Performance Management - help your team thrive
People are your organization’s greatest asset. The better they are, the better your organization will be.
You can get the most out of your team by supporting their growth and development through performance management (of course, don’t forget to seek out the best people for your team first - tips on recruitment here). But we’re not talking about the traditional style of performance management, which tends to consist of a few (or even one!) very formally structured meetings a year. Instead, we mean an ongoing form of management, grounded in consistent feedback that seeks to help individuals play to their strengths, perform to their best capability and unlock their full potential.
This won’t happen in two sit-down sessions over the course of a year, but instead will take regular feedback, a focus on both strengths and areas for improvement, alignment with your organizational culture, and a big picture view of what one is looking to accomplish and what they need to do in order to get there.
Below we share some advice on how to make performance management less of an HR task and more of an organizational strengthening secret weapon.
Six Tips for Performance Management:
1. Clear roles and responsibilities.
Before you can set performance goals it is important to pause and make sure that each individual on your team has a clear sense of their role and the expectations of them- both what they are responsible for and how you hope they will conduct their work. Make sure you and the team member are both clear on their areas of responsibility and the skills and competencies you expect to see them demonstrate in their role. Don’t assume that everyone shares a clear understanding of this!
2. Values & Competencies.
Performance is not just about what each team member is doing, but also how they are doing it. Make sure you are clear about the values that are important to your organizational culture and how you expect those to manifest in behaviors. You may also want to clarify the basic skills and competencies that are important to your core work for every member of your team. At Maliasili, we are a remote team, so teamwork and communications are important to how we work each day.
3. Set annual goals that connect to organizational goals.
No one wants to just do work for the sake of doing it. When they can see how what they are doing contributes to something greater, then it brings more meaning and motivation to their efforts. Ask your team to spend time at the start of each year by first reviewing the organization’s annual goals and plans, and then thinking about how their work and performance will support and advance those goals. As their manager, you want to keep your eye on the big picture as well.
4. Balance big picture reflection with regular feedback:
Review of priorities: Now more than ever, it is hard to plan with certainty. Make sure you review work plans periodically to make sure that goals are still timely and relevant. Adaptation is key to keeping the team motivated and being confident that they are putting their efforts in the right areas.
Ongoing feedback: We’re past the days of twice-yearly performance reviews. Instead, people want and deserve real-time, regular feedback from their managers. Set up regular sessions to meet with employees to discuss their work and performance and to discuss their achievements and identify areas where they can grow. During the feedback sessions and check-in meetings, managers should keep the annual performance targets in mind and support their team members as they work to achieve them.
Tip: It’s helpful to keep a live record of these conversations for reference and action points. We use shared Google docs at Maliasili.
Performance reflections: Because we can always get focused on the day-to-day, it’s useful to carve out opportunities for greater reflection on a quarterly and bi-annual basis. If feedback is regular, then when you do have these reflection sessions, your employees shouldn’t be surprised by any points that arise - even better, they should be the ones directing and guiding the conversation.
5. Value self-reflection.
Self-awareness is an important skill and the performance management process is a space where you can help your team build and flex that muscle. Ask your team members to reflect on their own performance, both the good and not so good aspects of it.
6. Include others.
As a manager, you won’t know everything your team members do. Thus it’s valuable to reach out to others on the team to gain insights into their performance. If you do this, it’s important to mention it to your colleague so they don’t feel like you’ve gone behind their back.
A simple guide for great performance reviews
Don’t overly complicate performance reflection meetings. Ask your colleague to review their performance management plan for the year, and then to reflect on the following four questions:
What do they think have been their most significant accomplishments?
What do they think they should do more of (e.g., what are they doing well)
Where have they faced challenges or been unable to meet their targets and why?
What do they think they could change or improve (e.g., where are they struggling)
Following their reflection, you can provide your own insights and advice.
A simple performance plan and system
Maliasili has tried and tested many different approaches to performance management - both ourselves as a team and with our partners. We’ve found the one key thing that matters most in developing plans and a system that will actually get used and that actually helps people grow: keep it simple. Here we present what we and many of our partners now use:
Instructions:
1. Objectives and Key Results: (OKRs) Employees identify their top performance objectives for the year (or per quarter) along with the key results that will help indicate success. For example:
Objective: To implement an effective performance management system that helps improve team performance
Measured by…
All team members have identified individual objectives for the year
Managers have reviewed their team’s objectives and targets
Quarterly reviews are held and recorded
Note: A key role for any manager is to make sure these objectives are feasible, both individually and collectively (can they get this all done on time?). You want to set your team up to succeed, striving for a balance between stretch and pragmatism. As you review their OKRs you may need to help them scale back or reprioritize, and where needed report back to leadership that you don’t have the resources and people needed to meet the targets.
2. Professional Development: Employees also identify their professional development needs and goals – where they want to strengthen and build their capacity and ideas on how they can do that. This is an opportunity where managers can also provide ideas and support. It’s important to highlight that most professional development can be done on-the-job and doesn’t require additional costs, certificates, etc. For example, assigning someone a ‘stretch’ assignment and ensuring they get support throughout; leveraging partnerships and internal resources there; maximizing online resources and materials and simply giving staff members the time to read and learn.
3. Personal Goals: Managers should encourage their team members to share their own annual personal goals. By doing so it helps a manager better understand and support their team members beyond just the workplace and it all sends a message that work-life balance is important and the individual and their personal interests and lives are important and valued by the organization.
Implementation:
Regular Feedback: The optimal way to implement a performance management system is by carrying out regular and frequent feedback sessions between an employee and their manager. This could be weekly meetings to check on progress, provide feedback, and troubleshoot. During the feedback sessions and check-in meetings, managers should keep the annual performance targets in mind and support their team members as they work to achieve them.
Quarterly Reviews: Each quarter a manager and their team members should take this document out and discuss it together using the following as a guide for the discussion:
Where is the team member making progress against its goals?
Where is it facing challenges?
What feedback can be shared for strengthening performance?
Following the quarterly meeting, managers can share a simple set of notes that both agree captures the discussion. The notes can be reviewed at the start of the next quarterly review.
Read the full newsletter here: Maliasili Reader Issue 28
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