Tag: employee performance management

Performance Management Tricks for Successful Partner Management

The success of your business partners has a great impact on the success of your own business. And contrary to what you may think, their performance is well within your control. Learn what performance management can do and then apply the knowledge to your own business through these tricks for successful partner management.

The importance of successful performance management

There’s a reason performance management has become an integral part of business. It involves setting goals, gathering data and analyzing that data to improve future performance. And with that kind of effort, the potential for success is much greater than it is otherwise.

In fact, businesses with successful performance management systems routinely outperform their competitors. According to Betterworks, companies that have implemented changes in the way they provide performance feedback have a 24 percent higher success rate than those that stick to traditional models.

But of course, not every performance management system is either cost-effective or viable. A study conducted by Gartner shows us exactly how easy it can be to make the wrong moves. For example, the average time managers spend on work related to performance management is 210 hours a year. 

So how do you develop a performance management system that will help you make the most out of your partnerships?

There are a few tricks you can employ to make sure your performance management system is the one that will bring you the best possible results. 

Also read: What is performance management system?

Choosing potential partners

Performance management can start even before you partner with another business. After all, one of the major elements of success, in any field of work, is being able to plan ahead. So instead of focusing on your existing partners, why not increase your chances of success by making sure you only choose the partners that are a great fit for your business? 

How do you do that? You gather all the necessary information on the prospective partner and you ask yourself a few questions regarding your potential partnership. A business that would be a great fit for you will:

  • Share your business’ target audience
  • Be okay with your terms and processes
  • Boast a stable business model
  • Be technically equipped to deliver results
  • Share your business’ values

Maybe it’s not necessary for the potential partner to check all the boxes, but it’s a great thing to strive for. And the more boxes they check, the more successful your collaboration will be and the less work you’ll have managing their performance.

Offering incentives & training programs

When you think about performance management, the first thing that comes to mind are yearly reviews. The employee or the partner has already done the work and now it’s time for you to evaluate it. But you don’t need to limit yourself to a purely reactionary way of doing things when there are plenty of actions you can take as well. 

Of course, here we’re talking about incentive programs. These make for an excellent way to steer your partners into the right direction even before they’ve done anything. Instead of waiting a year to tell them they should be achieving better results, incentivize them to excel right from the start. 

But a quality incentive program will do you no good if your partners aren’t trained to meet your requirements. Luckily, there are partner training programs that allow you to onboard and train all your partners in a way that’s highly efficient and even lowers your operational costs. Using this type of software is yet another way to be proactive about your performance management.

Constantly checking the progress

To make the most out of your performance management system, you need to come to terms with the fact that conducting yearly reviews simply doesn’t work. It’s an outdated system that many Forbes 500 companies have stopped using. 

What should you do instead? When developing your performance management system, you should aim for implementing continuous performance evaluation. The exact process will, of course, depend on your business. But to give a few examples, this could mean anything from evaluating performance whenever necessary or possible, to measure it at the end of every individual project or campaign. 

Why does this make for a better approach? It’s in line with the latest advances in the way project management, in general, is done. We’re talking about the so-called agile methodology, which has proven itself a lot more efficient than traditional project management. It’s been argued that this is simply because this methodology is aimed at breaking processes up into shorter phases and getting feedback as soon as they’re complete. As a result, there are fewer deviations from the end goal.

Also read: Performance Review Phrases And Wordings 2022

Setting expectations

Of course, checking the progress your partners are making can only result in true success if you keep them in the loop. So if you want your performance management system to work, you need to be able to explain it to your partners, and informing them about it should be part of your process. 

To be able to explain your evaluation process, it needs to be structured. You need to know what events trigger evaluation, how the process is done and which members of your team are responsible for it. But what’s more important than anything, you need to be able to explain to your partners exactly what they need to do to pass the process with flying colors. 

This is where the concept of SMART goals can prove extremely helpful. SMART goals is an acronym that stands for goals that are:

  • Specific 
  • Measurable
  • Achievable
  • Relevant
  • Timely 

And if the expectations you set for your partners check all the above boxes, there will be no uncertainties as to what they need to do to achieve a successful collaboration with you.

Consistent feedback and rewards

If you want your partners to perform as you need them to, it’s important to keep them engaged. One aspect of this is providing regular and consistent feedback. The other aspect is to reward them whenever they do something right. After all, a partner that doesn’t feel like they’re out of the loop and one that feels appreciated will almost surely become a valuable asset to your company.

