HBR Guides to Performance Management Collection (4 Books) (HBR Guide Series)

CHAPTER 4

Assessing Performance Isn’t a Onetime Event

Performance management is an ongoing process, not a one-and-done event. Circumstances and priorities can shift over time, and gaps can form if employees are unable to keep up—which why so many companies are implementing more-flexible performance cycles. So it’s particularly important, especially in a fast-changing work environment, that you observe the quality of your employees’ performance and respond to it in the moment. In the previous section you read about defining goals and adjusting them as needed. Now we’ll focus on keeping track of performance and responding to it regularly.

Unlike a time-bound formal review session (which we’ll discuss in section 4), assessing performance and providing ...