Why feedback, performance management & people development is a crucial success factor for companies. What are the current challenges and what solutions are already available?
What are currently your biggest challenges when it comes to people management?
Despite the current tense economic situation, it is not cutting costs, the internal processes, or even necessary reorganizations that seem to weigh most heavily on the minds of people leads. It is rather the concern of not remaining competitive due to a lack of skilled workers. The “war for talent “ - attracting and retaining talent - is cited as the greatest current challenge.
This observation is reinforced by a recent study by Hays 2022 in which 978 decision-makers from the DACH region named the shortage of skilled workers as the greatest challenge in the coming years. Another parallel of the study is the response to this challenge. The following options for action are mentioned most frequently:
Top 1: New hires (which, however, will probably be impossible due to the shortage of skilled and junior staff).
Top 2: Investing in employee retention to combat staff shortages.
Top 3: The targeted development (upskilling) of the existing workforce.
A closer look at causes and options for action is the guiding principle for this white paper.
What do you think are the most important factors in attracting and retaining talent?
It is striking that, in addition to the hard factor “salary” mentioned most frequently, there seems to be a second factor that is also mentioned at a greater distance from the remaining levers that can be influenced:
The individual development opportunities for talents.
“Softer” factors such as working atmosphere, work-life balance and work assignments that are interesting for employees follow at some distance.
The realization that development opportunities offered by the company are an important success factor in the “War for Talent “ not only corresponds to the options for action already mentioned in the Hays study, but is also supported by other current studies. In its 2022 study, Personio lists the main reasons why employees leave the company:
- Lack of professional development/advancement opportunities
- Not enough appreciation for work done
- Stressful work environment
Employers need to understand these push and pull factors to retain talent effectively. When lost productivity, hiring, and onboarding costs are factored in, it can cost up to 33% of an employee’s annual salary to replace them - meaning employee turnover can have a huge impact on a company’s bottom line (Personio, 2022).
So the question is: Are companies doing enough? And where are the potentials and levers for improvement?
Therefore, a look at two fields that should support and promote precisely the topic of “development opportunities” within the company:
“Learning & Development” & “Feedback & Performance Mgmt”.
How satisfied are you with the offerings/processes of “Learning & Development” and “Feedback & Performance Management” within your company?
While the company’s internal “Learning & Development” offerings/processes are rated as good, there is obviously a great deal of dissatisfaction with “feedback & performance management” processes. This is remarkable in view of the results just presented and the highlighted importance of “development opportunities for talents”. After all, regular feedback and objective performance appraisals should be the basis for individual development. We asked. Why is that?
Almost no automation and very little continutity.
What are the main reasons for dissatisfaction regarding feedback & performance management?
Ok. We get it. Time for a change.
Please name solutions to improve Feedback & Performance Mgmt and assess the degree of implementation and expected benefits.
We’ve collected and clustered all answers.
In total there were 15 actions that companies are taking to improve their Feedback & Performance Mgmt processes.
We’ve devided them into four different categories: Improvement of Feedback quality, Process, Performance Mgmt and People development.
Each action is displayed on the matrix with the axis “benefit” (from low to high) & “implementation status” (from planned to sucessfully implemented) based on their average score.
The respondents attributed the greatest expected benefit to the following solution approaches:
- Moving away from the classic “final grade” in evaluations to a clear classification of performance vs expected performance according to seniority/role
- Reduction of quality differences in feedback discussions with employees within departments and teams through standardising standards/guidelines
- Better matching of actual development needs of individual employees and appropriate trainings instead of “one size fits all” solutions per role/seniority
- Automation of the process by introducing a tool and moving away from time consuming Excel solutions. However, the implementation level is currently between the planning phase and the first implementation steps.
If you would like to learn more about up.lftd as a tool and the innovative solution approach, please feel free to arrange a Demo! with us.