It’s that time of the year. Organizations are getting ready to go into their year-end performance review cycle. Contrary to popular belief, many organizations still follow a once or twice per year review process. The fun activity of collecting feedback and writing reviews is nigh. And, regardless of what someone is trying to sell you, good performance management is not a result of good HR technology. Good performance management is ingrained in the culture.
There are many facets of performance management. There is the setting of clear expectations and creating a regular cadence of feedback. Sprinkle in some goal-setting and some timelines and you have the appearance of a performance management process. But good performance management is not a program or a process. It’s not a technology solution or some piece of software.
Good performance management is a culture built on a strong foundation of trust. A foundation of trust incorporating a leader’s capacity and willingness to listen. To be empathetic. To understand the needs and wants of the employee and marry them with the expectations of the organization.
It’s that ability to build a trusting relationship so that all feedback can be delivered with love and care. An environment where feedback is given and received from all levels of the organization regardless of reporting relationship.
This type of culture takes time and practice. There is no project plan or completion date. There are good products in the marketplace to help support this culture. Products to help facilitate good documentation or give leaders the ability to provide real-time feedback via a mobile and one that sits in the cloud. Sounds slick, right?
You can spend all the money in the world on the best piece of HR technology for your performance management, but if you don’t have a culture of feedback built on trust, you have wasted that investment.
