What is it called at your place? I’ve lost count of the terms that are out there – Performance management, performance appraisal, performance development review, performance development plan, personal development plan and that’s before we get into the three letter acronyms – PMP; PDR etc!
Well, we recommend that you need to focus on both performance and development if you are to get the best out of your people and deliver the best overall results. However, it is essential that managers and staff understand that there should be a relationship between objectives and development.
This is why we often use the term ‘performance management‘ as that process really should encompass objective setting, development, appraisal and ongoing manager/employee conversations.
The key point to recognise is the fact that performance objectives and development actions should be aligned. We know of one business where development planning used to take place at the end of the year, during the performance appraisal meeting. At best people ended up going on courses as a reward for high performance, at worst they waited all year to get the development that they needed to succeed in the first place! They were actually delivering development 18 months too late, failing the individual and the business.
You can discover more about this approach by reading this blog.
So perhaps the ‘performance development process‘ is the best term to use or in fact ‘performance management‘ which is the exact process we describe above. Unfortunately, this term has too many connotations due to historic poor management practice – but that’s a subject for another blog!
One point to also remember is that when we are talking about developing people, the style and attitude of the meeting is also important. Open questions and a coaching style are the name of the game. You can read more on this by reading our Managers Guide, 7 Simple Steps to People Development.
