in the impact of the review on their annual wage increase.

A task force made up of a cross-section of employees and supervisors set out to develop a more effective performance management process. One of the first things done was to uncouple the annual increase from the annual review (the annual review was still important however it was not done at the same time as the wage increase).

A core part of the work of the task force was the development of a set of performance criteria for every job function. This was done in terms of both Results and Skills. The Results expectations were based on goals that were linked to overall manufacturing objectives and the Skills were described in detail in terms of demonstrated performance and included non-technical areas such as teamwork, communications, problem-solving in addition to technical operating skills.

It was acknowledged that supervisors were not skilled in either training employees or in giving effective feedback. To assist, all supervisors received training in these areas and one of their own performance factors was established as 'providing feedback, coaching and developing others'.

The overall process resulted in most employees feeling very positive about the outcome. What they really wanted was to receive more feedback and coaching than had been offered in the past. The revised criteria of results and skills was seen as very relevant to their work.

An additional fallout of this work was a revised performance management system for all management and supervisory employees, also.

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