What You’ll Learn

As a manager, you’re accountable for ensuring your employees produce results that align with your organization’s needs. But traditional approaches to tracking employee performance—while providing a dedicated opportunity for employee feedback and evaluation—are increasingly coming under fire. Holding a performance discussion once a year takes a lot of time and can cause stress for you and your employees—and it doesn’t guarantee improvement. Organizations that use traditional performance management to engage, motivate, and develop their people are finding that those approaches don’t achieve what they’re after. And annual cycles that start with goal setting and culminate with a formal review aren’t providing the agility you need from your employees in today’s fast-paced business environment.

What you need is an ongoing, more flexible approach—one that keeps the best of the traditional performance management process but also incorporates new thinking and ideas. By following the advice in this guide, you’ll discover new ways to fold managing performance into your day-to-day work, so you’re monitoring employee progress, providing feedback, and offering opportunities for growth on a regular basis while still meeting any annual requirements your organization may have.

You’ll learn how to:

• Help your employees set flexible goals that can adapt with the organization
• Define clear performance metrics and behavioral expectations
• Provide ongoing feedback to stop performance problems in their tracks
• Coach your people toward improvement
• Motivate your employees through recognition and rewards
• Identify growth opportunities that align with individual learning styles and preferences
• Consider development options outside the traditional promotional track
• Understand where formal appraisals are useful—and where they fall short
• Go beyond a simple number when using performance ratings
• Sidestep burnout on your team
• Manage the performance of employees who work remotely