How A Performance Management Dashboard Can Unlock Engagement

Performance dashboards are nothing new in the business world. We’ve been using them for years to foster data transparency and have easier access to data to promote accountability and facilitate better organizational decision-making. They give us a snapshot of performance to align actions with strategy and influence better decision-making. So it only makes sense that we should be incorporating them into another aspect of performance management to better understand how people are doing their jobs. 

 

Employee Engagement: The Definitive Guide

Everything you need to know about Employee Engagement

Performance management can be defined as the system in which employee productivity is maximized through management, environment, and culture. Understanding how these three aspects impact an individual’s work performance helps you see the full picture when looking at an organization’s employee engagement, and strategize on ways to facilitate continuous improvement. 

We see the powerful connection between performance and engagement every day when we onboard a new employee or let go of an old one, or finalize for a promotion while setting up a PIP. There is a powerful connection between these two data sets, one that proves that highly engaged teams are more productive and higher performing, with lower attrition rates. This all comes back around to affect company culture. 

Taking advantage of employee engagement tools, like a good performance management dashboard, should help you visualize where your team is on check-ins and performance conversations, goals, or OKRS while providing an overview of action items. 

Let’s look at how a centralized performance management dashboard combining OKR data with information from check-ins and 1-on-1s can help you understand and improve employee engagement. 

Setting OKRs and Managing Expectations 

Clear expectations are a basic employee need that is vital to strong performance. Employees need to know exactly what is expected of them at work, but this goes beyond a basic job description. That’s where OKRs and goal-setting come in. 

OKRs help employees tie their day-to-day actions to the bigger picture of the company. Cascading top-down OKRs from your leadership team helps align the actions of the company, while bottom-up OKRs promote innovation and recognize employee autonomy. They clearly delineate what the expected objective is, and what steps are needed to achieve it. 

Since OKRs by nature are aspirational, they act as employee engagement tools by encouraging employees to stretch beyond their current capabilities to achieve success. OKRs are also used to measure what matters, so they set clear expectations of what they need to achieve in their role to be considered successful. 

OKRs are also relevant in the area of employee development. Setting development goals using the OKR framework helps employees think about career growth and the steps needed to move forward. 

Deeper Performance Conversations with Check-Ins and 1-on-1s 

Measuring team sentiment on a regular basis is a powerful data piece to unpack performance and engagement. Analyzing and understanding your team’s mood can give you insight into whether they’re just having an off week or if something deeper is going on. 

Check-ins are a direct result of the shift from traditional performance management to continuous performance management, and they’ve had a direct impact on employee engagement.  Employees are three times as likely to be engaged at their job if they have a manager who meets with them regularly. 

The majority of employees receive meaningful feedback once a year or even less. Without these reliable and meaningful conversations, managers miss out on opportunities to talk about updated responsibilities and progress. These conversations are too important to have once a year. 

According to Gallup, engaged employees are more likely than their colleagues to say that their manager helps them set work priorities and performance goals. Additionally, this same group also claims that their managers hold them accountable for their performance. 

Performance conversations are also a wealth of data. They indicate if goals are being completed if you have team members who are excelling in their work or struggling and need a boost if you need to adjust your team’s strategy due to changes on the ground, and more. If we’re not tracking these conversations, we’re losing out on critical information that can tell us about employee engagement and satisfaction. 

How Can A Performance Management Dashboard Help? 

Research shows that engaged employees perform 20% better than non-engaged employees. We also know that disengaged employees cost their employers up to 34% of their salary in lost productivity. Knowing that - wouldn’t you want to get ahead of the problem, if you could? 

That’s exactly what employee engagement tools such as dashboards do. Dashboards provide us with one source of truth that allows us to address problems in a fast and agile way. Dashboards can also serve as an important reminder to managers to follow up with one on ones or specific items that their team members might need more guidance and support on. 

In today’s workforce, employees expect more from their managers. They’re not just there to delegate tasks and give a performance review once a year. A manager plays a large part in performance and engagement, and an incompetent manager can have severe negative effects on both. According to Gallup, employees whose managers excel in performance management activities are more engaged than those whose managers struggle with the same tasks. 

Organizations today are focusing on data like never before. They use performance data to tell a story and dig deeper into engagement to advance the culture of the company. There’s a huge ROI on engagement and culture - this Culture Amp analysis directly links engagement and financial company value. 

 

Employee Engagement: The Definitive Guide

Everything you need to know about Employee Engagement

A performance management dashboard can act as an agent of organizational change and help focus organizations on the key things it needs to do to succeed. Communicate and refine strategy, increase motivation, and empower your team with a dashboard that highlights the most important performance management data to make better decisions about employee engagement. 

If you’re looking to increase engagement with an easy-to-use performance management structure, Hirebook is the right employee engagement tool for you. Sign up for free today to unlock your team’s potential.