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One of the five key processes of performance management is developing performance (the others are planning, monitoring, rating, and rewarding performance). As with all processes of performance management, developing or increasing the capacity to perform should be solidly integrated and strategically aligned with organizational goals.
This article highlights approaches to developing performance—developing employee performance (using formal and informal means), as well as purposefully developing the processes, systems, and structures within which employees perform.
Why should organizations develop performance?
When approached in concert with the other processes of performance man-agement, developing increases the capacity of employees to perform—through improved skills and competencies as well as more efficient work processes. It also addresses poor performance and seeks to improve good performance.
How can organizations develop employee performance?
Developing employees is more than just training employees. Training has come to refer to instructors teaching individuals in a classroom setting. Recently, with the introduction of computers and distance learning technologies to the workplace, the term has taken on a broader meaning to include on-the-job training and technology-based training. In contrast, developing employees has a much larger scope and covers all an agency's efforts to foster learning, which happens on the job every day. When agencies focus on developing their employees' capacity to perform rather than just training them, employees will be able to adapt to a variety of situations, which is vital for the survival, well-being, and goal achievement of individuals as well as organizations.
Employee development can be done formally and informally. Formal development includes:
While managers have a large influence over formal training, they have even greater impact on creating a climate for informal employee development, which can take a wide variety of forms:
Although these informal developmental strategies cost very little, they have potentially big payoffs in terms of improved individual and organizational performance.
How can organizations develop work processes?
To maximize employee performance, work processes also should be developed and improved. Techniques for improving work processes include:
How does the Administration support performance development?
The process of developing employee performance and improving work systems and processes has been of particular interest and importance to the Administration and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM):
Where can I get more information about developing performance?
The Human Resources Development Council has issued the handbook, Getting Results Through Learning. Vice President Al Gore starts it off with a message to Federal managers that encourages them to use its techniques to help introduce a climate for learning in every Government organization. This handbook can be read and retrieved from OPM's web site at www.opm.gov/hrd/lead/index.htm. Other resources about employee development are available on OPM's web site at www.opm.gov/hrd. The National Partnership for Reinventing Government has a variety of work process improvement tools available at its web site at http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/.
Originally published on December 1998.