Communication has been the essence of life since early age. Our predecessors painted walls to depict life cycles throughout many civilizations. They used sand and leaves of the Papyrus plant to invent writing systems and even engraved stones to impart their knowledge and experience. Why was this? Why didn’t they simply use verbal modes to communicate their message across?
One of the prime reasons was to develop the attained knowledge and further enhance them to improve their behaviour and lifestyle. Educational institutes were built to educate, train and encourage us to excel in all fields from medicine to astronomy. Methods were conceived to assess ones performance and career plans were designed to formulate their collective growth.
Today, performance management plays a vital role in the success of every company. From what we understand by its name, performance management is more than just analyzing your employees’ performance and sharing feedback. Rather, it is a continuous process to review his or her work quality, interpersonal skills, address performance related issues and motivate them constantly to deliver the desired results. Performance management guarantees measurable and consistent service levels. You can effectively manage, measure and report your service level to your leaders and your clients. It leads to personalized workflow management and helps you forecast the key performance indicators of every employee. In a company, the organization structure is attached to every employee and business goals are achieved based on their collective performance.
To achieve business goals, companies spend a huge percentage of their earnings on training and employee development. Business leaders assign objectives in the beginning of the fiscal year. They evaluate the past performance, and learning calendars are designed in order to achieve the areas of improvement and encourage development. Learning and development needs are identified to align with the company’s business goals and employees’ performance. Effective training methods are implemented to achieve the desired results on a regular basis.
Team work plays a significant role in managing performance. It improves efficiency, strengthens relationships and builds unity. It creates a healthy work environment and promotes sharing best practices. You can motivate your team to perform, define their role in the organization, give them an opportunity for promotion and thus reduce attrition. Introduce rewards and recognition programs on a monthly, quarterly and on an annual basis where team members are motivated to achieve the excellence award. Appreciate good work; always let everyone know when an employee has done well. Build on the strengths rather than focussing on the weaknesses.
You can engage the top talents within your team to mentor the low performers. It will offer them scope for personal development and prepare them for their next role. You can associate another employee to fill in the gap and mentor the employee who is facing the challenge towards overcoming it.
I have been a trainer myself and have delivered several sessions to top talents, leaders and new hires where I have been asked many times what I can remember on the topic of managing one’s own performance. Well, this has many possible answers where identifying success factors would be one of them.
Know your goals, seek assistance, stay open to feedback, manage time effectively, collaborate your ideas with the team and have the willingness to learn. Believe that a mistake is not a mistake if it happens for the first time. Instead, let it be an experience and learn from it; above all be an example to the team. I am sure success is in the neighbourhood!
