How goals and continuous feedback help create sustainable growth for your business
Three steps to optimised performance management
By Koen Dewettinck
Professor of Human Resources Management
Growing your business in a sustainable manner requires focus and, above all, results. But how can you ensure that your employees actively participate in achieving your desired goals? The key to success lies in your approach to performance management.
In the Vlerick Entrepreneurship Academy’s ‘Performance Management’ Playbook, you will find practical tips for setting goals and creating a feedback culture. These will ensure that your employees not only stay motivated, but also continue to develop.
1/ Defining goals
To assess performance, you need to identify certain reference points. The basis of good performance management therefore lies in goal setting. Goals should ideally be specific, while also sufficiently challenging so that your employees are stretched, thereby encouraging them to get the best out of themselves. Another important factor is goal commitment. By combining top-down and bottom-up processes, you ensure that the goals you set are also accepted by your employees. But how do you go about this in practice? In the ‘Performance Management’ Playbook, you can start off with the OKR Canvas, based on the popular Objectives & Key Results method. The objective is what you want to achieve, while the key results are milestones that describe how you want to achieve those objectives.
2/ Providing continuous feedback to evaluate progress
Once your employees are familiar with your goals and have begun working towards them, it is important to keep a constant finger on the pulse. This can be achieved by organising systematic and regular ‘check-ins’, which are one-to-one discussions that can have a significant impact on employees' work and motivation. While there is no one way to carry out these check-ins, the Playbook provides practical tips around frequency, duration, topics, location and the role of managers.
3/ Organising performance reviews
While check-ins are more likely to focus on short-term goals and operational needs, performance reviews allow you to zoom out once or twice a year. Central to these reviews is the growth and development of employees in relation to the growth of the organisation. Do not confuse such growth conversations with promotion or salary meetings, which are best held separately.