5 Most Important Performance Conversations

Hav­ing reg­u­lar mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tions with your employ­ees is crit­i­cal for high per­for­mance. In this chap­ter we explore how you can get your man­agers and teams to have more reg­u­lar per­for­mance. We look at the 5 types of con­ver­sa­tions that con­tribute to a cul­ture of high performance. 

Check-ins are essen­tial between man­agers and employ­ees. This is one on one time with your employ­ee to under­stand how they are doing, what their work­load is like, and pri­ori­tise any tasks. Check-ins should be mean­ing­ful and should give your employ­ee the oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss and resolve any prob­lems they are hav­ing. In this chap­ter, we explore how to have a good check-in and share our pop­u­lar one-to-one meet­ing tem­plate for managers. 

Well­be­ing plays a cru­cial role in employ­ee engage­ment. If your employ­ees are looked after, and feel good at work, they will be more engaged and per­form at their best. A key part of ensur­ing your employ­ees are feel­ing well, is hav­ing reg­u­lar con­ver­sa­tions with them about their well­be­ing. You may want to do this by nor­mal­is­ing talk­ing about well­be­ing con­ver­sa­tions in your check-ins. As you start to do that, it may be bet­ter for you to have sep­a­rate catchups that are ded­i­cat­ed sole­ly to talk­ing about wellbeing. 

It’s impor­tant to draw a dis­tinc­tion between men­tal health and well­be­ing. Con­ver­sa­tions about men­tal health may seem over­whelm­ing espe­cial­ly if you are not a men­tal health expert. How­ev­er, well­be­ing is much more holis­tic and any­one can talk about it — includ­ing man­agers. For many peo­ple, talk­ing about well­be­ing may be out of their com­fort zone, which is why in this chap­ter, we will share prompts and tips man­agers can use to have a good well­be­ing conversation. 

Career con­ver­sa­tions are real­ly valu­able for employ­ees and man­agers to under­stand how an employ­ee’s career goals can align with the orgnaiza­tion’s objec­tives. For an employ­ee, career con­ver­sa­tions should help them under­stand whether there are any pro­gres­sion oppor­tu­ni­ties for them or what skills they can learn in the orga­ni­za­tion to get to where they want to be in their career. For man­agers, it’s a way to align the goals of the employ­ee with the goals of the orga­ni­za­tion and sup­port their employ­ee in every way to get where they need to be. 

Some of the most dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tions man­agers can have with their employ­ees is realign­ment con­ver­sa­tions. Realign­ment con­ver­sa­tions are more com­mon­ly referred to as under­per­for­mance or poor per­for­mance con­ver­sa­tions. We pre­fer to call them realign­ment because rather than focus­ing on the poor per­for­mance, we believe these con­ver­sa­tions are an oppor­tu­ni­ty to realign your employ­ees so that they feel more engaged at work. Most per­for­mance issues arise when there is a lack of engage­ment and moti­va­tion. Get­ting to the root of what is caus­ing the demo­ti­va­tion and mak­ing changes to help your employ­ee, will improve pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and employ­ee per­for­mance. In this chap­ter, we look at how you can have these con­ver­sa­tions with your employ­ees in a way that’s use­ful to you both.