Employees have more diverse needs than ever, so developing them is like walking a performance management tightrope. Stakeholders will need a smarter, more innovative approach to drive performance, engagement, and bottom line growth.

Leverage these 5 best practices to more effectively align employee performance with company goals:

Give managers the right tools

With easy to use, real-time access to employee information, managers can create goals and show why they’re important, but they may lack the ability to build a viable strategy to achieve them. By integrating goals, performance, skills, and competencies data, managers can improve the quality of their performance reviews.

Results – Seamless performance reviews that are meaningful, automated, reduce administrative paperwork, and more insight into employee growth.

Encourage goal setting & team alignment

Goals are the building blocks of executing the company vision, and tangible employee objectives inspire greater performance. By setting, tracking, and consistently evaluating progress on meaningful objectives, employees will better connect to your mission, your culture, and your plans for the future.

Results – Common goals that create a long-term plan for employee progress and for company profitability.

Foster a culture focused on employee growth

Disengaged employees cost their employers nearly $550 billion dollars every year.¹ But by focusing on their career development goals, employees will be more productive and give more discretionary effort because they feel their hard work is leading to something. Performance reviews further engage employees and empower them to take control of their destiny.

Results – Retain high-performance employees while improving productivity—a win-win for both budgets and sustainability

Measure progress & take action

Perform business health checks by assessing competencies and risks. Using visual analysis to find trends, strengths, and weaknesses, business and HR leaders will be able to identify areas of improvement, and adjust their marketplace strategy accordingly.

Results – A helicopter view of the entire company’s skills and gaps enables stakeholders to make smarter, more proactive business decisions.

Link training to performance

Develop and improve employee skills with training that support both personal and professional objectives. Tie workforce competencies to training plans to stimulate engagement through the creation of measurable outcomes to learning. And how does training drive retention and workforce continuity? Millennials are 53% more likely to stay at their current company if they’re offered growth plans.²

Results – Tangible outcomes to learning initiatives that boost retention, engagement, and performance

_{1 The Conference Board, "Employee Engagement: What Works Now" , 2012, https://www.conference-board.org/dna-engagement2017/.}

_{2 EdAssist,  "Millennials Desperate for Financial Stability, in Search of Employer Support to Get There", April 2015, http://www.edassist.com/resources/news-releases/2015/04/millennials-study-press.}