Avoiding Performance Review Mistakes with Talent Management

August 8, 2019

Performance reviews can turn out to be a stressful event for both employees and managers.

They range from conversations to meaningless feedbacks to dreadful HR nightmares. A bad performance review system does not only hurt employee performance but might have serious consequences for employee morale and turnover too.

Today, employees have several options. If they are unable to receive enough feedback and the correct development, they will leave the organization. Although companies take performance management very seriously, they can make errors.

This is the reason why so many businesses are now depending on talent management systems to manage the majority of employee performance reviews

Eliminating performance review mistakes 

A talent management system streamlines back-to-back employee development from hiring to exit interviews. It involves learning management, succession planning abilities, and applicant tracking. But the most popular feature is performance management that helps organizations to provide continuous and transparent feedback.

Some organizations leverage talent management software only for top performing employees, whereas others use it for every employee working at the organization. It has the ability to revolutionize the way businesses manage performance management and boost productivity. Placing a great review process is not an easy task.

Here are three common performance review mistakes and the ways talent management systems can eliminate them.

1. Lack of training

Employees get disappointed when they are expected to perform at a particular level but are not provided with the right tool to reach it. Reviews, where employees are said that they are not performing well or not making any progress, may indicate that the organization is lacking proper training.

Improvement needs to be supported with good guidance and the capability of learning proper and new skills. Many millennials in the workplace say professional development opportunities are crucial to their career. Managers can leverage this solution to spot employee skill gaps and advise specific training. Often the platform involves learning management software that organizations may use to deliver adequate training.

Goal setting may also include actionable steps and managers need to coach staff to get there. It is observed that organizations that provide higher levels of training and development planning to employees have lower turnover rates and generate twice the revenue per employee. A talent management solution empowers leaders with automated training tools, provides links to on-demand training information, and workflows to monitor training activities.

Some of them provide training recommendations based on the feedback from engagement surveys. Others can recognize which lead will be the best coach for them and track the training process based on work experience and self-assessments.

2. Inadequate feedback

Several organizations conduct employee performance reviews annually. But this outdated process can lead to a lot of problems. When managers give their feedback, they will focus only on what happened in the past few months and not throughout the entire year. This kind of feedback can feel like a lack of opportunity and recognition to enhance staff. They need to know how they are performing. Today, employees want to get more feedback than they are currently receiving.

Performance management software allows your organization to offer constant feedback, which signifies meaningful discussions between employees and managers about their performance. 

See the Highest-Rated Performance Management Software →

Continuous feedback signifies check-in conversations are to the point, shorter, and not stressful for the people involved. Managers may complain that their open-door policy is enough and monitoring several conversations is quite challenging. It is true that constant feedback can be perplexing especially when you are using chat apps, emails, and in-person conversations.

A talent management system consists of collaboration and communication tools for managers to categorize and give real-time feedback to employees. The solution will remind managers when reviews are due and keep notes and action points from previous discussions. Also, it offers HR visibility into who is receiving feedback from whom and how their conversation went.

3. Setting the wrong objectives

During the review, managers say how employees are performing against established goals or objectives. But what if these goals or objectives are irrelevant, static, and overly broad? Employees will start feeling that they are being measured against wrong benchmarks.

For organizations to have efficient performance reviews staff need to set the right objectives and that must be:

  • Aligned with company mission
  • Connected to their skills and competencies
  • Adaptable based on the changes in business demands and performance

With the help of talent management software, employees can record their skills, competencies, and work with leaders to set objectives that are related to a specific backdrop. The solution also aids to arrange objectives into very easy to manage steps, so employees can have a clear path to success.

The steps may include learning and adopting new skills and essential tasks for coordinating with someone outside of the team. When employees complete these steps, they can check their progress on benchmarks and receive credit and guidance for their achievements.

The solution can also be used by employees and managers to compare goals to the organization’s objectives. When your employees are performing well or under-performing or when your business needs have changed, managers can work with their staff to update their objectives at any point in time. The opportunity to spin goals will help employees to succeed and can also make the business competitive.

Takeaways of talent management systems

Performance reviews can be a challenging task and are prone to mistakes if you are managing it on your own. This is the reason leading organizations are leveraging technology to get help. 

Talent management systems help you to receive continuous feedback, set appropriate goals for your employees, deliver training between reviews, and more. 

Want to make sure all your ducks are in a row? Download our free performance review template to help ensure you're keeping your employees' goals in check! 

FREE: Performance Review Template Download Now →

Avoiding Performance Review Mistakes with Talent Management Are you continually noticing performance review mistakes? Want to ensure they never happen again? Read on for tips on how to prevent them from happening with talent management systems! https://learn.g2.com/hubfs/iStock-963458490.jpg
Charles Harden Charles Harden is a freelance content writer at SutiHR who frequently writes articles on Cloud Computing/SaaS, HR, Business, and ERP trends. https://learn.g2.com/hubfs/charles-harden.png

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