Performance Management: How to Engage Your Entire Team

There is no question that dealing with employees’ performance is one of the most challenging — but crucial — aspects of a manager’s job. While most discussions around performance are heavily slanted towards attracting top talents or bowing out underperformers, not much is said about how to ensure your middling average joes are a priority or whether promoting your star performers is always the best decision to make.

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Use the Performance and Potential Matrix outlined in my Power Read ‘Frameworks for Effective Performance Management’ to determine where each member of your team stands. When it comes to low-performing, low-potential staff, the prime dilemma is: how do you know if more training is the answer or if it is time to let them go? Personally, I wouldn’t opt for the firing scenario, at least not immediately. Firing is, overall, an unpleasant affair and should be left as a last resort - unless it’s a compliance issue, a violation of the code of business ethics, or a character and integrity issue, of course. You should always give your staff the time and opportunity to change and grow.

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Weak Links

A good manager should be able to identify ahead of time whom among their staff may fall short. If you’re doing regular catch ups with your team, you would be able to pick out the weaker links who need that extra push. Have an honest chat with them early on and share constructive feedback on where and how they can improve. The accountability should lie on the managers to identify this ahead of time, to avoid any awkward last-minute firing situations. When the time comes for you to officially review their performance and make a decision about their future in the company, the bad news wouldn’t come as a surprise to either party.

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Typically, I’ve found that having an early conversation with underperforming staff really helps. They either end up choosing to leave amicably because it’s clear the job’s not a right fit for them (no one wants to be in a job where they’re under-performing) or improve. If it’s the former, the departure is usually then on good terms and no action is needed on your part. If they choose to stay, I find that the person usually makes a concerted effort to improve.

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How you frame this conversation is key - you have to be genuine about helping them grow into their roles. The official process looks something like this: I usually give a verbal notice at first; then, an official warning, along with a tracklist of targets they’ll need to meet if they’d like to stay. This, for the most part, has proven to be a reasonable and effective method. You can gauge their improvement over a 90-day period, but do budget this depending on how much time you can actually afford to let your staff fine-tune their performance and productivity.

Knowing When to Let Go

If I do decide to make a decision to let a candidate go, I usually step back and ask myself two questions. Firstly, if I were hiring for this position again, would I hire this candidate? And secondly, if the person does leave, am I confident enough to find a better candidate?

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The answer to the first question isn’t necessarily always a no. There are many reasons why a candidate falls short of his role, one of which could be due to an error in the recruitment process where expectations weren’t clearly outlined. If that’s the case, it might be worth heading back to the drawing board to establish new targets. As for the second question, if you don’t feel confident in finding someone better, perhaps there are ways you can step in to help them become better in their roles. The answers to these two questions will give you a better and rational sense of what the right next step is - without any emotions clouding your judgement.

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The Average Joe

My personal view is that it’s not realistic for everyone to be a star player in a company. Chances are, if everyone is a star player, you’ll be presented with an entirely different set of problems where strong individuals (and opinions) clash. As much as it is important to retain your top talent, it is equally important to keep your dependable, middle-of-the-road staff.

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Check in with them on their aspirations and what they hope to achieve in the company. If they are performing satisfactorily and content with their present roles, that’s great. Not everyone is vying for a promotion, and you don’t want to promote staff who aren’t actually looking to rise through the ranks. For those who are eyeing a progression but aren’t quite ready yet, sit them down for an open and honest chat about why a promotion isn’t on the cards and what they can do to get there. How to best manage individuals in this group truly depends on each case, but all in all, it is key that you keep them happy.

A mistake managers commonly make is to prematurely promote staff. While a promotion seems like the natural next step for a top-performing staff, it can actually hurt and hinder their career if done too early or too hastily. Rather than basing it on how well they’re performing in their current role, check to see if they’d be a right fit for the new one. After all, a new role comes with a whole new set of different responsibilities and expectations. But how do you determine if someone is up to the task?

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The key question to ask is: can the candidate adapt to these new responsibilities? First and foremost, consider his or her soft skills. This is as important a factor - if not more - as their technical skills. After all, the further you progress in your career, the more crucial soft skills become, as you’ll now need to answer to various stakeholders while also being the point of contact for both your subordinates and superiors. That is not to say soft skills should take precedence over their technical skills, or vice versa. The ideal candidate has to have the right mix of both. For instance, you don’t want to promote an incompetent salesperson with great managerial skills, nor do you want to do the same for a competent salesperson with subpar managerial capabilities.

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In my opinion, no one is 100% ready for a new role. But if they’ve demonstrated the ability to adapt to new skills or knowledge quickly, that should give you the confidence that they’ll rise to the occasion.

