Mistake one: Turning a blind eye

The most common mistake we see in performance management is organisations ignoring issues until they eventually become a much bigger problem (and one that could have been avoided). It is always wise to deal with minor performance issues on a regular and informal basis rather than let them mount up.

Mistake two: Acting in haste

On the flip side, managers can jump too quickly to the formal route without dealing with the issues effectively at the informal stage. A formal procedure should only be implemented where a performance problem escalates or persists.

Mistake three: Setting no objectives

Often the business is not clear what it wants from its approach to performance management. Staff cannot be expected to perform their best without clear objectives about what they should achieve. But objectives need to be realistic. It is difficult enough to separate an employee’s attitude from their ability to do the job and deliver on targets. This is exasperated where staff are not clear about what they are expected to achieve or how they will be measured, or where targets are unrealistic.

Mistake four: Not measuring effectively

Businesses may know what they want to achieve, but any performance management system will fail if meaningful measures have not been built into the system. For example, if a goal is to reduce recourse to the formal disciplinary process, you need before and after statistics. And measures need to be relevant to the objectives. For example, if you want to measure speed or quality outputs, this is different to staff behaviour, or the way an individual does the job, interacts with others or their absence rates.

If you could be about to make a similar mistake or you want any advice on building a robust performance management system don’t forget you can get immediate answers with our
Pay As You Go HR advice service.

Find out more about the best ways to manage performance in SMEs with our Performance Management Factsheet.

Tags: HR management, performance management
Posted by Tara Lloyd
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.