Welcome
Welcome to November’s issue of Peopletalk. The plans for the Business Essentials Conference are well and truly taking shape, Kate Hickey our new HR Officer has hit the floor running and we turn our thoughts to Performance Management of our staff to ensure greater engagement and company success.
Kate Hickey
DOHR is delighted to announce the appointment of Kate Hickey as HR Officer. Kate joins with a Blue Chip background and brings a wealth of practical hands on HR experience. Working part time, Kate will be available to support clients with day to day HR issues, will be taking responsibility for childcare vouchers and creating bespoke HR contracts, policies and procedures tailored to our clients needs. Kate can be contacted on 01923 504101 or at [email protected]
Business Essentials Conference
The Business Essentials Conference takes place on Wednesday 23rdNovember at the Holiday Inn, Elstree. The conference has been designed for companies who employ. Owners and managers who have a desire to ‘get it right’, but don’t necessarily know what right is; who hear about legislation, but don’t understand the impact on their business or how to implement the requirements.
As with many things in life, we don’t know what we don’t know and the Business Essentials Conference is targeting employers who know they have to do something, but need some assistance in a business focussed, practical way.
This one day conference will provide a mixture of open networking, structured workshops and seminar type sessions. There will also be a panel discussion where delegates are able to ask questions about their own business needs and get answers there and then.
Performance Management
When I discuss performance management with many of our clients, they initially assume I am referring to poor performance. This is in part true, but managing poor performance is only one aspect of a much bigger picture. All managers want their employees to do their jobs to the absolute best of their ability, to hit their targets, achieve their objectives and guarantee company success. But what happens if the objectives are not clear, employees aren’t told when they have done something wrong or are yelled at for not hitting their targets?
Performance management is about ensuring high levels of performance sustained over long periods of time. It’s about motivating employees, getting their input to their role and helping them achieve in-line with or above company expectations. So how do you achieve this dream state?
First of all the company and managers need to know and understand the corporate vision and goals. This needs to be communicated to employees effectively, regularly and consistently. Progress with these goals should be consistently measured and communicated to all company stakeholders.
Annual appraisals are a great performance management opportunity and should form part of your approach, a once a year meeting alone is worthless for achieving great performance. Regular discussions focussed on goals and performance rather than operational issues are essential and should take place at least quarterly, if not monthly. These are not weekly discussions – progress can not be effectively measured on such a short term basis. In sales roles this is different and weekly sales meetings are operational as opposed to developmental.
Companies should have a clear performance management policy and process which is communicated and actually followed. This will lead to a high performing company. For more information or for support in implementing your performance management policy, email [email protected]
360° feedback
DOHR is delighted to offer clients an online tool for gathering feedback on employees and managers. 360° feedback allows an employee to receive feedback from managers, colleagues and sub ordinates. Each employee will have a written report identifying their strengths and weaknesses and their areas for improvement. For more information about how we can help you improve your company performance through open and honest feedback, contact us on 01923 504100.
