Performance Review Best Practices

FountainBlue’s September 2 Front Line Managers Online program was on the topic of ‘Performance Management Best Practices’. Please join me in thanking our panelists. 

• as an HR Leader – Kerry Perryman, Samsung Research America
• as a People Leader – Jennifer Exum, Gig Talent Collective
• as a Product Leader – Sam Gupta, Pure Storage

Our passionate and seasoned panelists offered courageous, direct, and kind advice on how to better manage performance and bring out the best in people. Although they represented a wide breadth of experience and backgrounds, our panelists agreed on the following best practices:
Be Strategic

• Align objectives across the organization, products and teams.
• Leverage influencing skills to manage a host of stakeholders with the goal of delivering measurable results which fit performance objectives.
• Understand the motivations of the various stakeholders and keep this in mind as you manage performance for the overall team.
• Take a holistic view of individual, group and company performance, rather than counting on snapshots of detailed data which may be taken out of context.
• Encourage the team to be plan-ful about their work, without being rigid; to be agile about their work while adhering to requirements, standards, processes and protocols.

Communication is Key

• Engage in ongoing, constructive, data-based conversations around feedback.
• Consistently communicate performance standards and execute to those standards.
• Consistently think, speak and act in a way which inspires trust, informs transparently, and invites engagement. 
• Make conversations direct and specific, but not personal. 

Collaborate, Connect and Inspire

• While it’s important to oversee the performance of their own teams, it’s also important to collaborate with other stakeholders to deliver exceptional results. 
• Look not just at where employees are, but also where they’d like to go, and support them in that journey.

Be Positive and Proactive

• Find a positive and constructive way to manage performance, rather than adopting strategies which may (inadvertently or intentionally) pit people against each other.
• Take the opportunities to praise and reward good performance and strategize on how to make the good behaviors and outcomes even better.
• Invite and reward a mindset of growth and curiosity. 

As we look at the paradigm shift to a new version of normal, we must also realize that the way we manage and oversee performance must also shift, given the new realities of the workplace. 

Resource: 

• FountainBlue August 2022 blog: Empower and Engage while Improving Performance

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