Sign up for HR training seminars? I already have a lot of knowledge. Do I really need training? I think the answer is yes, especially for performance management training. After this video you'll be able to understand why manager training is critical to managing employee performance. And list the types of HR Performance Management training that are most critical for managers. Why is training critical to performance management? Good question, one it helps in the event of legal challenges. We talked about this a little in the past, but I want to underscore it again. When an employee is wrongfully discharged and maybe files a suit in that area, they're going to look at your performance management practices. If the employees have been well-trained, by managers they're well-trained, it goes a long way in saying, we're doing our best job to try to effectively manage employees. So it gives you a little extra legal protection there. It also demonstrates an investment people. If I'm a manager and the employees see the investment we have by training our managers to be as effective as they can. Not just in performance management, certainly, but everything. But for performance management it shows that we care. And also gives an organizational commitment to good performance management. This is so important. We want to make sure we have the best trained managers so they can effectively manage performance. Strong commitment. Increases managers self confidence. This is a crucial one. Years ago when I first got into HR and I went through some training and a manager, we had a great almost a one week program to really effectively train people in performance management. And I can today remember some of the videos we saw and how they gave us video models on how to handle effective training. So if you're doing good training the confidence helps because you get to have some practice in the training. So whatever training you implement, I would strongly recommend having some practices with people. It's sort of like a baseball player going to spring training. And so when I play the real game, I feel comfortable I can do this. Because it is difficult. It also ensures managers have current tools to effectively manage people. We want to make sure that either be feedback skills, current up to date performance manage and topics, we want to know that people have can have that. So it's critical that you have some sort of training component for your managers. If you're a small organization, you can certainly go outside many, many places offer training for managers if you're a small organization. So what are some of the topics you might expect, or you should have if you're implementing this in your own organizations? What is the big picture? Understand the performance management process. Why are we doing this? What's the importance? Getting to some things we've talked about, connecting the performance management with the strategic objectives of the team and the organization. Let them know why performance management matters so much. That it has a bottom line effect on the organization. That will get their commitment as managers. Effective documentation. I've talked about this before and I'll probably talk about it again in these lessons. You gotta document performance and do it well. This is important for legal issues, but also so that when you have those discussions with employees you can look at effective things and less effective things. So that when you're having the performance management discussions of feedback discussions you have data to support what you're talking about. If you don't, I've had these situations employees will come in and say, well that didn't happen, and if I don't have the documentation or the dates and the times it's hard to defend. So documentation is one of your best friends. Also for giving feedback, when you give feedback I want to have the documentation dates, times, everything. I once had an employee with a pretty significant attendance problems, often on late 10 minutes, 20 minutes here and there. When I had the discussion with her, I had all those dates down and documented. She didn't argue too much because she knew that I actually had documented it. If I hadn't have, I might have got the conversation well tell me when I was. And I would have said well I don't know, but a lot. Not a lot of credibility. Get your facts. They're again going to be an excellent tool for you. How to minimize rater bias. This is crucial, too. We all have biases, and it's very difficult. We'll talk about that more in other lessons. But I may have what we're going to call the halo effect. I sort of like someone for a certain characteristic, so it influences how I rate them. Training will help us look at the different types of biases and how to overcome those. Again we'll talk about that in later lessons in more detail. Conduction reviews, one of the things that all managers need to do well is have a good performance review. We've talked about it's not just about reviews, but when you do have the review make it count, make it worthwhile. Know the steps of reviews, how to handle difficult discussions. All those skills can be done in a good training program. Handling difficult performance discussions. This could have during the review but also hey have throughout the year, where someone's having a major issue. I once had an employee, the form was just dropped off and we had to have this difficult discussion. Having good trainings will give me the tools and listening emphatically and being able to really walk through that discussion and come through with some solutions. because the difficult performance discussions at the end of the day, what we're looking for we're trying to solve a performance problem, and we want to do it jointly with the employee. So good training will give me the skills. If I don't have the training, again, less effective. Performance improvement plans, this is one that a lot of people don't do a lot of. I personally recommend it. What a performance improvement plan Training should cover is when you have an employee throughout the year that maybe is struggling, not doing well. Don't wait til the end of the year to have a discussion. Put together a very simple plan of what you need him to do and how to do it. This is what you put in the performance improvement plan. So consider using these in your own programs. And then finally, individual development plans. We'll talk more about this in a different session, but these are really crucial to longer term development. As I mentioned, performance improvement plans are as if I'm not doing something well right now and I want to fix it, make sure you get the documentation to work with me on that. The development plans will come as part of your view process or have me, develop me for a longer term growth and opportunity. So by using good training in your organizations or it may be smaller going outside. Get your managers a good training. It will be a help to make, they'll be more effective performance managers and it will help your employees and organizations be more effective as well.