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The Risk of a Premature Promotion

Determining whom to promote to is all about maximising the chances of success and minimising the risk of having the wrong person in the role. Offering someone a promotion before they are ripe for the role is a common mistake managers are guilty of, and what that is not without consequence. Not only is it a massive blow to their self-esteem if they end up losing the promotion, you might also run the risk of losing a top talent who was already flourishing and making strides in his or her original position.

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It’s therefore important to pace your staff’s growth, so that they are successful every step of the way. To do this well, you’ll need to communicate openly and directly with them, and explain that while a promotion may not be on the cards right now, the company has plans to develop and groom them to be ready for it when the time is right.

Creating Interim Roles

A strategy I’ve used, and one that I’ve personally found to be effective when I’m undecided if someone is ready for a career advancement, is to put them in an interim role. In this position as an “interim manager” or an “interim leader”, you’ll be able to determine if they’ll be able to handle their new responsibilities. Make sure you manage expectations by communicating clearly to them that this is not an official promotion, but rather, a temporary role they can step in to fill. Explain that if things don’t go as planned, they’ll still have their original role to go back to; but in the event they’re doing great, it’ll be a permanent position. Needless to say, you should fairly compensate him or her for the time spent in the new position.

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You might wonder, “Won’t they end up feeling deflated anyway?”. While it might still be a big blow to some, it hasn’t, in my experience, been the case if you’ve managed expectations early on regarding the interim position. Nonetheless, this is a far better alternative to offering a promotion prematurely, only to retract it when they fall short. Being demoted after the high of receiving an official promotion will deal a bigger blow, whereas reverting to an original role after an interim stint minimises the risk of your staff getting demoralised or demotivated.

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Be Proactive About Succession Planning

But what happens if no good senior roles are available for deserving candidates? This is where you’ll need to plan ahead to ensure there are always opportunities on the pipeline. Granted, timing isn’t always something you can control, but make sure you’re having a constant conversation with your top talents regarding their growth potential within the company, lest a competitor offers them an opportunity you can’t counter. If we’re being realistic, this can happen.

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One way to fix or prevent it from happening is to ensure that your company keeps growing so that there’s always new roles and opportunities. This won’t be an issue for a company which is expanding, but it’ll be a challenge for those which are stagnant, or worse, declining. Higher-level execs remaining in their senior positions for too long also present an obstacle as the top-tier talents may feel like there’s no career progression for them in the company. In these cases, proactive succession planning and the continuous career progression is key. Some companies do a great job of managing this. They have mandatory policies to actively reward senior management with early retirement, to allow a constant renewal of leadership and for a new generation of talent to progress.

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Dollars and Sense

How concerned should you be about competition “snapping up” your best performers and should that impact your management style at all? I would qualify “top performers” as individuals you want to keep. As a manager, you need to be constantly aware of the competition and the market. If one of your staff is a star performer, the market will know - it’s something you can’t shy away from.

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There’s a few ways to keep them. Firstly, on the compensation front: make sure you’re offering a competitive remuneration and benefits package that’s deserving of a top performer. Every company should be aware of what the industry benchmark is so you don’t fall short. I’d recommend not waiting for your staff to receive a more enticing offer elsewhere before countering with a better offer - this would mean you could’ve paid them better all along. When it comes to the cream of the crop you want to keep, do as much as you can to attract and keep them, and hopefully that’s enough to let them know that they are valued in the company.

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However, I will say that I’m honestly more concerned about the staff who are willingly doing more than what they’re actually being paid for. Those are the ones that we have to recognise and work on to acknowledge and rightfully reward before it’s too late.

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Besides an attractive and competitive compensation, there are other areas you can work on to retain your top talents. A personal connection, for one, between the senior executives and the star performer is key. It’s essential that they’re coaching them, sharing insights, asking for their opinions and giving them the opportunity to expand into different projects and opportunities. Holistically, there are things that will retain your top-tier talent pool.

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That said, it’s safe to say that nothing is a guarantee. You must always be prepared to lose your top talents for a variety of reasons, whether that is an alternative offer you can’t counter or match, or if they simply wanted a career change or a sabbatical. In that case, it’s integral that you should not be too reliant on one or two star performers and make sure you always have a strong talent pipeline. That’s the more viable long-term solution that’ll ensure that the success and longevity of your company or brand is more sustainable.

1. Hire Right

Be very careful and selective in your hiring - you should be looking at more than just the experience and skills of the candidate. Consider things like their soft skills, personality types and work style. If you’re trying to build an all-star team, look at the overall balance of the team too, rather than just the individual players.

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2. Reward Good Work

To retain your top talent, make sure you’re paying them competitively and providing them with opportunities to get mentorship, and even expand into different areas of the business to develop their skills even further.

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3. Create a Structure That’s Conducive for a Strong Team Dynamic

Ensure shared goals, shared rewards - even shared blame - across teams. On an individual level, empower each employee to allow them to grow and improve in their roles.