Building Successful Teams with Agile Performance Management
All over the world, top organizations are looking to build stable yet dynamic organizations that can weather any internal or external challenge. The answer may lie in a management style that is as revolutionary as it is effective - agile performance management.
In this article, we will be looking at an introductory overview of this method of management as well as how you can get started and go on to learn more.
What are Agile Organizations?
Agile organizations are firms capable of deploying fast adaptations and reactions to changing conditions. They accept a complicated and uncertain world by prioritizing customers above profits, implementing quick learning and decision cycles, and forming a network of empowered teams and individuals powered by technology and motivated by a common goal.
Organizations have the challenge of keeping up with quick shifts in the marketplace brought on by the digital revolution in a constantly changing environment. Traditional organizational structures and management approaches fail to modify their processes and outputs quickly enough, whereas agile businesses flourish in a changing environment.
And how exactly do agile organizations perform so well? Long story short, through agile performance management. For the long story longer, read on.
What is Agile Performance Management?
Quite simply, it is a method for encouraging employee performance, fostering employee growth, and coordinating these two aims with corporate and personal objectives.
Rather than yearly or bi-annual assessments and feedback cycles, it emphasizes regular measurement, ongoing performance feedback, and gradual development throughout the year.
Continuous communication is critical because it fosters meaningful connections, allows for continual debate between managers and employees, and alerts managers and employees to possible problems before they may impact productivity.
As a result, an agile approach to management overcomes traditional performance management's shortcomings and limits. It eliminates or reduces the chances of ambiguous, anxiety-inducing, and biased performance management.
Traditional Performance Management: All That Bad?
To understand why agile performance management works so well, it is important to understand why traditional performance management might be on the way out.
Traditional performance management is based on a 20th-century talent management theory that has really failed to keep up with the new millennium. Top-down hierarchies, silos, and inflexible performance management methods are its hallmarks, which emphasize efficient output on production lines.
Many classic performance management principles do not hold up in today's fast-paced environment. For example, annual reviews and appraisals, delayed feedback provided after drawn-out consideration, and the one-way nature of all these lead to stiff, hierarchical performance management practices.
Why the Agile Method Works
Now consider agile performance management.
This process overcomes these flaws through frequent check-ins that provide employees with valuable feedback that they can implement, two-way conversational check-ins that prompt nudges in the right direction as well as performance reviews that no longer force managers/staff to endure annual appraisals that deliver "expired" feedback saved up from the beginning of the year to justify a rating and more.
The quantifiable advantages of this management approach are profound. Employee engagement, worker productivity, profitability, and the enterprise agility needed to outmaneuver rivals will all benefit your company.
How to Implement
Improvement is a slow, intentional process. It is the same with moving from traditional performance management to an agile style. Contrary to popular belief, you do not need to abandon your current traditional performance management method.
Should you choose to undertake this endeavor, your approach might look something like this:
01 - Implement regular performance check-ins
Check-ins are brief two-way dialogues between managers and employees that are typically driven by a specific agenda. They generally concentrate on either performance or growth.
Check-ins are essential because they frequently reveal possibilities to raise morale, prompt self-reflection, or motivate quick course correction.
02 - Establish goals and KPIs
KPIs give a framework for transparently assessing and monitoring performance in a motivating and realistic manner. Established KPIs serve as a compass for every check-in, aligning your organization's and workers' goals. They take time to perfect, but the ultimate product is well worth the effort.
03 - Get used to continuous feedback
Feedback given in a timely manner has a greater impact than feedback given months after an incident has occurred. It promotes immediate behavioral change while keeping individuals focused on critical objectives.
Using your performance management system to implement a continual feedback loop strengthens the bond between managers and team members. Members of the team will understand what is expected of them, where they are going wrong, and how well they are performing.
04 - Adopt competency frameworks
All job functions in a company require core abilities or specialized competencies. They define the skills and behaviors that employees are expected to possess.
They impact recruiting methods and hiring decisions by categorizing job roles into job families. Using both core and special abilities in an agile performance management approach provides stability and equality in compensation as well as a foundation for career progression.
05 - Continue to develop your people
This management style makes it more likely that managers and team members may more easily spot professional development possibilities that will enhance individual and company goals. The outcome is a system that benefits all parties involved.
Your business will be able to run like an agile, intelligent, and "self-healing" organism once this skills-focused system is established and automated.
Threats to your company's flexibility and competitiveness, such as skills or competency deficiencies, are rapidly discovered, diagnosed, and addressed.
Learn more
If you are a manager or specialist working in HR, you would know that building an agile organizations starts by building an agile-enabled workforce. Performance management is crucial to your organization if it is making the leap from traditional to agile practices, and any manager worth their salt needs to know about performance management.
If you are interested in learning more about this topic, we invite you to join our virtual masterclass on Next-Gen Agile Performance Management and Performance Appraisals.
This two-day online course will be led by Robert Mosley, Global Remuneration Expert, HR Consultant, and CEO of Lemon Pip Consulting Limited. Robert will guide participants through knowledge-sharing sessions as well as hands-on case study analyses for a thorough understanding of the topic.
Click here to learn more about the Next-Gen Agile Performance Management and Performance Appraisals and how you too could be a part of it!
