Performance management is becoming more important than ever. This year, performance management maintained its position in Donald H. Taylor’s L&D Global Sentiment Survey. According to OfficeVibe, 96% of employees think that receiving regular feedback is good. 62% wish they received more of it. 

With COVID-19 changing the way people approach work, ensuring employees know what is expected of them and tracking their performance as things change is more necessary than it’s ever been.

Traditional performance management methodologies

If your organisation doesn’t employ an agile approach to performance management, it’s likely the more traditional approach is familiar to you. The traditional performance management process is most often characterised by a yearly appraisal. Yearly appraisals monitor an employee’s performance over the year, provide feedback long after a task has been completed, and set rigid goals that may become obsolete as the year progresses.

The benefits of continuous performance management

With traditional performance management methodologies, goals are static and cover a long stretch of time. McKinsey suggest that three months is the optimal amount of time to set and execute a goal. When you set goals for the whole year, once a year, there’s very little room to adapt when situations change. 

However, when you practice continuous performance management, feedback is given regularly and frequently. Managers can check in with their team and set goals for the next 3 months together. If course-correcting needs to happen, it can happen immediately, instead of next year. Employees can know straight away what’s expected of them and where they need improvement.

Furthermore, when feedback is given once or twice a year, it can be hard to remember everything you did, let alone everything your team did. When this is the case, it can be difficult to give accurate, actionable feedback. 

When continuous performance management is used, both an employee and their manager can use the notes they took at previous check-ins to inform a yearly or half-yearly appraisal. Managers get an accurate picture of how employees are performing, and employees can ask questions about what’s expected of them and where they can improve. 

These continuous check-ins open regular dialogue between manager and employee and allow potential problems to be resolved before it impacts the organisation.

Improve performance management

Use an agile performance management tool 

An agile performance management tool like Totara Perform supports your organisation wherever you are in your journey from traditional to continuous performance management. 360 feedback, check-ins, and appraisals all live on one platform. You can always look back on the data from each of these feedback types, allowing you to monitor how employees are performing, and track successes and areas for improvement.

Keep track of performance conversations

Regular check-ins are great, but keeping notes on those conversations is better. Keeping track of performance conversations has never been easier with Totara Perform’s “check-in” feedback type. By keeping your check-in feedback all in one place, trends in behaviour and successes become easier to track, and goals that are set in appraisals become more aligned to an employee’s needs.

Don’t just talk to one employee

While talking to an employee is important to understand how they’re feeling about their progress, managers only see one side of them at work. An employee’s peers and teammates are likely to have a more informed understanding of a particular employee’s contributions. With 360 Feedback on a Talent Experience Platform such as Totara Perform, managers and employees are able to read feedback from all sides of their job.