At its core, performance management is all about giving our
people the information, resources and guidance they need to achieve specific
goals. Sounds simple enough. Of course, the devil is in the details.
One reason performance management is so challenging—the
business world isn’t static. Our organizations evolve. Our business goals and
targets shift. Our customers’ needs change. Some of these changes occur swiftly
while others take time. But there’s no stopping them.
It’s a good thing, then, that significant changes are
occurring to the tools, technologies and techniques at our disposal for managing
performance and developing our employees. In fact, here are four trends that
are on their way to becoming standard operating procedure for improved
performance management and corporate learning:
1.
Bring
your own device (BYOD) policies—Many companies are adopting these policies
for a variety of reasons including their cost-effectiveness, their appeal to younger
workers, and the 24/7 connectivity mobile devices provide to workers who travel
frequently and work remotely. In addition, a growing cadre of talent management
and learning/development providers are now delivering mobile solutions as part
of their offerings, which enable companies to share powerful tools and
resources with their people in exciting new ways. (See Gartner’s interesting
research on BYOD
here.)
2.
Bite-size
learning—This refers to the practice of breaking topics and lessons into
smaller, more “digestible” pieces. The rationale: to enhance retention of
information and to allow busy employees to consume a topic in a few minutes. It
also makes learning incredibly more effective in the age of the mobile, fluid,
and multi-generational workforces.
3.
Location-based
learning—This is the kind of learning you see taking place in museums and tourist
sites. The learner is presented information on the spot via sound, images or
text—or a mix of these three. Sound is delivered through headphones or speakers
while images and text are delivered to a variety of devices including
smartphones, laptops, tablets or screen projectors. Smartphones, in particular,
have dramatically increased the popularity of location-based learning.
4.
Cloud
computing—The “cloud” offers a convenient and inexpensive way to access an
increasing selection of tools designed to help organizations track and improve
employee performance, learning and development. Cloud-based solutions eliminate
the need to update software manually, and they facilitate the easy sharing of information,
resources and tools (especially those related to learning programs and
knowledge sharing). Plus, cloud-based solutions are particularly attractive to enterprise
organizations and companies with large, dispersed workforces.
Without question, those of us who want to improve all
aspects of performance management—from assessments to learning and development
programs to compensation management—need to take better advantage of these
concepts and technologies.
For most of us, this means arming our companies with systems
and solutions that enable us to do several key things well:
·
Empower our learning leaders to easily create
development goals and recommend specific learning activities based specifically
on an employee’s performance appraisal ratings.
·
Give employees easy access a full external
learning curriculum that supplements our internal training and development
content.
·
Provide our people with online access to a comprehensive
learning management system.
·
Provide our managers with real-time access to
reporting analytics and transcripts of learning activities.
The more we embed these strategies into our business
cultures, the better we’ll become at building workforces that deliver real
competitive advantages.
Interested in reading
further about the convergence of talent management and transformational
technologies? Download our white paper, “Performance Assessments in an
Increasingly Mobile World,” which is available here.
Its legacy process—labor-intensive and spreadsheet-driven—was no longer keeping pace with the needs of its busy staff and employees. The paperwork alone was causing delays and frustration for everyone involved, said Vicki Stewart, the College’s Director of Human Resources. The time for change had come. 
