4 Tips For Great Performance Development

1. Performance development is about the future

The days of waiting for your performance development interview, to hear about all the sins of the past, are gone! The performance development interview should be a celebration of what has been achieved, how the person and the organisation have grown and what we can do in the future.

The problem is that we have allowed performance development to replace good day-to-day management. If you work with your people on a daily or weekly basis, instructing them, coaching them and rewarding them, then the annual interview will actually become a celebration, not a chore.

In other words, do not allow performance development to replace good day-to-day management and leadership. So don’t spend all of your resources on new systems,rather train your leaders in people management and coaching skills and you will see the whole focus of performance development change.

2. Understand the privilege

What a great privilege it is to be able to assist a person in their career and life development! But do our managers understand that privilege, or is it just another annoying thing to do? Spend your time teaching your leaders about the privilege of leadership and the difference between appraisal and working in partnership and again, the whole culture will change.

3. Keep it simple

The greatest mistake that HR Managers make is that they think to be accepted and justify their existence, they have to make things laborious and complicated. And then they wonder why their credibility is in taters and people don’t take them seriously. Keep It Simple and Flexible!

If your staff and managers don’t want or know how to use your tool, then they won’t.

So don’t try to be clever, be smart by being simple and that way you will gain acceptance from all stakeholders. Sometimes simple can be even more revealing in its outcomes. Give it a try!

4. Guess what, it is still about people!

Somewhere along the way we have forgotten about the people and yet it is the people that determine whether we are a success or not.

The most important thing is to know your people, your business and your clients and then look for ways to bring them together, this truly is the HR role.

Performance development will always be an important part of growing a successful business, but when we look at the reasons we do it, rather than latest system available to do it, then we will see a real change of focus in what we actually adopt.

Some of the most ‘talked about’ and expensive HR systems of recent days have done nothing more than create more work and frustrate people in the process.

When we return to ‘the people’ and create a simple process that celebrates success and supports good day-to-day management, then we will be on the right track to developing our people and building our businesses.

Manage your people and they will manage your business.

By Des Penny
CEO & Founder | Proteus Leadership

Proteus Leadership is one of Australia’s premier leadership training and development companies. Proteus Leadership provides leadership courses and management training to a range of industries and assists organisations to build positive workplace cultures, implement change and Create Great Leaders. Proteus also facilitates a range of world-class management courses, workshops, conferences and events across Australia and beyond with the sole purpose of bringing leaders together to connect and grow.

“Our core purpose is to Create Great Leaders that will in turn build Great companies and develop Great teams.”