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DKV Business Partner SHRM Offers Performance Management Standard
Employers large or small looking for help when it comes to launching or improving their performance-management strategy can now turn to the Society for Human Resource Management’s latest standard.
SHRM recently released a basic Performance Management standard, one approved by the American National Standards Institute.
According to Lee Webster, SHRM’s director of HR standards, the Performance Management standard, which is a free PDF download, gives employers a uniform way to analyze and discuss their employees’ job performances, including goal setting and performance improvement plans. SHRM convened a 44-member taskforce comprised of HR professionals, academicians and consultants to develop the PM standard, which also went through two public review periods.
This standard establishes a threshold of performance management practices that effective organizations should employ to adequately assess, improve and prepare their employees to deliver on organizational commitments. Webster says “This document is the forerunner of other standards that will capture and describe these core practices of HR management.”
"Another challenge was to create a performance management standard that organizations of all sizes and types can use. Especially for smaller employers, you can’t go from doing little or no performance management to having the bar set too high. Offering something that is very doable was our goal, and we believe we have hit that mark with the PM standard.”
Wyrick says the SHRM task force constantly considered ways to give companies who may not be doing any formal performance appraisals a good starting strategy — whether they are new entities or employers who need to “step up” what they are doing and make it applicable globally as well, if needed.
Myrick adds that in many organizations, HR has the role of oversight and control of the performance management system. But, she says, the objective of successful performance management is shared by all members of management. Senior management support for a performance focus, for example, is critical, as is the creation and maintenance of a culture that supports individual and team accountability for solid performance.
Other HR standards in the works for SHRM include Workforce Planning, Job Description, HR Metrics Panel (Dashboard), Turnover Metrics Definition, and Diversity. The diversity standards are divided into three sub-topics: organizational diversity and inclusion metrics, collection of diversity metrics and measures, and qualifications of the lead diversity/inclusion professional.
6 | TRAINING MAGAZINE MIDDLE EAST SEPT 2014