Conclusion 

There’s a lot of good that a quality performance management can do for your business. From choosing your partners wisely to keeping them constantly engaged, a smart, structured, and transparent system brings you closer to making the most out of your partnerships.

Want to know how Engagedly can help enhance your organization’s performance management? Fix a quick demo with our experts.

Request A Demo

About the Author:

Lianna Arakelyan - Guest blogger

Lianna Arakelyan is a content writer at Kademi.co, with a knack for B2B programs, such as channel incentive programs, partner training and onboarding programs and not only. She is extreme in her work, with a deep goal of always being updated on online and offline marketing and technology news of the world.

Why You Need An Employee Performance Management System

Employee performance management systems have become exceedingly popular these days among all organizations, big or small, and it’s easy to see why. The COVID-19 pandemic has made remote work all but universal and an increasing number of companies recognize the advantages of remote work: lower costs and higher productivity. But to take complete advantage of the benefits of remote work, it’s key to monitor your employees and record their performance, and there is no better way to do that than by using an employee performance review system. These systems are a must-have for any modern organization, even if they don’t extensively use remote work.

Why are employee performance management systems so popular? 

Performance management systems have become one of the most demanded solutions because of their elegance and simplicity. These applications are fully attuned to the needs of a modern work environment, even if it isn’t remote.

Decentralized Work Environment 

Work environments have been becoming increasingly decentralized since the start of the twenty-first century, long before the pandemic hit. Decentralization has many advantages: It allows companies to structure themselves flexibly and in an era of increased specialization in white-collared work. It just makes sense to give individual experts more freedom of movement and decision-making. 

Not to mention decentralization has resulted in improvements to employee morale and increased employee satisfaction with jobs. Employee performance management systems are key to maintaining a good decentralized work environment since they guarantee that employees remain productive and at work, even when not directly supervised.

Also Read: The Complete Guide To Working From Home

Increasing Automation in Workplace

According to a survey by McKinsey & Company, 50% of organizations use AI for at least one business function.

The latest wave of automation is a direct result of the internet and the information age. There are so many things software does cheaper and better than people. Nowadays, fewer and fewer people are working in the traditional workplace. One consequence of automation has been that the people whose jobs don’t get automated usually fulfill very specialized and cognitively demanding roles like management or consultation. 

Therefore, using performance management tools can help to vastly improve the performance of these specialized professionals. They are accurate, objective, and help managers automate the managing process.

So there are a lot of practical reasons why most organizations today are motivated to invest in performance management software: the advantages of acquiring performance management tools are very high, and, conversely, the disadvantages of not acquiring them are also significant. 

Organizational Benefits of using performance management systems 

Detailed Information

Chiefly, performance management systems provide detailed information about employees’ performance metrics. This information is invaluable in assessing what areas an employee is lacking in and where they’re doing well. Managers can use this information to accurately construct an image of what their employees are doing right and what they’re doing wrong. Managers can also use this information to figure what tasks employees are better at doing and assign them tasks accordingly. Essentially, managers receive an overall perspective on how their employees are performing individually and collectively. It will allow them to vastly improve employee performance management. 

Objective Feedback 

Most performance management systems also have in-built feedback mechanisms that let managers directly inform employees of their shortcomings and offer them advice on how to improve. Managers can also easily provide feedback scores for employees on applications that are objective, accurate, and impartial. When evaluations are done by employee performance systems, employees don’t have to worry about any biases or prejudices creeping in. The accuracy of performance management systems is especially important for large corporations with large numbers of remote employees, as it is difficult to enforce impartiality in manager reviews on a large scale. 

Also Read: 10 Best Employee Feedback Tools To Track Performance

Employee engagement and morale

Performance management systems also boost employee engagement with their organization since the applications allow employees to obtain detailed information on their performance metrics as well as about how their managers see them. The increased engagement is particularly important for remote work operations since more people report feeling alienated from working remotely than on-site. Improved employee engagement is important since it allows employees to experience higher morale, which translates to higher productivity. As such, organizations have a lot to gain from achieving higher morale by using employee performance software.

Growth and Consistency 

Employee performance management systems help organizations streamline their workflows by identifying what their employee’s individual strengths are. Organizations can take advantage of this information by assigning employees’ tasks according to what they do best, which would maximize productivity and minimize inefficiency. Consistently assigning tasks to the employees best-suited to performing them will have important long-term consequences for organizations. Their ability to produce a consistent quality of work within predictable time periods will provide organizations with many growth and expansion opportunities. 

