When it comes to the topic of performance management and target setting, it’s easy to tie ourselves up in policies, templates, tick boxes and deadlines.

What is often forgotten is that performance is an all year round topic and an ongoing and meaningful dialogue between leaders and teams should be engaged in throughout the year.

Staff shouldn’t have to wait until the annual cycle comes full circle in September to find out that their performance is sub-standard and that they are not receiving an increment. 

What the formal process does do is allow you to support your views of staff performance or disabuse yourself of potential biases objectively. 

Performance management is the gateway to personal development, professional progression and succession planning. It’s to identify those who need support, to support those who are ambitious and ready to progress and to identify specific and individually beneficial CPD.

The outcomes of this process are focused on staff pay; whether it is an increment or accelerated progression through the pay scale. It is here where the process can become controversial.

To understand how you can improve both clarity and objectivity in both target setting and the measurement of success, let me share with you the terminology I use when discussing staff performance.

• Appraisal: Appraising the job that is being done, the one outlined in the job description and person specification; the one that they are paid to do. 
• Performance Management: For those who have consistently exceeded performance expectation and outperformed any targets set by a pre-determined margin. 

To allow both fair appraisal and to incorporate performance management for those who have excelled, a holistic performance assessment approach should be used. 

This means that the achievement of arbitrary targets should not become the sole driver of pay decisions. Instead, overall performance discussions should incorporate a number of factors and not be weighted to one in particular. 

For example, teacher standards, career-stage, book scrutiny, data, line management and department meetings etc. Essentially, anything reviewed as a matter of course as part of the line management process. 

Targets should support the appraisal process but not determine it. With the right policy, a teacher can still receive their annual increment even if targets haven’t been met as long as it can be evidenced that they have met the requirements of their role. 

The evaluation process should allow room for exceptional performance to be recognised and valued either through accelerated pay or through CPD and/ succession planning strategies. People who outperform in their role consistently, working above and beyond and demonstrating exceptional value, deserve recognition. 

Exceptional performance should be defined and certainly should not be ‘easy’ to achieve but it should not be impossible either. This is where targets serve a real purpose. Exceptional performance, through targets, can be defined for each individual. Therefore, it hinges not only on meeting standards, but exceeding them consistently as well as exceeding set targets. 

The truth is, some organisations are good at appraisal and performance management but too many are not. The ones I’ve come across that aren’t are usually linked to either poor policy or poor management training and delivery.  To improve your staff performance discussions, think about what language you and your leaders use and how you articulate the policy. If leaders aren’t on board with the process or fail to execute it properly, it really is a wasted opportunity to serve your staff.

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Written for: Primary School Management Magazine (@primaryleaders)