The new year is approaching, and businesses of all types are gearing up to start it off on the right foot. One thing that every organization should be aware of is continuous performance management (CPM), which will continue to play a critical role in how businesses engage and manage their employees.
Ticking off those Yew Year's resolutions depends in large part on a productive, motivated workforce. In order to foster a culture that supports success, more companies have keyed in on investments in CPM. A Betterworks survey found 79 percent of human resource executives planned to increase their spending on performance management processes in 2018. Of that share, 43 percent aim to bring their budgets for performance management up by 10 percent or more.
It's fitting that as this year passes, the idea of the annual review as the sole means of feedback and management is similarly falling into the past. The modern workforce expects and needs ongoing performance management, and here's how businesses can usher 2018 in with a CPM bang:
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Start the year off right with a goals-for-the-year conversation
The entire concept behind CPM is having an end-to-end, personalized strategy for each employee that includes feedback, assessment and honest conversation. This all begins when the calendar flips to January: Businesses need to set the groundwork by having a talk with each employee about their goals for the year to come. By identifying these objectives and other goals handed out by the business, managers can craft individualized plans for continuous performance management that enable the greatest chances of success.
Some questions to answer during the discussion can include:
- Based on performance last year, what do you want to improve on in 2018?
- What personal enrichment or growth goals do you have for yourself, and how can we help you meet them?
- What expectations do you have for the coming year regarding feedback and preferred lines of communication?
Lay out the roadmap ahead
The work is hardly done once you've established Points A and B. While you're at it, start visualizing what milestones and check-ins will need to be set. This isn't to put pressure on an employee from the get-go to produce, but having deadlines and standing meetings are necessary functions of CPM, and in many ways help individuals manage their time and workloads.
HR managers should also be sure to use different topics in progress checks. For instance, quarterly or monthly meetings can be held to discuss project specifics and the like, while a check-in at the half-year mark can be used to look back at what's been done so far to meet 2018 goals set out beforehand. Having this all communicated and constructed when there's time and open schedules is a huge advantage for conducting CPM.
Have the right technology to facilitate CPM
Another consideration to CPM is the IT infrastructure organizations have to support their efforts. The business world is continually being affected and transformed by technology, and that's no less true for HR. Organizations need to ensure they have robust tools that allow them to conduct CPM, because neither pen-and-paper methods nor fragmented solutions are feasible in today's environment.
Businesses should look for a solution that allows managers to seamlessly create, delegate and monitor tasks, as well as give feedback that is accessible and shareable. Besides workflow-specific features, HR professionals also need a solution that allows them to construct individualized plans and track personal metrics. For more information on BetterWorks suite of CPM-focused products, contact us today for a demo on how you can leverage our capabilities and experience to pursue CPM in 2018.