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    • Action plan

    Improve the way you performance manage staff

    High effort

    High impact

    At the heart of it, performance management involves a business and its employee getting the most out of the relationship. For the business, the process involves ensuring it is able to best leverage the skills and experience an individual has while, or an employee, it helps drive learning and development key to their current job role and future career. Taking the time to ensure the way your business performance manages staff will help both sides and drive important improvements and change.

    • We’ve designed our action plans to be completed in the order of steps laid out and explained why each step is important
    • Customising your action plan lets you set your own completion dates, assign tasks to others and get notifications
    • Helpful tools are provided for certain steps while a tracking metric at the end will help you determine the long-term success of your effort
    • A downloadable PDF version of each action plan is available if you’d like to compete it offline
    What's involved? Ways to use this action plan Measuring impact
    1

    Define, or revisit to update, the strategic goals your business has for the next one, three and five years

    Impact: high

    Why will this help?

    Implementing a business strategy is vital for the continued growth and success of a business. Taking the time to revisit what you've previously outlined, or start the process for the first time, will ensure it remains something that drives how your business looks and behaves.

    Bringing about successful change in your business

    Strategy helps leaders turn plans into action, but success rests on the implementation.
    2

    Set up one-to-one conversations with each of your employees to find out what they see as their strengths and weaknesses

    Impact: high

    Why will this help?

    Talking openly and honestly with your employees about their strengths and weaknesses will help you plan for a stronger future. It will also prevent you making assumptions about what individual motivations and issues are.

    Talking effectively about strengths and weaknesses
    3

    Now speak with line managers to see how those skills and weaknesses map to their thinking about the people they manage

    Impact: medium

    Why will this help?

    It's important to make sure you get input from both sides of the employee and manager relationship to ensure you are getting balanced feedback and are aware of how dynamics differ across different teams in your organisation. It will also help get buy in from those who will have closer day-to-day ownership of performance management.

    4

    Take these findings and use them with line managers to create a set of objectives using the SMART method that are owned by everyone and recognise where each member of staff can have the greatest impact

    Impact: high

    Why will this help?

    Learning how to set strategic goals will help you plan for an efficient, effective future. SMART goals, tailored to each individual employee, will give them the opportunity to have the maximum impact based on their experience and skillset as well as feeling closer to what the business is striving to do long term.

    How to set strategic planning goals

    Strategic planning goals guide the direction of your business, from deciding which tasks to prioritise to how resources are allocated.
    5

    See how other businesses have managed to make similar performance management strategies stay relevant and impactful

    Impact: low

    Why will this help?

    Learning from the experiences and lessons of fellow business leaders is the best way to direct your own improvement efforts.

    What can I do with this Action Plan?

    Start this Action Plan

    Add some extra information to this plan and we’ll help you get it done.

    • We’ve designed our action plans to be completed in the order of steps laid out and explained why each step is important
    • Customising your action plan lets you set your own completion dates, assign tasks to others and get notifications
    • Helpful tools are provided for certain steps while a tracking metric at the end will help you determine the long-term success of your effort
    • A downloadable PDF version of each action plan is available if you’d like to compete it offline

    Download and print

    Get a printable template for this Action Plan, fill it in with some target dates, and share it with your team. Pin it on the wall where everyone can see it.

    Get the printable Action Plan

    Learning Groups

    We also run Learning Groups on these topics where you can join other leaders tackling the same challenges.

    Find a Learning Group

    How will I know if my action plan is working?

    Staff satisfaction survey results

    Staff satisfaction surveys help gauge sentiment at regular intervals

    Why this metric?

    Whether gathered anonymously or not, staff satisfaction surveys help gauge the sentiment of your people as changes are made and impacts felt.

    How do I start tracking?

    Use an online survey to get feedback from members of staff three and six months after making changes to see what impact it has had.