Performance Management and Talent Planning Demystified for the New Manager

One of the most challenging annual duties of a manager in a corporate setting is preparing for performance management and talent planning. Rarely are new managers given proper instruction to the processes adopted within the corporation, so managers must rely on their instincts on reviewing performance - often those first instincts prove to be wrong. Many new leaders are simply invited into the process with the expectation that they can quickly adopt the process and perform adequate evaluations of staff in short timeframes. We will discuss techniques to get ahead of the process so that you can be more prepared walking into talent evaluations.

As a first task, familiarize yourself with any corporate guidance to talent planning overall. For example, many companies have a process to select a 'bottom 10%' for the purposes of salary planning and workforce reductions. Those same companies typically also have a process to select top performers, which likely will receive the best raises and bonus opportunity. In any event, understanding the stictness to which your group adheres to corporate guidelines is critical to how you will evaluate your talent. This will allow you to develop a gameplan when reviewing your staff overall and give you specific segment sizes to map employees into. For example, if you manage a group of 20 people and your company has a strict 20/70/10 (top/solid/bottom performer) rating system, you can expect that you will need to map you employees such that you will identify 4 top performers, and 2 bottom performers.