Reducing Firing Risk

Employee performance management systems objectively identify which employees are the best performers, but they can also help identify the low performers. This information can assist HR and managers identify the weakest links in their organization and terminate  their employment if needed. Employees also benefit from performance management systems. Their job security increases from knowing that as long as their performance is objectively reviewed,they won’t be fired unless their performance metrics decline by a certain amount. The clarity offered by these systems is effective in improving company morale. 

Talent Retention and Development

Employee performance management systems are effective in highlighting rising talent and allowing managers to notice which employees have increased productivity. Managers can easily identify which employees have the most potential and offer them training and promotions accordingly. The improved ability to identify talent will also allow organizations to become more meritocratic, prioritizing individuals who have the most success. Long-term, this type of objective performance-based meritocracy ensures an organization’s employees to remain highly motivated, as they are recognized and awarded for their talent. The increased meritocracy translates to improved financial benefits for organizations long-term.

Also Read: Want To Know Why Your Employees Leave? Here’s Why

Disadvantages of not using employee performance management

Not employing a performance management software in today’s day and age has some serious drawbacks for most organizations. 

Lack of objectivity 

Without dedicated employee management software, at best your organization could use general database software to record information, costing a lot of unnecessary time and energy. Or worse, you don’t employ anything to track employee performance, which will make your performance reviews biased. Skewed employee performance reports mean that your managers don’t fully know who’s doing well and who’s not. Since their biases and prejudices can creep into the performance reviews, your managers might become disliked by your employees. Inaccurate employee reviews can lead to increasing tensions between management and team members, which will lower overall morale and hamper employee engagement. 

Mismanagement and lack of communication 

Without performance management software to provide them with easily accessible information, your employees will be left relatively unaware of how they’re performing. They won’t know what their respective strengths and weaknesses are. Also, it will be difficult for employees to communicate with managers regarding their feedback, especially if a single manager oversees a large team. The lack of effective communication and performance measurement means that in the long term, your organization could suffer from serious mismanagement problems that hinder productivity and prevent otherwise attainable growth.

Also Read: 10 Ways To Improve Communication At The Workplace

Poor planning and Task Management

Without precise knowledge of their employee’s respective strengths and weaknesses, managers will have to rely on guesswork and intuition for assigned tasks and planning for large projects. This lack of knowledge is a prime source for poor planning and task mismanagement problems to rise. Not only will it take longer for managers to decide which tasks to assign to which employees, but it’s also far less likely that your manager’s decisions will be optimal given the lack of data. Employees also suffer from this state of affairs since it’s likely they will be assigned work they’re not optimally prepared for. 

Training gap 

Without the ability to accurately and systematically highlight the weaknesses of their employees, organizations will not recognize what areas their employees need training in. Employees will continue working with their existing problems, and the organizations will have no knowledge of how to correct them. The lack of effective training from their employers will lead to employees suffering from decreased morale and, without their weaknesses corrected, both the employees and the organization will suffer from inefficiency. Investing in an employee review system will correct this problem by highlighting areas of weakness.

Poor Morale and Retention 

Without a performance review system, organizations suffer from unnecessary inefficiency. This inefficiency translates into financial losses in the long term. If employees begin to feel that they are not receiving enough recognition, it will lead to a decrease in morale and increased attrition. The most talented members of the organization are likely to leave earlier due to a lack of recognition, which will greatly damage the organization long term.

Also Read: Employee Retention Strategy – How To Retain Top Talent?

Lack of effective compensation methods 

It can be difficult to track overtime work and make overtime payments with conventional business tools, which discourages employees from working overtime, especially in large organizations. This issue is particularly bad for companies that have large and slow bureaucracies that take time to process overtime compensation requests. Many employees may even feel a sense of distrust towards their managers and employers for this lack of support during overtime work. A performance management system can bypass the issue with bureaucracies entirely and provide employees comfort in knowing that they will always be paid overtime, which will improve organizational morale.

Conclusion

In conclusion, employee performance management systems are a great investment. They help in managing today’s employees in a modern decentralized workplace. They help your managers make objective informed decisions about what your employees are doing right, what they’re doing wrong. It helps them recognize the right talent. Without using such a system, your organization is likely to suffer from inefficiency, which will result in long-term financial and productivity losses.

Want to know more employee about performance management systems? Request for a live demo.

Request A Demo