Performance management: not just HR’s job

For the past decades the responsibility to select, implement and manage employee performance management solution has “fallen” on HR’s lap. While the Human Resources department plays an important role, if not the central one, in the administration of such plans and reviews, the system is often reckoned backwards. Workforce performance (in the sense of employees’ productivity and achievement of objectives) is perhaps more than anything, a team manager’s job.

HR: beyond necessity

HR does it because it is a necessity in most of today’s organizations (yet there are still a countless amount of small businesses without such a vital solution). Their mission is to make sure employees are paid, get vacation, and many other essential duties that may not happen if this function wasn’t here. HR to some extent, has the tough but necessary policing role for things that need to be done and can make significant change in the organization. HR is a parent in the current corporate culture, and employees are often in the position of children because they manage these plans after being told to do so. And naturally, there can be reluctance in such a relationship.

But it does not have to be that way. Team managers should care greatly that objectives get accomplished, and that there is a review cycle that provide qualitative (1:1 meetings) and quantitative (bonus payment) feedback that motivates the workforce. Executives should see performance management as the first vehicle to communicate the company’s mission statement and priorities, so that functional teams choose the right goals and competencies. Every employee should cherish their performance plan and stay as close to it as possible, so that they spend their work time on what matters (and they get a full bonus!).

Goal management is everyone’s job

It is senseful, perhaps even critical, to involve operational teams in the performance planning and review process. This makes the difference between the adult, mature organization and those that need to rely on HR as a police or parent. Once executives, people managers and employees of an organization start “owning” their performance plans, they work with HR as a team. realize the benefits of managing them proactively, not only it will make HR’s role easier and more balanced, the company results will increase as well.

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