17 Sep
A high-performance culture is something that enables successful organizations to stand out from the rest. High performance refers to a group of traits, skills, and behaviors that come together to produce superior results consistently. In other words, a group of high-performing individuals come together to create a super effective and high-performing team.
However, multiple factors need to work together to make a person or a team high performing in nature. Some of them are:
- The right competencies, skills and expertise
- Being responsive to changes
- Having a set purpose or goal
- The right leadership
- Motivation and incentives
The current state of performance management
Performance Management is a vital process that helps create a high-performing environment at the workplace and nurtures high performers. Performance Management includes processes and tools that facilitate consistent monitoring of employee performance and regular feedback. In addition, the processes must align individual goals with organizational priorities and drive employee performance..
Unfortunately, many companies still consider performance management to be only a stagnant ‘performance review’ process that needs to happen once or twice a year. As a result, Performance Management processes do little to boost employee performance in such workplaces. Here are some problems with old-school Performance Management processes.
- No alignment of individual performance to the organizational objective
- Lack of real-time data
- Low ability to respond to changing business dynamics due to annual/bi-annual reviews
- Full of performance surprises at year end
- Missing out on behavioral competencies and other skills outside of work
- Using outdated Performance Management tools and techniques
- Inconsistent communication between employees and the managers
How to ACQUIRE a high-performance culture?
If a high-performance culture excites you, which it must, then revamping your Performance Management System (PMS) is probably the first thing to do. Your Performance Management tools and technologies need to support collaboration and open avenues for continuous communication.
Agility is a crucial factor needed to acquire a high-performance culture. An agile performance management system will help organizations to delve deeper into their engagement and interaction practices and make changes that create a high-performance work culture.
How to DEVELOP high-performance teams?
Developing high-performance teams take effort and time. This is not a one-time process. Here are four elements that help organizations to build high-performance teams.
- Change set behaviors and mindsets – An employee capable of high performance may not even be aware of the same. Identifying established behaviors and traditional attitudes in performance reviews and gently prodding the mindsets to change will create a dramatic impact.
- Aligning business and individual goals – What are the goals of the organization right now? Are the team goals aligned with the business goals? Checking this regularly and introducing changes to align these goals will make the team effective and high performing.
- Creating an environment of appreciation and engagement – Employees value a company that encourages and appreciates their talent. Appreciation and Recognition help employees to work on their skills and behavior and aids self-improvement, creating high-performance teams.
- Free-flowing communication – Bidirectional free-flowing communication and feedback is the backbone of a successful organization. Feedback and communication have to be instant and truthful. Creating an agile performance management process will take care of this and help develop trusting, skilled, and high performing teams.
How to RECOGNIZE high performance?
- Have different levels of recognition – Make sure your management practices three levels of recognition – day-to-day, informal, and formal. Have tools that record these three levels to make it easy to identify high performance and celebrate their contribution socially.
- Use real-time tracking – Real-time tracking will make it easy for continuous assessment of employees. Continuous assessment is an effective way to recognize high-performing talent.
- Objectively measure employee performance – The right Performance Management processes and tools can help measure employee performance objectively and make it easy for the management to recognize and nurture high performers. Objective assessments are void of any biases and subjectivity usually associated with employee disengagement.
How to MANAGE high performance?
Attracting and developing high-performance teams are challenges by themselves. However, managing and retaining such talents is even more complicated. Your Human Resources team and management need to be on their toes to manage high performing individuals and groups. Here are some clever ways in which you can manage high-performance teams.
- Encourage flexibility – Micromanagement is something that kills creativity and performance. Encourage managers to be flexible and allow performers to learn and self-develop while they work.
- Provide consistent and constructive feedback – High-performers crave constructive feedback and an open communication line with their management. Creating a well-defined and agile performance management system at the workplace will help serve this purpose.
- Provide growth opportunities – Provide your performers with opportunities to grow personally and professionally at the workplace.
- Recognize and reward – Recognition does not always have to be about monetary rewards. Find out other ways of appreciating high-performers to make them feel valued.
How to REWARD high performance?
Creating an effective recognition system does so much to make employees feel valued and cherished. You may not have a massive budget for recognition and rewards. However, with the right tools, you can create a high-performance recognition system within your means.
Consider the following ideas.
- Open channels for peer-to-peer endorsement – Have internal social platforms where people can go and appreciate their other team members and write positive stories. This will slowly create an environment where employees lean on one another and support each other’s growth.
- Use tools that automate awards and milestone celebrations – Celebrate personal and professional milestones on internal social platforms and by creating stories. These small efforts can go a long way in keeping your high performing teams happy. There are automated tools that can take over this task and do it effectively all days of the year.
- Make rewards count – If you have to choose a reward for your team or an individual, make it matter. Most organizations give out gift coupons. Think about what are you can do differently that will make a difference.
- Higher compensation and roles – Nothing inspires people more than progression. You can reward your top performers not just with additional compensation but keep them motivated with greater responsibilities and roles.
Key takeaways
Creating a high-performance culture is something most organizations strive to achieve. However, this is a goal that can be achieved only by focusing on developing your people. When your employees grow, your company grows with them, and it becomes easy to create and sustain a high-performance culture.
Technology has come to rescue to help organizations in not just automating the performance management processes but also effectively driving both employee and organizational growth. So, invest in the right performance management tools and processes that create an agile environment for people to grow in. Make sure there is a way to track every initiative you take to improve performance. This will make it easy to quantify results.
A high-performance work culture helps in the organic growth of the people involved in it, and as a result, builds a truly successful organization.
