4 Reasons Learning and Development Should Embrace a Performance Management Model

Performance management is an important topic to discuss. As we talk about talent development, learning and development and performance management, we need to determine how they all tie together.

Let’s look at the differences.

• Performance Management is an ongoing process of providing communication, feedback, and accountability from the executive level down to the employees, in support of the strategic goals and objectives of the organization.
• According to Tony Bingham, President, and CEO, of ATD (Association for Talent Development), Talent Development) talent development is “building the knowledge, skills, and abilities of others and helping them develop and achieve their potential so that the organizations they work for can succeed and grow.”
• Learning and Development can be described as the transfer of skills and knowledge in order to help the employee and organization.
• Performance Management can be described as the ongoing process between employee and manager. This process includes setting goals or outcomes, feedback, a plan for continued success or a plan to improve certain areas, and recognition for meeting the outcomes. This process doesn’t happen once per year but occurs on an ongoing basis.

More and more people and organizations are moving from the term learning and development to the more applicable term of talent development, which includes many more skills and competencies. This is one of the reasons incorporating a performance management program is so important. It covers a broader scope of what L&D can and should do.

This leads to the question, how do talent development and performance management work together in order to grow the employee and the organization?

 

Many people think of Performance Management as the dreaded annual review process. It is much more than that. While it should begin with L&D or TD understanding and adopting the organization’s KPIs as a baseline of where the employee performance should be. Performance Management should be ongoing, a cycle, and should include a coaching component as part of the feedback step, as well as just in time development opportunities as part of the development opportunity step. Of course, this model starts with the KPIs that the organization has adopted. That is where performance management can and should overlap with talent development.

When you look at the ATD Competency model, which does provide the standard for Talend Development, you will see that there are many crossover areas such as Performance Improvement, Integrated Talent Management, Coaching, Knowledge Management and Change Management. Of course, depending on the interventions and outcomes of the goals, instructional design, delivery, technologies, and impact will be needed. In other words, most if not all of the competencies will be needed.

What does this all mean? There are four major outcomes in this model for talent management.

1.  An opportunity for talent management to be involved at the highest level of the organization during the annual strategic planning sessions
2. To be able to set Talent Development KPIs directly from the KPIs/Goals of the organization and departments
3. To be able to have measurable, meaningful (data) based on the same measures the organization and departments are using
4. To be able to plan the TD programs based on the organizational KPIs/Goals

There are many other benefits to this program as well but these four will be sure to elevate TD in your organization.

Are you having success with this model? Are you using a different model that achieves the same results? Let me know, I’d love to hear about it.

If you would like to learn more about this model, let us know and we would be glad to speak with you.