Over the past several years performance management (PM ) has been one of the most debated HR business-related practices across many organizations. During this time, organizations began to increasingly modify and revamp their PM practices due to growing discontent with traditional PM practices being time-consuming, demotivating, overly administrative, rigid, low value, and out of touch with the needs of a rapidly changing workplace and workforce. Organizations that have implemented changes to their PM, such as dropping ratings, implementing continuous feedback, and separating performance evaluation and compensation discussions–to name a few–have reported improvements in engagement, quality of conversations between employees and managers, and process simplification. Despite these positive reports, Mercer’s 2019 Global Performance Management Survey found that only two percent of HR executives believe that their PM approach delivers exceptional value– unchanged from 5 years ago. Given these results, there is more work to do for PM to realize its full potential as an enabler of business performance. And this is why I was especially looking forward to reading this new book that explores PM practices with 9 case studies from organizations such as Toyota, Patagonia, Medtronic, GoGo Inflight, and AbbVie, alongside research and commentary by thought leaders in the field. It is the most current and comprehensive collection of ideas that I have come across on PM, so those who have responsibility for PM in their organizations or are talent management and HR professionals, or simply have interest in this topic–will find value in this book and will walk away with some actionable practices for leveraging PM as a driver of business performance. The book is available in hardcover and Kindle.
