Optimal employee performance is essential to the success of any organization, especially in today’s highly competitive and increasingly complex work environment. The challenge for many companies, however, is in developing programs that incorporate not only employee evaluations, but also a system of goals and training strategies that help to ensure each worker has the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills they need to excel in their specific job role.
What is Performance Management?
Performance management refers to systems and processes that support communication and feedback of continuous feedback between managers and their staff to help ensure the attainment of set objectives. And while there are many different approaches and a variety of available tools to support these initiatives, effective performance management programs always seek to improve the overall performance of the organization while supporting the productivity and well-being of each employee.
In a comprehensive performance management program, employee assessments and appraisals are a single piece of the system as the goal of building a skilled and capable workforce is a more complex challenge represent a far more complex challenge. When properly executed, judgment of performance is not the sole focus as ongoing support and development of resources are equally important.
Four Objectives of Employee Performance Management
Effective performance management programs enable the continuous identification, development, and measurement of employee performance to the benefit of both the employee and the organization. And while the goals and strategies of performance management programs can be diverse in both goals and strategies, most include four common elements.
Goal Setting
Goal setting is an essential part of performance management and typically represents the first step in the process as there needs to be agreement between the employee and the manager regarding program outcomes.
Performance Standards
Underlying goal setting is the idea of performance standards which refers to employee conduct and engagement in their job duties and program participation. It also refers to the company’s role in supporting the employee and providing the resources they need to be successful.
Effective Communication
Performance management needs to be supported with ongoing communication. Conversations regarding employee progress toward the agreed-upon goals should occur at regular intervals and using a defined structure.
Identifying and Fulfilling Training Needs
It is rare that an employee is hired already possessing the complete set of skills and knowledge required to succeed at their job. Given this, effective and ongoing training is essential for employee success and a critical element of a performance management program.
eLearning and Learning Management Systems for Employee Performance Programs
For most companies today, online learning, or “eLearning” serves as the foundation for employee training programs. Unlike in-person, classroom-based training, eLearning provides a convenient, flexible, and cost-effective method for ensuring employees have access to the learning and training content they need, when and where they need it.
The core technology that supports all types of eLearning programs, including employee training and performance management, is a Learning Management System, ort “LMS”.
An LMS is the application that is used to build, deliver, manage, and track eLearning-based employee training programs. Today, many organizations choose to access LMS technology through a third-party vendor that is able to deliver the features and capacity they need through cloud-based delivery. This approach eliminates the need for a large, up-front capital investment in hardware, software, and other supporting infrastructure while shifting the responsibility for the ongoing management and maintenance of the system to the cloud vendor.
LMS Portals: Employee Performance Software for Training
LMS Portals provides our clients and partners with a cloud-based, multi-tenant learning management system that enables them to launch and manage multiple branded eLearning environments (portals) on-demand. And each portal you launch includes its own rapid course development engine along with supporting tools for employee onboarding, learning collaboration, tracking, analytics, and more.
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