Continuous Performance Management Will Enhance Your Business

Work practices are changing. Coworking spaces are overtaking traditional offices in popularity, and freelancers are a vital part of a wide range of industries. The fact that it’s time to say goodbye to the annual performance review is just another shift in the modern workforce. Studies indicate employees don’t enjoy the process. Additionally, annual reviews appear to have virtually no impact on employee performance.

That doesn’t mean organizations should jettison performance management entirely. According to surveys, most employees actually <href=”#549d8d27914a”>want more feedback than they currently receive.

Companies must simply adopt new methods of providing it. Continuous performance management offers the ideal solution. The following benefits illustrate what this method entails, and why it’s a superior option.

Encouraging Regular Communication

Continuous performance management involves using technology to facilitate regular check-ins between managers and employees. These check-ins can be scheduled as often as necessary. Some teams benefit from weekly communication, while others only require monthly feedback sessions.

Either way, this system makes it easier for management to offer valuable feedback on a consistent basis. This allows them to address performance issues early. Discuss a problem at an annual review, and an employee may have to wait a year to learn if their efforts to improve were successful. Discuss these issues on a weekly basis, and a manager can take a more active role in helping an employee grow. This has been shown to boost engagement (and, as a result, productivity).

Providing Holistic Assessments

A strong continuous performance management system also allows managers to efficiently collect feedback and information from various sources. Being able to gather insights from an employee’s coworkers results in a more holistic picture of a worker’s strengths and weaknesses. During review sessions, employees will likely get more valuable information than they would if the review was based solely on a manager’s impressions.

Gathering Data Regularly

It can be difficult for managers to prepare for annual performance reviews. They must attempt to gather relevant information about an employee’s performance that represents their overall progress over the course of an entire year. Collecting that information is time-consuming. Thus, during an annual review, leaders often fail to provide a truly thorough account of an employee’s performance.

This isn’t a problem with continuous management. Since this process involves collecting data on a regular basis, important points won’t be overlooked. Issues that need to be addressed are more likely to be brought up, and improvements an employee has made are more likely to be recognized. This has also been shown to have a positive impact on engagement levels.

These are all reasons companies should replace the annual performance review with continuous performance management. The outdated system has been shown to offer little value to employees, managers, and organizations in general. Continuous management is far more effective because it’s designed to meet the genuine needs of workers.