Performance Management: Why Career Development is Key to the Performance Cycle

Most people would agree that employees are key to any business success, and a superior performance & learning management is the road towards improved employee engagement and performance. So, the question that comes to mind is: how can we combine these two statements and have happy employees driving a successful business?  

More about Performance Management  

Performance management is often seen as a static process linked to a salary increase. But this perspective is limiting, as it only provides input for compensation, instead of focusing on employee development. Even with development included in the process, there is much room to improve the quality of performance management discussions.  

Business trends are shifting increasingly to a customer-centric approach. HR can act as a business partner by ensuring that the employees are happy at work, so they in turn provide excellent service to customers. In fact, 70% of business leaders agree that employee engagement is critical to achieving business results (Gartner).   

Now, performance management and career development are linked to employee’s well-being and productivity. Some key benefits for your organisation are:   

• Increased employee engagement: Employee engagement is one of the top priorities for HR leaders today. Although there are many ways to boost employee engagement, one thing is sure: Career development opportunities are what drives employees to make them extend their time at an organisation. Moreover, these opportunities will allow your people to develop their skills in areas of interest, and to feel supported by their company.  
• Employee empowerment: To build an agile organisation and empower your employees, a joint career development plan is needed. Considering what your employees want to do and the direction they want to take is very good input for their career development planning. This empowers employees to take the lead in their own development and shares the workload with their line managers.   
• Identify development areas: A career development plan is key for employees who have not achieved their objectives. Current or past performance is ideal to identify improvement areas and build a targeted development plan that increases the employee’s performance.  

SAP SuccessFactors Performance Management can include the following aspects into the cycle:

Development goal plan – with a link to the LMS 

• Either during the past performance evaluation or the goal setting of the next year, development goals can be considered to look at improvement points for performance. 
• During the cycle, these development goals can stay accessible, maintained and updated, to also include career development discussions.

Employee profile can be to performance form, which allows questions regarding:  

• Employee motivation
• Willingness to move geographically or functionally

Continuous Performance Management  

• Having the discussion when it matters (not just once a year
• Achievements with development goals
• Turning completion of learning elements and/or activities into achievements
• Creating a valuable feedback and development culture