Performance Management Challenges in 2024 (+ Solutions)

Although workers have gradually found their way back to the office after the crisis, remote and hybrid work models remain a reality for many of us. These new work systems come with major challenges, especially concerning employee performance management. Annual performance reviews are simply not enough to ensure efficient remote performance management.

The diversification of working contexts requires a multiplication of performance monitoring techniques to stay in tune with workers’ and candidates’ expectations:

One of the top performance management challenges that leadership will encounter in 2024 is testing new performance management techniques. With COVID changing the traditional workspace landscape, more employees are working remotely than ever. This is why companies should rethink their performance management techniques going into 2024 and conduct them more than just on an annual basis. While working remotely allows employees more freedom and flexibility, it can also be challenging and isolating at times, so it’s important to incorporate real-time feedback, one-on-one meetings, and midpoint check-ins with your team. Going into the new year, businesses need to plan to set time aside to meet with employees more often and be more communicative and open with team members to keep them on track, invested, and satisfied. – Mitch Chailland, President of Canal HR

Increasing the frequency of appraisal interviews, ensuring adequate feedback and performance reports and multiplying one-on-one meetings is the way to go in 2024. The new year will also be the best moment to try out new performance evaluation methods and question traditional practices. For instance, if you have not heard of 360-degree appraisals yet, now might be the time to catch up on this evaluation method.

Need to brush up on your performance review process? Download our free complete guide to master performance appraisals! 

Managing employees with different working situations also means that crucial information can easily be lost. Therefore, in 2024, managers will need to standardize their performance management process to ensure homogeneous practices for all employees. Indeed, traditional HR practices tend to favor office workers and overlook remote or hybrid employees:

I think the main challenge is going to be performance management in unstructured hybrid work.

More and more companies are demanding a return to offices. However, to meet the expectations of today’s workers, such businesses often opt for a hybrid operating system. The challenge, however, is to control the quality and efficiency of work in such an arrangement. Different employees come stationary on various days and ranges. The HR department faces the difficult task of bringing these worlds together and finding ways to manage performance in such a scattered workforce. – Karolina Kijowska, Head of People at PhotoAid

Dealing with a scattered workforce requires organization skills and the right tools to centralize information. Paper employee documentation won’t cut it with hybrid and remote employees you need to manage daily. Therefore, structuring your daily management with the right HR tools is definitely a must to tackle the challenges to come in 2024.

Digitizing and centralizing employee profiles with HR technology is the best way to avoid human errors and quickly retrieve information, all while saving time and gaining efficiency in all your employee management processes.

Although remote work is a great way to show your employees you trust them, it is crucial to ensure that this autonomy truly means something and supports productivity and development.

In that sense, 2024 will represent a shift from managers exclusively monitoring performance to managers embracing a more supportive role:

In 2024, employees will have more control and autonomy over their own performance management, thanks to advances in performance management technology. As a result, managers will have to transition into the role of supporting talent and career development, and helping employees align their performance with their career goals as well as the overall business goals. Managers should expect to spend less time on performance management, and will need to upskill so that they can effectively nurture talent in their companies and help their employees reach their fullest potential. Leaders will also be required to be more adept to handle work culture issues that are interfering with employee experience and their professional development. – Lisa Richards, CEO and Creator of the Candida Diet

As you can see, performance management has become much more complex than simply measuring employee productivity. Working on corporate culture, employee experience, and individual career growth has become essential if you want to stand out from other companies.

2024 will be the year of employee autonomy, especially regarding performance management. How can you concretely empower workers to monitor their own performance and set individual goals that will support employee development as well as business growth? Following these 5 steps is the best way to get your employees involved in performance management:

1. Give your employees performance management tools to access their own performance reports;
2. Adopt modern performance management practices and set realistic and stimulating monthly goals;
3. Ask your teams which skill they want to improve, what project they would like to work on; 
4. Offer ongoing training that fits their expectations and supports autonomy and growth;
5. Survey your employees to learn what they think of the whole process.

Communication, employee surveys, self-service and performance management software are key to making your employees more autonomous and productive. Be sure to support them along the way by collecting regular feedback!

Employee performance reviews are way too often associated with discipline and negative feedback. Let’s shake things up in 2024 and focus on what matters the most: employee engagement and happiness. Recognition should be a fundamental part of your performance management strategies and you should always highlight employee strengths and contributions!

While productivity and business performance are great, it is easy to forget that human performance is ever-changing and depends on many factors. Employee engagement, for instance, is a major component of consistent and satisfactory productivity. Effective HR management practices will nurture motivation and happiness by promoting the following:

• Employee recognition and appreciation – because kind words cost nothing but are worth a lot;
• Constructive feedback – be they positive or negative, comments need to be objective and relevant;
• Effective performance review phrases to avoid mistakes or misunderstandings;
• A healthy work environment and a workplace culture fostering self-development opportunities and teamwork.

As you can see, many aspects of human resources management come into play in strategic performance management. In 2024, you will need to work on all these performance issues to optimize productivity and overcome all the challenges that come your way.

All the previously discussed challenges are centered around the same issue: keeping up with trends to remain competitive and modern in an ever-changing world of work. Therefore, modernizing your performance management practices should be at the forefront of your HR strategic plans.

Transitioning to HR technology is an excellent choice but requires an elaborate thought process:

In my opinion, the main employee performance management challenge in 2024 will be the use of new tech to do so.

There are many reasons why this is a challenge: first, we need to make sure that the technology is reliable and secure. Second, we need to make sure that it’s easy enough for employees to use and understand. Third, we need to make sure that it can be accessed by all employees at any time without having to go through a lengthy process of getting logged in or set up with a new system.

Finally, we need to make sure that using this tech doesn’t come at the expense of any other kind of employee training or support programs—it’s important that employees have access to these things even if they’re not using them for performance management purposes! – Gauri Manglik, CEO & Co-founder of Instrumentl

Your performance management solutions must be efficient, user-friendly, secure and focused on employee well-being. The very definition of the qualities and values offered by Folks HR!

As you can see, 2024 will require a good set of HR tech solutions to keep up with employees’ expectations and working trends. Similarly, performance management tools will become increasingly crucial to measure and manage remote employee performance and getting ahead of the game. Learn more about Folks’ performance management system today!