The Guide to Effective Performance Management | Bonusly (original) (raw)

Chapter 4: Elements of Performance Enablement

Creating a successful continuous performance enablement strategy involves many elements working in sync. Getting all of these elements aligned might seem overwhelming at first, but with enough time and a committed team of leaders showing the way, we promise you’ll get there sooner than you think. (And we’ll cover tools and resources to help you get there in the next chapter, too.)

Plus, these changes won’t just improve your individual employees’ performance: they also will shift your entire organizational culture to be a more employee-centric, highly engaged, high-performing one. And that’s a wonderful place to work, to lead, and to be a customer.

So what exactly are these all-important elements of a continuous performance enablement system? Here’s what you need to have.

Elements of a continuous performance enablement system

Continuous feedback

Let’s say it one more time (it’s that important): the key element in performance enablement is continuous feedback.

Employees need to receive frequent, timely, specific feedback to understand their performance and know what steps to take to improve it. And when they don’t receive it, that spells trouble. 4 out of 10 U.S. employees disengage from their work when they receive little to no feedback from their managers.

Continuous feedback highlights valuable contributions in the moment and provides the information employees require to course correct early on when necessary. Given that crucial information and the tools they need to improve, employees receiving continuous feedback are less likely to be blindsided by poor ratings months later during their performance review.

Supplementing managerial feedback with frequent and timely feedback from other sources provides all parties with more comprehensive information they can act on immediately, while not letting all of the burden fall on your busy managers.

An employee's peers are an excellent channel for timely, authentic feedback because they often work closely with one another and are more directly impacted by the work being done. To make this approach sustainable, managers and peers need the tools and culture that support transparent, two-way dialogues about performance and goals.

Providing an environment that promotes timely, actionable feedback continously can help turn performance management from something both employees and managers dread into something all parties genuinely look forward to.

More effective 1:1s

When managers meet weekly with their direct reports, they can provide timely, thoughtful feedback in an informal way that emphasizes learning and improvement. Managers who are also good coaches can use this format to establish a dialogue with their team that builds mutual understanding, trust, and ownership of objectives.

Regular coaching allows for more flexible goals and more support with stretch goals, which provides employees more autonomy and mastery to be engaged, high-performers.

Effective techniques for 1:1 meetings include:

• Employee-led agendas focused on the employee’s interests.
• Encouraging reflection with thoughtful questions on themes and processes.
• Alternating weekly between long-term progress (i.e. career goals) and medium-term progress (i.e. projects) for fresher and deeper conversations.
• Soliciting feedback on what management and the organization can do better.

Regularly-scheduled 1:1 meetings are an effective way to maintain a stronger, more positive relationship between the manager and the employee while strengthening goal alignment.

Recognition paired with insights

Employee recognition and appreciation on its own is an indisputably vital part of any good company culture. But to really drive higher levels of employee performance and empowerment, combining that recognition with data-driven insights is critical.

Fortunately, employee recognition platforms like Bonusly offer a wealth of data based on recognition. You can save noteworthy achievements by bookmarking them so you can have them at your fingertips when it comes time to give employees feedback, preventing recency bias from creeping in.

Those data-driven look-backs give a fuller view of an employee’s performance throughout a specific period. And, they also include the ability to look at feedback from an employee themselves in a self-evaluation, from their peers, and anyone else they request feedback from throughout the year.

Growth focus

Growth focus is a key differentiator between traditional performance management and performance enablement, and its value can't be overstated. A genuine growth focus can increase not only an employee's ability to contribute to the organization, but also their drive to do so.

Many employee performance evaluation strategies forgo the benefits of employee growth by focusing on performance in retrospect, rather than on opportunities for future performance and growth. This subtle distinction can mean the difference between an uncomfortable meeting all parties dread, and an exciting opportunity to build confidence and make greater contributions.

Both approaches are emotionally charged, but they produce very different outcomes. The former is reactive, while future-thinking is proactive.

Hearing what others think of you (or the work you've dedicated yourself to) can be an emotional experience. But that's okay. In fact, it can be highly beneficial. Rather than deny or repress the emotional side of human nature, embrace it as a tool for growth.

For instance, managers who genuinely recognize their employees as top performers are more likely to lead a team of top performers. And while criticism can feel unpleasant, growth feels amazing. Focus on growth.

Positive reinforcement doesn’t ignore ways to improve. It is a more encouraging approach that shows examples of how behavior and outputs could be improved.

Modern performance enablement programs default to how the organization can help its members grow. Real-time feedback gives employees the information and time to adapt, directing their energy away from fear and toward development.

You can implement a growth focus in your own program with a few simple steps:

• Start by recognizing employees for what makes their work exceptional. This has a positive impact on the motivation and performance of the whole team and encourages further dedication. Take it a step further by empowering everyone in the organization to do the same.
• You'll inevitably need to deliver feedback on areas that could use improvement. When you do, maintain a growth focus by identifying those areas as growth and learning opportunities, rather than singling them out as areas of poor performance. Provide every resource you can to help employees achieve that growth.

Human-centricity

Gartner recently named human-centricity as one of the key components of the future of work.

“A human-centric experience focuses on human needs, rather than expecting humans to conform to legacy practices or work locations,” the report notes.

As management fads come and go, organizations must never lose their people focus. While we learn from other organizations and other disciplines, performance management programs must be designed for the users: first, the performer (employee) and second, the coach (manager).

Without that focus on the participants, we’re building a house that looks nice from a distance but ends up impractical and repellent for the people who live there.

Many organizations create friction by focusing too much on programs, and not enough on the people those programs are meant to serve. Gartner says that empathy-based management is critical to empowering and understanding employees—and that the performance results are even better when that empathy is baked into the entire company culture.

A human-centric performance enablement process facilitates autonomy and mastery. It empowers employees with purpose, transparency, and timely feedback.

Jumping headfirst into the latest trend because it sounds good can be just as problematic as keeping an antiquated system because neither of those approaches focus on the people that will inevitably feel their impact most.

Building a more human-centric performance management process starts and ends with people.

You can work to implement a more human-centric process by following a few basic rules:

• Give your team a voice in what often ends up being one of the most impactful elements of their employee experience.
• Focus on strategies that help build genuine relationships between employees, their managers, and the organization.
• Prioritize psychological safety.
• Keep it simple.
• Iterate.

What’s next?

Congratulations! You're now familiar with continuous performance enablement and how to give the feedback that fuels it. Now let's put it all together and work toward the future!