Performance Management Is Never Fun but Always Necessary
Performance management and appraisals are often viewed with apprehension by both employees and managers, as it's the moment to take an honest look at performance and assess how well goals and KPIs are being met.
It’s not a comfortable conversation and for large teams and managers with many employees in their department, it can be a rather long process as well with lengthy 1-to-1 sessions held over multiple weeks.
So, the question is, what’s the best way to perform (pun intended) performance appraisal for your company? What are the newest and most efficient methods that fit the modern workplace?
The 4 Types of Performance Management
While many of you might be familiar with 1 or 2 of these, not everyone would have been introduced to some of the newer methods of performance management.
These are:
Traditional Annual Review
360 Degree Feedback
Management By Objectives
Continuous Feedback
The Traditional Annual Review Method Is Well… Traditional.
It occurs once a year, typically a very formal process with interviews held between manager and employee, reviewing multiple areas or spects of performance, including achievements, strengths, and areas for improvement.
While there are pros to this method, which includes a comprehensive review over an entire year, processes that are structured and standardized, and typically is followed up with decisions on promotion, compensation, there are also plenty of cons.
These include delayed feedback, as problem areas may be allowed to develop and fester over multiple months before being addressed leading to a missed opportunity for timely improvement.
Participating in such a review can be stressful and anxiety inducing, plus time consuming for both managers and employees with a review process usually taking up to multiple weeks to complete.
Alternatively… the 2nd most used method would be:
Management by Objectives
Management by Objectives (MBO) involves setting specific, measurable goals that employees are expected to achieve within a set timeframe and performance is evaluated based on the achievement of these objectives.
This method is known for being goal-oriented with a focus and emphasis on objectives set out at the start of the review cycle which when done right can be a great collaborative opportunity between managers and employees. Plus, progress can be reviewed regularly, and adjustments can be made quicker when objectives and KPIs are off course.
Some negative observations to this method include being overly focused on achieving goals at the expense of other important aspects of performance, MBO may not adequately address changes in priorities or unexpected challenges that pop up intermittently and requires ongoing tracking and review.
360 Degree Feedback – The More Modern Approach
360-degree feedback involves collecting feedback from an employee’s peers, subordinates, managers, and even a self-assessment, to provide a holistic view of performance.
It’s great at providing multiple perspectives from various sources. Feedback is also usually anonymized, and employees also have a chance to evaluate themselves.
What you end up with is a more holistic and well-rounded view of an employee’s performance, encourages a culture of feedback and continuous improvement, and an easier way to identify strengths and areas for development from said multiple perspectives.
But it is not without its cons, with it being more time consuming having to gather and process feedback (especially when some reviews more harshly than others), there’s potential for bias or unfair feedback especially from colleagues that may be in direct competition of promotions or compensation and requires an established culture of trust and open and honest communication.
The Growing Trend of Continuous Feedback
The trendiest method of performance management now adopted by some of the coolest Silicon Valley startups would be the Continuous Feedback approach. Continuous feedback involves providing regular, real-time feedback to employees throughout the year rather than waiting for formal review periods.
Think “Check-Ins” and “Weekly 1-on-1s” that are usually frequent, informal, and relatively unstructured. Great at providing real-time feedback on performance and behaviour and emphasises on small and gradual improvements throughout their working life.
This quickly fosters and promotes a culture of continuous improvement and open communication and is recognised to be significantly less stressful as compared to the big annual review.
But you may notice that this is probably the most time-consuming approach and requires commitment from managers to provide ongoing feedback, can be difficult to document and track informal feedback, and due to the lack of structure and standardization, different managers may review their employees differently.
What’s The Best Choice for Your Company?
Most companies can be rigid in their ways especially when they’ve found something that has worked well for a long time. But our recommendation for companies looking to modernize their approach would be to try and handful of methods.
Add Management By Objectives to your Annual Review. Or 360 Feedback quarterly with the more frequent Continuous Feedback to gather more perspectives.
Whatever your choice however the most important thing would be the ability to document, track, analyse, and make HR recommendations based on this data. And with gathering that much data and information on every single employee, you’ll need the assistance of dedicated performance management software.
JustLogin has that covered for you. Now with AI integration to help you create structured documents for your managers as well as using AI to analyse your best performers, JustLogin’s Performance Management System can be used for almost all use cases when conducting performance appraisals and reviews.
If you’re an existing customer, you can quickly add this on in time for your next review cycle, and if you’re new to us, our onboarding team can get you up and running in no time. The best way to find out if this is the best fit would be to book a demo today and see it for yourself. Try out JustLogin’s Performance Management System today!
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