What is the Difference?
Task managers see to it that employees are busy, that they are doing things exactly as they are told. That they are racking up enough hours of work. The more hours they spend at work, the better employees look in the eyes of their managers. Task managers complain about the lack of performance and see to it that the frustration is felt by the employees during performance appraisal. Many task managers think that they are doing a performance manager’s job when they talk to employees about their performance during performance appraisal sessions. The truth is, they are only doing it partially and most likely, ineffectively. When the team fails to measure up to the required results. A task manager has an excuse. “We did everything we could. The reasons for the failure are external.”
A good performance manager is focused on aligning employees’ performance with the organization’s goals. They are equipped with sufficient methods to go about managing employee’s performance.
Performance Goals Setting
Performance Managers know that at the onset of every performance reckoning period, they need to talk to their employees about goals. They make sure that these goals are clearly understood and accepted by employees. They know what kind of results they need to produce and the things they need to improve or learn in order to meet and or exceed these goals. Performance managers understand the concept of competencies and are able to explain clearly the kind of competencies they need to demonstrate.
Performance Monitoring
Performance managers know their role in helping employees achieve success in their work. They monitor each employee’s performance and give them timely feedback in the form of recognition when employees perform well, coaching and encouragement when they stagger.
Developing Capacity to Perform
This is the heart of a Performance Manager’s job. Equipping employees with the right set of skills and encouraging them to demonstrate the needed competencies takes the lion’s share of a Performance Manager’s work. They monitor employees’ performance to see potentials for bigger responsibility requiring net sets of skills and or look for performance gaps to fill. Managers who practice this discipline employ all sorts of strategies to make it happen. They coach, mentor, counsel, support with necessary tools and consult with HR for possible interventions to help employees perform better.
Evaluating Employees’ Performance
While task managers see this as a chore to comply with, a successful performance manager sees this an opportunity to celebrate performance with the employees. It’s recognition day and a day for plotting new paths towards performance excellence. For the performance manager, the performance discussion is the most critical part and does her best to prepare for it. A great performance manager is equipped with a coach’s skills to do this one right.
Rewarding and Recognizing Good Performance
A competent performance manager understands the value of rewards and recognition to continually motivate employees’ to perform. He employs numerous creative strategies to do this and looks out for more.
While some managers readily have the skills to do this, others may not have it. Busy managers who are still unable to delegate work to their employees due to lack of readiness will find the exercise of performance management time consuming. This gives you more reason to have them go through a development program so they can fully appreciate how performance management can help them empower employees and have employees do more work, more effectively thereby allowing them to free up their own time to do more strategic management work and of course, more performance management work that help employee achieve their full potential in the organization.
Is it a worthy investment? Think about how much better your employees should perform their jobs. Think about how much better your managers should deliver results. A right performance management mindset and culture can help you achieve your organization’s full potential. This could be the best investment you can make this or the coming year to develop your own organization’s capacity to perform. If you wish to know more how this can be done, please contact us. We can help you put in place a good performance management system and train your managers use them effectively.
