Are You a Micromanager or Performance Manager?
Are you being Micromanaged or Performance Managed?

Micromanagement Meaning – a micromanager is defined as a boss or manager who supervises employees excessively. Rather than directing an employee and letting them get on with their job, a micromanager will closely watch an employee and provide frequent feedback (usually criticism) of the employee’s work performance.

A performance manager aims to align company goals with employees and teams to increase employee effectiveness, productivity and company profitability. Performance management focuses on the activities and outcomes by which employees and teams can clearly and effectively achieve the stated goals of their company, then evaluates their performance against those goals during a performance review.

It’s no surprise to know that people don’t like to be micromanaged. In fact micromanagement can lead to a decrease in employee and team productivity, whereas an effective Performance Manager increases employee performance while also contributing to a positive workplace culture.

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Effective Employee Management is closely linked to achieving company goals. Most organisations have monthly, quarterly and annual goals to increase company or division turnover and profitability.

Talent Management can be very effective in achieving division and company goals when 5 key steps are focussed on by both the performance manager and employee.

These are:

1. Assessment of company goals
2. Individual employee objectives
3. Personal plan
4. Actions required
5. Review

Let’s break these 5 steps down:

Careful assessment of division and/or company goals and objectives is the key here. When senior management decide on the company goals for the following year, an effective performance manager will look at those goals and ask themself:

• What does my division or company need to do to achieve its goals
• What does each team and individual employee under my supervision need to do to achieve these goals?

By considering what each team and individual employee under their supervision needs to do to achieve the goals set down by senior management, a performance manager can form an outline on what their individual team members need to do to best achieve company goals.

The performance manager then creates each team’s and individual employee’s objectives. These are the objectives each team and individual employee need to reach in order to achieve the goals set down by senior management.

This is done in conjunction with the team and each individual to ensure buy-in by each employee. This is important because when employees are on-board, the performance manager has an easier job of each employee reaches their stated objectives.

The personal employee plan and team plans are the road maps for how the team and each individual employee will achieve their stated objectives.

The performance manager and each individual employee decide the actions required to achieve the company goals. This is a detailed action plan so both the performance manager and employee understand what the employee and their team need to do on a daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly basis.

The actions need to be as quantifiable as possible so the performance manager can see how the employee and their team are performing at any given time. This is not to micromanage each employee. When done in conjunction with the employee and their team, this ensures the employee and team are working to plan and on target to achieve their objectives.

If after a time it becomes obvious the plan needs to be changed or modified (which is often the case), the performance manager is able to identify that an adjustment needs to be made to the plan, then work with the employee and their team to make the necessary adjustments to achieve the objectives.

A job and performance appraisal is easy for the performance manager to undertake with the employee and their team when the previous 4 steps have been done well.

When the performance manager has a clear understanding of the actions required by each employee and their team to achieve their objectives, and they are able to monitor the performance of each employee in a non intrusive, positive and collaborative manner, reviews become simple and quick to do. An annual performance review is no longer required. Using the 5 steps described above ensures each team’s and individual employee’s performance review goals are achieved on an ongoing basis, which is more effective than reviewing only once per annum.

A performance manager who follows the above strategy will perform frequent mini performance reviews of employees and teams.

With businesses become more agile and the requirement for companies to become more flexible and adapt faster to prevailing business conditions it is more important than ever to rethink and redesign the processes that affect employee lifecycle and tenure.

A bad manager is one who still believes employees should be told what to do then micromanaged to ensure their compliance. This management style is outdated and makes the organisation less competitive in today’s competitive environment.

The 5 steps outlined above also reduce employee absenteeism, which reduces the need for an absence manager.

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