3 Responses

1. Career & performance
   Hi Kon
   Simple answer is yes and yes

   BUT it depends on the culture of the organisation and the training for the managers.

   What is best or good practice – well that depends what the goal or purpose of the PM system is.

   As for pro’s and cons they are many on both sides (forgive me but this is often a CIPD assignment and I am not writing one here!)

   For many organisations it is the convenience in having one annual system that they are interested in over the individual pro’s and cons. The sheer cost of running two systems is prohibitive.

   If you want to talk about this off line email me via the profile

   Mike
   http://www.rapidbi.com

2. Career Dev and Performance Mngmt
   Kon
   I agree with Mike.
   There are two issues here. One is around systems and processes – I think it is better to have a unified set of processes and it is often cheaper, easier and gives a more joined up result. For example, many performance management interviews will involve some discussion on last years performance, next years objectives (for performance and development) and some look to the longer term.
   The other angle is conceptual. Is it helpful to isolate current role and current performance with potential future roles and longer term contribution to the business? They are subtly different but I think there are dangers in looking at them as seperate species. If you look at it from a performance point of view, it might be you have a round peg in a square hole – you may be able to solve the performance problem with a career move. Similarly, if you look at a management training course, mentoring or a secondment, all of these may have some focus on career or lifelong development and also around current challenges and performance issues.
   Your specific question is around linking career development objectives with annual performance objectives. I think these can often be linked but equally some may be more narrow and particular. In short, if the objective will lead to better performance now and help the person in their career aspirations then great, but I wouldn’t make a link compulsory.
   Graham

3. Interesting….
   …it is interesting this point actually. My organisation considered a ratings scale to highlight top performers year on year. There was some anticipation that this would also be useful for career development/succession planning. In my view however, the end of year rating (or how it stands in our suggested rating at present) is merely an indication to the extent to which an individual has met/exceeded the expectations of them in that year. You clearly have different expectations of team members relative to their level of ability/experience etc. This rating in itself does not highlight those to be earmarked for future leadership roles as it is a different set of expectations.