Building a performance management culture

A performance culture is one where people hear how they are doing while it still matters, rather than once a year when it no longer can. Most organisations say they want one. Fewer change the habits that would produce it.

What Adobe found

Adobe is the case usually cited. Its annual review took about 80,000 hours of managers' time each year across roughly 2,000 managers, the equivalent of 40 full-time employees doing nothing else. Its own surveys suggested people came out of each review less motivated than they went in.

It replaced the annual appraisal with regular check-in conversations, in which managers coach, give feedback and agree what is expected over the coming weeks. The aim was clarity for the employee about what good looks like, and a manager involved in their progress all year rather than once.

Why regular feedback works

Feedback tells someone their work is noticed. That applies to criticism as much as praise: a manager who never says anything critical is, in effect, telling the employee the work does not matter enough to discuss. People want to know their contribution counts, and they want to hear it from someone who has been paying attention.

Frequency also keeps a team aligned. On a project, a short conversation every week or two shows whether things are on track and whether someone else's expertise is needed, long before a deadline forces the question.

It has to run both ways

Managers should ask for feedback as well as give it. An employee who needs training, or has a problem with how work is being allocated, should be able to raise it with their manager and expect something to happen. Where only the manager speaks, what you have is a reporting line.

What it asks of managers

Moving away from the annual review spreads assessment through the year rather than removing it. That needs managers who can set clear objectives, keep evidence as they go and hold a useful conversation at short notice. It is a harder discipline than completing a form once a year, and it is the part most organisations underinvest in.

Where this sits in the certificate

Building a culture of performance has its own module in our performance management training for managers, alongside the modules on objectives, the performance cycle and appraisals. There is more on running the appraisal itself on the performance appraisal training for managers page, and on keeping objectives honest in developing goals and objectives.

The course is about ten hours, online and self-paced, USD 950, ending in an exam that carries the designation Certified Performance Management Professional (CPMP) from the Institute for Performance Management. A free trial module is open before you pay.