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How to Make it a Success

Process: Step 1

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Lesson duration

About 5 minutes

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What you will learn:
  • How and what to communicate to your employees and other stakeholders during the Performance Management process.

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Communication and Change Management

Managing expectations (and sometimes even fears) is crucial when embarking on a Performance Management process. More so if a new system is part of the package. We, therefore, recommend the following types of communication when you get to this point in the process.  The system has a general email that can be configured and scheduled to go out to all involved in the performance management project.  See below for a typical example.

 

Send System Notifications

 

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Other useful information to communicate to users includes:

What do the deadlines mean e.g. "The Performance Contract must be loaded, submitted, and approved by the manager by 31st August"?

How many KPAs should there be on a typical Performance Contract?

Is there a guideline for how many KPIs there should be under a KPA?

Should the users make use of standard (e.g., industry-specific) KPAs and KPIs, or can they compose their own?

Will the company be populating the KPA and KPI libraries with examples?

Can the employees build their own contracts, and only afterwards discuss them with their managers? Or should there be a joint discussion before the contract is created?

Can the employee and manager make use of contract templates in the library? Are there any templates in the library?

 

Conduct Short Training Sessions

Sometimes users get stuck on some tiny detail which they are unsure off.  Arrange online training sessions, which people can attend at will, and there deal with short, impactful topics which are relevant at this stage of the process. These topics are usually supplementary to the standard training material or emphasise their importance. Examples of training sessions are:

  • Copying a user's contract to another user (for managers).
  • Constructing a good KPA and KPI.
  • Changing the section weight of an agreement.
  • Attaching documents.
  • Understanding my Performance Dashboard.
  • Balancing the weights of perspectives, KPAs and KPIs.
  • Submitting my objectives to my manager.
  • Reopening my (previously submitted) contract (if I need to make changes).

 

Share Process Statistics

Besides the relevant upfront communication and guidelines, once the process has started, be sure to keep the momentum by encouraging employees and managers with little bits of information, and more guidance as to what is expected from them.

Use the system reports to extract process statistics and use these to create momentum. See below for an example.  This can be sent every week during the peak periods of the process - usually when approaching a deadline.

Remember, your users do not engage with the system daily and people forget a system after a month or two of inactivity. Use every opportunity to push training and guidelines and encouragement to them.

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Recommended further reading

 

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