Performance management is an all-encompassing expression meant to describe the process of overseeing the performance of your team members through a variety of methods such as one-on-one coaching, goal setting and achievement, and the regular performance appraisal system.

But performance management falls short when a manager does not utilize the tools available to him on a daily basis.

Yes, I said daily.

In order to manage someone’s performance you have to regularly observe and note their performance, not wait until two weeks prior to performance appraisal time and then wrack your brain trying to remember what happened in the previous eleven and one-half months.

That’s why I want to share with you three key hurdles managers should be aware of when managing employee’s performance.

First is the failure to establish individual written goals. An important step that helps to ensure objectives are mutually agreed upon and achievable. This means you need to sit down with each of your team members to discuss and define performance expectations.

Because a large part of performance management is managing it year round not just at performance appraisal time, a second problem that managers may fall in to is the failure to document performance.  

By not properly (and consistently) keeping records, you could fall victim to what is commonly called the “halo effect” (or its counterpart the “horn effect”) whereby you tend to evaluate someone high (or low) in many areas because of the perception that they are performing high (or low) in just one area.

If the halo effect doesn’t become a problem, another performance management issue that can arise when there is no adequate documentation is a tendency to assess employees based on their most recent behavior only, ignoring older (typically forgotten) behavior.

The third performance management hurdle that managers, especially new ones, must overcome is called “central tendency” whereby they tend to stay to the center of the ratings form and rate all team members as average.

This problem is especially true if the performance evaluation form is built on a five-point system; one point for poor performance, five points for exceptional performance. In this case, managers tend to evaluate everyone around three.

One of the easiest ways to reduce this tendency is for an organization to go to a four-point system. Then managers are forced to choose between either two or three points.

Whatever performance management issue you may confront, keep in mind coaching your team is an important part of your role as manager.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 17th, 2007 at 9:18 am and is filed under Performance Management. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.