Performance management
Why appraisal cycles stall, and how to design one that finishes.
The most common performance management failure is not a bad framework. It is a good framework that never completes, rescued each year in December by whoever in HR is most persistent. Designing for completion is a different exercise from designing the form.
Latest articles
Articles on this topic are on the way. The guidance below is the short version in the meantime.
Designing a cycle that finishes
Make completion visible mid-cycle
The single most useful capability in a performance system is knowing, three weeks before the deadline, exactly which managers have not started. That is a solvable problem at week nine and an unsolvable one at week twelve.
Give objectives a line of sight
An objective that cannot be traced upward to something the organisation committed to, and downward to work the person actually does, will not be referred to again after it is written. Cascading makes the connection explicit; weighting makes priority explicit rather than implied.
Capture evidence through the period, not at the end
Without evidence, calibration becomes a negotiation between managers' memories, and the most articulate manager's team gets the best ratings. Check-ins through the period are cheap and change the character of the review conversation entirely.
Connect the outcome to something
If the rating does not reach development, pay or succession, people notice within two cycles and the effort collapses. It does not have to drive pay. It has to drive something, visibly.
Match the cadence to the organisation
An annual cycle in a fast-changing business produces objectives that are obsolete by month four. Quarterly check-ins against annual objectives are usually the practical compromise.
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