If you’re a manager or leader, it’s likely that at some time you’ve had to speak to one of your team about your concerns with their performance. For even the most skilled manager having these conversations can be a daunting experience; you may worry about how the other person will react or what you can do to bring about the improvement you’re after.
The role of a manager includes many different elements but when it comes to managing performance there are three parts to your task of ensuring your team does the best possible job:
- Allocate the work, or task, to be completed by the team member/s making sure you set SMART objectives or KPIs
- Monitor their progress against the KPIs or objectives that have been set
- Give feedback on their performance – this includes the ‘what and the ‘how’ (the results they have achieved and their behaviours in doing it)
Allocating the work and monitoring performance
Allocating the work may involve assigning specific tasks to different individuals, or it could be about setting the systems and processes that drip-feed the work, for example in a contact centre where you might be responsible for the call management systems.
Whilst nowadays we’ve tended to move away from having lots of individual/team KPIs or targets, it makes sense to have a (small) number of measures that will enable you to be able to assess how well your team are doing and to be able to report on this to the business and your customers. You should be able to easily access and share this information with key stakeholders and there are lots of way you can do this from simple messages flashed up on screens or emails to colleagues, right up to very detailed MI packs that are shared with a more select group.
Rather than just sending performance information out, a more sophisticated approach is to allow colleagues to be able to self-serve their own performance data and there are many systems on the market that allow users, from front-line staff to senior managers, to be able to do this so that they have performance data at the touch of their finger-tips. Remember though that you’ll need to regulate the data that people see dependant on their role in the organisation.
Whichever way you choose to do it, having the ability to be able to monitor performance is a vital part of your role as a manager; as the old saying goes ‘if you can’t measure it, then you can’t manage it!’.
Giving feedback
In our experience, most managers are great at doing the first two-things (Allocate and Monitor) but maybe not so good at the third one (Giving feedback). There may be many reasons why this is the case and ones we regularly hear are; “I’m too busy to have 121s, I’ve got other projects to do” or “If they want to know how they’re doing, they can always ask me”. Some of the worse examples we’ve seen are when managers only give feedback when a team member has done something ‘wrong’ – no wonder some employees dread seeing their manager.
It’s such a shame that more managers don’t see the importance of giving feedback and how motivating this can be for people and it’s also surprising so many managers think that feedback has to be given in a very formal way in a 121 meeting with lots of data and note-taking – it doesn’t!
Giving feedback can be as simple as stopping by someone’s desk and saying something like “Hi Carly, you did a great job on that sales pitch to that new customer – they really loved what you did and have already placed a big order – well done!”. Saying something in person carries a lot more weight than sending an email, but it might be that the person works in a different location or won’t be at work for a while, so an email might be your only option. If so, then make it feel personal by writing the email as if you were actually having a face to face conversation; this will make your message feel much more meaningful to them.
The obvious exception to giving feedback in this way is if you have concerns about someone’s performance or behaviour. In this case, then the most appropriate way to do this is to have a private conversation away from the rest of the team when you can explain to them what your concerns are.
If you do need to have such a conversation, then key things to find out from them include;
- do they know what’s expected from them? (targets, KPIs, competences, etc)
- have they had the necessary training and/or support to enable them to do these things?
Once you’ve established this then you can agree a plan of action to get them to where they need to be and the chances are you’ll both be feeling relieved that you’ve had that conversation.
CFA Training are experts in developing management and leadership skills in people. If you would like to know more about how we can help you, or your business, to be successful then please contact Neville Beardsmore for more information.