Overview of Performance Planning

The performance planning is a formal process in organizations for discussing, identifying and planning the organizational as well as individual goals which an employee can or would achieve in coming appraisal or review cycle. The performance and planning are done both but the employer as well as employee through a proper plan called development plan.

Performance planning is a systematic and structured approach to successfully achieve the desired goals of an individual or team throughout the assessment year. A plan is chalked out for the team or an individual(s) keeping in mind the broader objectives of the organization.

Performance planning is a crucial part of an employee’s growth in the organization. An effective performance planning system will be easy to understand, as well as to implement. It would also be accurate enough to provide the performance of an employee throughout the year.

There are four basic objectives of performance planning:

• The first one is to communicate basic responsibilities that the individual has to perform on a daily basis. It could be reporting, data management, etc.
• The second objective is to remove any vagueness in the goals and objectives that the individual has to achieve in the year or time period specified by the team leader.
• The third is to identify and build on the competencies of an individual for doing the job. This helps in making employees more productive.
• The fourth is to create an adequate career development plan for the individual which would keep him/her motivated. If an employee is well aware of his/her career as well as growth plan, he/she will be self-motivated.

The performance planning tool should be effective in monitoring as well as measuring the results. It should identify key performance levels which can easily be quantifiable. Performance metrics which are easy to identify are helpful in making comparisons.

The performance plan laid out would also be helpful in enlisting various training programs which employees can take to increase knowledge and productivity.

Normally, there is no specific format in making a performance plan, but it should have these four parameters. The first is to list the goals, the second is that it should contain various performance measures. The third one is that the performance planning should enlist various measures or action required to achieve desired goals, and the last one is that it should have a given time period for all goals.

Performance plans are decided between the supervisor and employee working together.  They together determine the performance expectations and development objectives to be accomplished during the review period. They discuss goals, objectives and expectations for the review period. The process helps to improve the communication and discuss the career development plan of the employee.

The objective and need for performance planning is required:

1. To come to agreement on the individual’s job responsibilities
2. To remove any ambiguity of the goals and objectives that needs to be achieved
3. To identify the competencies required for doing the job
4. To create an appropriate performance and career development plan for the individual