When you look at some of the biggest companies around today and the progress they're making year after year; it's easy to become envious and wonder what's their secret.

However, performance doesn't just happen. It doesn't materialize out of thin air. Meaning that, armed with the right recipe, you too can replicate headline-making successes and inch your teams towards more productivity.

Let that journey start here.

Get familiar with performance management

Before we dive into building blocks and best practices, let me first remind you of the basics. Performance management is the process used to ensure a company connects its mission to the work of its people effectively and efficiently.

When performed correctly, performance management takes an organization from point A, its current state, to point B, the desired state of evolution.

Performance management used to be all about legal documentation, contract compliance, and risk mitigation in the past. Those are not very fun terms or the building blocks for a process meant to be popular with teams. But, as things are evolving, the focus is shifting.

You can now think of performance management as having two essential pillars:

• Evaluating the performance of employees.
• Developing plans to help them grow.

These directions become more apparent when we look at the component processes of performance management.

1️⃣ Planning

2️⃣ Monitoring

3️⃣ Developing

4️⃣ Rating and rewarding

During a good performance management cycle, the four steps work together and build on top of each other to inform business and administrative decisions. And since they heavily influence other aspects such as purpose, autonomy, and mastery, they’re worth investigating more. 

Discover the components of performance management

Here’s what it takes to achieve the desired performance state inside a company.

1. Planning

Objectives are set during the planning phase, and the success metrics get defined. This all happens following the company’s goals to ensure alignment and enjoy the benefits of compounded efforts.

However, this can’t be just a top-down process for it to succeed.

Teams and individual contributors need to have the opportunity to get involved, have their say, and buy into the whole process. This is a great way to avoid blind spots and build fairness into the entire process.

After planning is done, you should be looking at a roadmap ready to be implemented in the next quarters. Plus, everyone will know what performance expectations they’re trying to fulfill and how they’ll be evaluated.

Monitoring

Playing on the idea that what gets measured gets done, monitoring involves actively tracking and reporting the work done and potential hurdles. By doing so regularly, problems can be nipped in the bud. You can avoid a scenario where significant issues are only divulged at the end of the performance cycle when it’s too late to do anything about them.

What’s more, monitoring reveals insights that can also be used to inform decisions and improve results.

Developing

During the monitoring stage, under or overperformance areas often come into focus, so development is when they get addressed. And while this is often a missing piece from the performance management puzzle, its absence comes at a high cost. 

This third stage offers the chance to develop a plan for ongoing education and training, lay out new assignments, and present the opportunity to take on more challenges. Plus, managers can offer coaching and feedback, creating the space for people to reach their potential and use all of their talents.  

Rating & rewarding

Finally, the last piece of the performance management process is comparing the outcomes against the goals set in the beginning. Now everything gets rated, and rewards and kudos are shared.

Plus, this is the perfect opportunity to learn lessons about what affected or increased performance and adjust the course for the following quarters.

If all this has got you reflecting on your performance management process and how it might be failing your team, there is a way to turn it around.

Go for effective performance management with Mirro

Mirro is a powerful performance management platform that can help you achieve more than ever before. It lets teams focus on what truly matters and deliver results by streamlining planning, goals, regular check-ins, and documentation.

Mirro is so successful because it facilitates alignment with company goals all year round. It also encourages people to step into their power and fulfill their potential. 

Just imagine how powerful it would be to use Mirro and: 

✅ Align efforts with the organization’s mission.

✅ Clarify responsibilities and expectations.

✅ Enhance personal and group productivity.

✅ Highlight all contributions to success.

✅ Offer support and regular feedback.

✅ Improve communication.

✅ Offer a data-informed base for making decisions.

Effective performance management depends on the quality of the tools you use, so make the switch to Mirro today. You’ll notice the difference right away.