Performance Management
From Wikipractice
The translation of this arcticle needs to be improved.
Contents |
introduction
The performance is the ultimate result of all the efforts of a company or an organization.
In a company or an organization where the conditions change constantly, managing the performance consists in making sure that all the contributors make the good things, the good way, quickly, at the right time, for the slightest cost to produce the good results, meeting the needs and in the expectations of the customers and give them satisfaction.
If the strategy is modified, it will maybe be necessary to modify the processes, to adapt the resources and probably to simplify the structure of management.
This requires:
- An inspiring leadership
- Competent resources
- Frequent communication
- Satisfactory rewards
Demonstrate an inspiring leadership
The leadership is defined as being the skill to influence, mobilize, inspire and allow all to contribute to the organization performance. The leadership can show itself either by a person in authority, or by a group of persons put together in a team, a process or a department.
The leader, whether it is the department head, the general manager or the president, has to, first of all, inspire confidence. He has to inspire confidence in all the circumstances, that these are normal, difficult or dangerous. Especially if circumstances are difficult and dangerous, because it is for these periods of turbulences that the reliable link turns out essential and because the members of the team need to be reassured.
Furthermore, the leader has to create, develop and maintain a reliable climate in his organization. If there is no reliable climate or if this one is weak, it doesn't much matter the reasons, it will be always difficult to make even a small change and even more a strategic bend.
The inspiring leader is the one who has the technical expertise to drive the employees in the fulfillment of a change and possess the interpersonal skills to facilitate the human dynamics. He helps the employees to understand the logic of the change, to keep the relevant and significant objectives, and to develop commitment, cooperation and team work.
The inspiring leader demonstrates some rigour, some enthusiasm and professionalism, leaving aside, if necessary, his ego and the hierarchical structure. He admits not to know all the answers and constantly looks for feedback at all the levels of the organization. He can, occasionally, reveal more information than usually about the finances and about the statistics of the company. This is often necessary to justify the reasons of the change and to reassure the commitment of the staff.
The inspiring leader can sometimes be a buyer of risks. He is able of adjusting its own management style depending on the situation, passing from the coach to the educator, to the psychologist, to the mentor until every person is on board. This attitude allows to listen all reactions of the staff towards the change and to answer all the questions.
The change can be difficult to realize and generate emotional reactions, but bit by bit, driven by an inspiring leadership, the employees will begin to understand the logic of the change and to embark.
Develop good competences
We often say that the staff represents the important asset in a company. On the other hand, in his book, Good to Great, Jim Collins asserts that the staff is not the most important asset but rather the good staff (right people), that is the one which the company needs.
Then, how manage to develop the good competence? The researches on the best management practices allowed to identify two fundamental practices to reach this objective:
- to recruit the candidates who meet the needs of the organization;
- to invest in training to improve the performance.
The experimented managers assert that to recruit the good person is more important than training, coaching and management. If the new recruit does not correspond to the profile of the post, training can remedy it with difficulty. Thus, it is recommended to quickly eliminate candidates who do not correspond to the requirements and to concentrate on the good candidates. Furthermore, it is necessary to make sure that the candidates are going to work with the team in place and that this team will answer the objectives of the company. Finally, it will be important, afterward, to define clearly the roles, the responsibilities, the expectations and the constraints of the various posts.
On the other hand, the company has to invest in the training of the employees to shrink the distance between the current competence and the required one to improve the performance and maintain its competitive advantage. The investment in training produces several profits such as an improvement of the organizational performance, satisfaction andtraining keeping back of the employees, improvement of the products quality and services, satisfaction of the customers, growth of sales and increase of profitability.
Before beginning the training of the employees, it is recommended to do a need sanalysis of training. This needs analysis allows to know if the training is the best means to improve the organizational performance. If an employee does not reach the wished performance level, he can have several reasons there: a lack of tools, indistinct objectives, conflicts of priorities, or lack of motivation. Concerning all these problems, the training is not the solution.
Secondly, training must be structured so as to reach the objectives of the company and support its strategy. The ultimate purpose of the training being the improvement of the performance, training has to aim at improving the behavior and the competence in the wished direction.
To change the behavior, the best companies create an environment where the new information can be applied immediately after the training. They also supply incentive to encourage the employees to get new behavior becoming permanent.
To change the way of performing requires at the same moment, over a long period, human, technical and financial resources. Few companies are ready of continuing to dedicate important resources for a long time without having concrete results. That is why, it is necessary to implant indicators of success which will allow to measure the results according to the objectives of performance.
Communicate frequently
So that the strategy comes true, the leader of the change has to undertake in a process of communication with the employees where this strategy will be explained to them so that they appropriate and consider it as their strategy. To do it, every stage of the change must be communicated as soon as possible to reduce resistance and fears.
The leader of the change has to favor the communication in both directions: of the height downward and the bottom upward. An opened, frequent communication and in both directions is necessary in the management of the change and represents the best defence against the biggest of the obstacles to the change, that is the resistance of the employees in the change. The management of an organization has to listening of all worries the employees rather than to give simply directives.
The infringement of a true change requires to answer the highly emotional reactions towards change. The administrators have to learn to master all the reactions of the employees including the irrational and aggressive one.
It is recommended:
- To constantly communicate information about change;
- To identify the sectors of the company which will not change;
- To draw the attention on the successes realized in the process of the change;
- To train the employees to surmount the difficulties linked to the change;
- To understand that each one fits the change according to different rhythms.
The choice of a communication channel influences largely the power of communication. Rather than to make several general announcements, it is often preferable to pass on the information personally to the concerned departments or groups of employees. It is good to encourage the messages transmission in a creative way and to use persons who demonstrated some enthusiasm concerning the change. One of the most effective communications consists in putting itself in the place of the concerned person and in explaining the logic behind the change.
Reward good performances
What is important in the changeprocess is the perseverance of the employees and the way the organization appreciates the new behavior and the good results.
The best organizations succeed in obtaining positive reactions on behalf of the administrators and the employees by having an adequate reward system.
At the beginning of a change, it is very easy to be enthusiastic. To avoid that the motivation declines and to help the employees to stay in the journey, it is necessary to have a good system of appreciation and significant, not inevitably silver rewards, which apply for one person or to a team.
The rewards and the incentive are powerful tools to facilitate the change, to decrease the shock of the change and to maintain the momentum. The researches demonstrated that several employees resist to change until they believe that this one comes along with an opportunity or with a reward for them.
In the best appreciation systems, the rewards are given to reach specific objectives. They are granted as early as possible and are concentrated on the needs of the employees.
The key is to be at the listening of the needs of the concerned persons and to have an approach which includes several sorts of rewards such as: of new responsibilities, promotions, paid leaves, a public recognition, options to buy shares, savings plans, silver bonuses, certificates of present, the promotion in the work, a recognition in the newspaper of the organization, or all simply training to improve the competence which will benefit as much to the organization as to the employee.
