Are you making these performance management mistakes?

What’s the criterion for gauging the performance of your business? The amount of money you made. Settle down, there is no rush. Give it a little thought and then answer the question again. Still have the same answer?

‘Focus more on work and less on management.’

Well, you are not wrong in saying this. But, this answer signifies that you are also like thousands of other leaders out there who are following the wrong path. And perhaps that’s the only reason neither they nor you are able to take your business performance to the next level.

Profits are an important factor when it comes to analyzing a business performance. But, ever wondered what factor do these profits depend upon? Ever thought if the employees are under performing where will these profits come from? And, this is what I am going to discuss in this post.

Performance management - how we look at it

It is not what you think it is. Most organizations think of performance review as the same thing as performance management. Whereas in reality the two are completely different terms.

Performance review of a business means income statements, balance sheets and reports that give you an idea about the financial performance of the business. Performance management on the other hand revolves around the factors that are putting an impact on employee performance.

But the unfortunate thing is that most of the organizations think of these two as one. So, in a way the employees are not at fault for not seeing a rise in their performance. Perhaps they have no idea about it. What is it that they are doing wrong? How can they become better than their current stature? What is it that they can do to perform better at work? Those are some of the questions that performance management can answer.

Mistakes you are making

Let us delve a little deeper into the mistakes businesses make in performance management -

• Ignoring signs of poor performance management

Being able to identify the first signs is the key to effective performance management. But, what are those first signs? Poor adoption rate. Stagnant growth. Low employee engagement. These are just a few worth mentioning here. If you can see any of these signs rising in your team, be sure that you are not moving on the right track.

• Inability to align performance management goals with business goals

Building a performance management system with core business goals at the center is the key here. Setting personal goals for employee performance improvement, without paying heed to how the business is going to benefit from the same is not a smart idea.

And it won’t be any smarter if you flip the two around as well. Both employee performance metrics and business goals should be in sync if you want to thrive.

• Focusing on the wrong metrics

A big mistake businesses are still making is emphasizing on the wrong things for performance management. For instance, using metrics like how many hours does the person spend at desk? How many breaks does he/she take? Does he/she come to office on time and more.

Being punctual is important, but there are more important things for a business. Factors like person’s contribution towards attaining business goals. His abilities to work under pressure and more. You need to emphasize on the right things and forget the wrong ones.

• Keeping it under closed doors

There is still a creed of businesses that treat performance management as performance review. A review where employees are judged on the basis of how they performed during the year. But performance review is just a part of performance management.

In reality performance management is the sum of many different things. It is not just a closed door meeting between the employee and the management. Nor it is a way to give feedback on how the employee performed during the year. It's more of an interaction between the two.

So, it should be more focused on business goals. How the company expects that person to fit better in those goals? And how employees can take advantage of the opportunities a business has at offer for them? Most important of all, it should be centered around thanking employees for their contribution towards your business’ success.

Your workforce is the biggest factor behind your business success. A business thrives when it has a culture where people love to work. And employing the right performance management practice is a big factor for creating such a work culture. As Doug Conant says," To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace."

Now that you know the common mistakes businesses make with performance management, you can judge yourself. And your business. Whether you are also making these mistakes or not? In case you are, you need to start working on the changes needed to take your employee performance through the roof.

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Cheers, Happy Reading

Gagan Malhotra