Performance management and future changes
An article posted in 2012 on www.forbes.com discussed the changes that are likely to occur to performance management in the year 2013. Sylvia Vorhauser-Smith, author of the article, argued that no other organizational practice is more broken than performance management. The reasons she gives for this daring statement reside on the fact that people and technology have changed, as well as the relationships between them.
Employees have changed, there has been a noticeable shift from their being just some passive recipients to being active agents. This is very important in the structure of an organization, as it helps it deal with strategic issues faster and more accurately.
The concept of performance management is not as well received in companies as one might have expected. Even though performance management is widely considered as a good organizational practice, employees as well as managers do not like it at all. Nobody does it well, as they lack experience and motivation and ultimately, the concept fails to pass the test of construct validity.
So why are the employees so little attracted by performance management? Well, in the recent years, it has been proven that what motivates employees is not exactly goal achievement, but goal pursuit. It is just as if they have discovered that it is the journey that matters and not the destination.
What can be done? For starters, have in mind that things have changed indeed and that what used to work no longer does. In this respect, it is managers who need the most to change their approach to leadership. In order to receive better feedback and work results from their team, they must learn to communicate as often as possible and most of all, openly. Nothing beats honesty coming from a leader. Then, it is important to set goals for each and every one of the employees and for the organization as a whole and inspire them to use as much as they can from their potential.
Nevertheless, apart from being an active cooperative leader, one must also know when it is time to step back and let the team do their work. It is crucial to trust the employees to do the jobs they were assigned, that way they were told to; this builds confidence in their own strengths which in turn contributes to the well-being of the entire organization.
Changes in performance management are visible today, as well as in any other domain. Changes have always been regarded as undesirable at the moment, but in time their results have proven wrong the misbelievers. Every company is in debt with performance management, every company owes it to itself and to its members to work on achieving great levels of performance.
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Tags: Knowledge and Innovation performance, Management performance, Performance Management, trends
