Balancing company and employee needs in order to optimise performance and organisational success is a constant challenge for any business. At the hub of this challenge is the need to establish a set of effective performance management processes.

Role Clarification
All roles should be clearly defined, documented and communicated to reflect current and, where possible, future business demands. This can take many forms e.g job descriptions, competency frameworks, key performance indicators, targets etc. Whichever style is adopted, there must be clarity about what is expected from an individual and how it is to be delivered. This must reflect and reinforce organisational strategy and values.

Performance Assessment
All employees should take part in an open review of their performance in order to assess current contribution, the reasons behind this, and to plan what is to be achieved next. Again, approaches can vary e.g. traditional top-down appraisal, 360 degree feedback and upward appraisal. However, each employee should be fully aware of their performance and capability, whichever assessment method is selected.

Personal Development Planning
There are processes to identify personal learning and development needs and solutions. These can be directly part of the performance review activity or be entirely separate from it. This should form the basis for corporate training and development plans, as well self-driven learning.

Career Development
Building on this is the need to review, assess and map out career potential and opportunities for all or some employees. This, in turn, should provide the input data for manpower and succession planning activity, matching future supply and demand projections in the context of organisation strategy. Recruitment and retention plans and priorities follow logically from this.

Whatever the need within this broader set of performance management processes, we have the capability and experience to take stock of existing practices, using appropriate diagnostic tools where necessary and to recommend simple yet practical solutions. Interventions will sometimes be very specific, whilst at other times the need will be for a wider set of integrated activities.