The Building Blocks of Performance Management and The Role of Emotional Intelligence
Performance management is generally described as “an ongoing process where organizations set goals, monitor their employees’ performance, provide ongoing feedback, and offer opportunities for development to align individual efforts with organizational objectives and improve overall productivity.” To be effective, the building blocks of Performance Management involve a continuous cycle of planning, monitoring, developing, and both ratings and rewards with regular communication and feedback being key to its success.
If any one block is omitted or neglected, it has the same effect as an architect leaving out a key step in the construction of a building: It will not be sturdy and will not withstand the tests of time.
Let’s examine how you can set each of these building blocks in place and where Emotional Intelligence fits into the development of employees and leaders.
- Planning – Set clear goals for your organization and your employees. Everyone, from the secretary to the CEO, should know what is expected of him or her. In setting your goals, you can create a mission statement for the overall company, but you must also be sure your employees know their job duties and performance goals.
- Monitoring and giving feedback to employees – Making plans and setting goals will do no good unless a supervisor monitors employee performance regularly, giving clear feedback when necessary. This feedback should include both praise and constructive feedback. The key is to “catch” your employees in the act of doing well and praise them immediately or correct a mistake right away and in the right way – constructively and privately.
- Development –Studies have shown that high levels of emotional intelligence boost career success, mental health, relationships, and happiness. Higher levels of emotionally intelligent workplace behavior are also the best antidote to work stress and building personal resilience. As part of your employees and leaders’ development, it’s critical you provide them with feedback on the impact they have on others in the workplace. Our 180o or 360o Emotional Intelligence surveys are designed to do just that. Think of them as giving someone careful directions and a road map to arrive at the destination on time and without mishap.
- Ratings & Rewards – Although rewards need not be given daily or even weekly, they are important to the process and cannot be overlooked. A reward can be expressed as a simple “Good work!” or it can include increased compensation or a promotion. You should be creative and match the reward to the performance.
While you might consider performance management a baffling practice requiring training to do well, you can achieve it by ensuring the four key strategies are in place and that emotional intelligence surveys are a key part of that development. Your efforts will result in high-performing employees and leaders who know what you expect and have the abilities and resources to accomplish it.
Ultimately, your organization will reap the rewards. In a study of 100,000 employees of 2,500 organizations, the Gallup Organization recorded the well-being attitudes of employees at work in highly productive groups. These attitudes are directly related to the rate of employee turnover, customer satisfaction, and productivity. Employees in such work groups reported high levels of agreement with the following statements:
- I know what’s expected of me at work (planning).
- In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress (monitoring).
- I have the performance feedback I need to do my work well (developing).
- In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work (rewarding).
Are these the kind of statements your employees would make? If not, check us out at www.GreatLakesProfiles.com. We have a suite of assessments which not only includes our Emotional Intelligence assessments, but our PXT Select assessment, our Everything DiSC assessments, our Customer Service assessment, our Integrity assessment, and our CheckPoint (core competency) 360o survey. Additionally, we can help you with culture consulting, coaching, and a host of other training programs to support our assessments and surveys. We’re here to help, call us at (248) 388-0697 or email us at Jim@GreatLakesProfiles.com.