How can you help early career professionals understand performance management?

Introducing early career professionals to performance management is crucial for their development & success. Performance management is not just about evaluating performance; it's about setting expectations, providing feedback, encouraging development, & aligning individual goals with the organization's objectives. clear communication on the expectations on what is expected in terms of performance and behavior regular constructive feedback encourage self-assessment create personalized development plans helping them understand their strengths and areas that they have to work on Incorporating these ensures that early career professionals are not only aware of how they are being assessed but are also engaged in their development process.

Performance management can seem ambiguous to those just starting out. Set clear expectations and provide ongoing coaching. Explain how their work ladders up to department goals and tie feedback to tangible business impact. Schedule frequent 1-on-1s to answer questions in real time, not just during annual reviews. Suggest ways to strengthen skills that are still developing. If issues arise, focus talks on solutions not just problems. Provide templates and examples for self-reviews to reduce anxiety. Advise participation in training on receiving feedback graciously. Emphasize that even constructive criticism isn’t personal, but for growth. Share your own missteps at their age and what you learned.

For freshers/early career professionals, Performance management is like having a trusted mentor at work, providing regular check-ins, constructive feedback, and opportunities for growth. It's a continuous process that helps one understand their strengths, development areas, and achieve full potential. From an organizational perspective, performance management is essential for Strategic Alignment, Talent Management, Employee Engagement and Competitive Advantage.

Performance management isn’t just one thing you prepare for. Far more frequently it”s seeing or hearing something and reacting there and then, something great recognise it straight away, why wait until some scheduled meeting 2 weeks later? You’ll achieve much more by telling the person there and then why that was so great. Something not so great? Don’t wait 2 weeks to effectively say that wasn’t good it needs to be better. You’ve let them carry on for 2 weeks doing something that wasn’t right. Think about it. “2 weeks last Wednesday I saw you do X”. If someone said that to you what would you think? Focus on 3 things 1. Specify what’s expected 2. Discuss what actually happened 3. How can the employee close any gap Monitor the gap

One thing that worked well for our past batches of young talent from campuses is making them understand how their roles (& it's metrics) connect to the big picture and impact to the overall value chain.

One performance management tip I share with young professionals is to write a weekly status report, whether required by your leader or not. Document all accomplishments, internal and external. Save copies of positive feedback emails from clients/customers or peers. If you collect this information weekly, as events occur, when the time comes for check-ins, mid-year reviews, or year-end evaluations of your performance you are prepared and do not have to scramble thru your calendar to reconstruct a story.

One of the most critical yet underutilised aspects of performance management is goal setting. We work a lot on honing our skills for giving and receiving feedback but spending a good amount of time and energy in drafting and communicating goals goes a long way in improving performance management skills.

Focus on the performance not the person. Judging someone when it’s a negative judgement never leaves a good taste. Focus on what they did/didn’t do, ask them to explain what they were aiming for and whether they achieved what they set out to do. Is what they set out to achieve appropriate? If not discuss why they chose to try to achieve it. Discuss the approach they took. Get them to break it down into steps. It’s unlikely every step was wrong. There’ll likely be 1 or 2 steps that caused things to go off course Focus on the decision making at those points. Really work so that both of you understand what choices were made on what information/opinion etc. Analyse those and help the person extract specific learning for next time.