Performance Management

Performance management in most businesses means one of two things: nothing happens until someone needs firing, or annual reviews that everyone dreads. Neither helps your team improve, and both store up problems.

Effective performance management is simpler than people think. It's three things: clear expectations everyone understands, regular conversations that build trust, and periodic reviews that summarise what's already been discussed. No surprises, no drama, just consistent management that helps people grow and gives you evidence when you need it.

The business case is clear:

Retention — People who get regular feedback and development stay longer. The cost of replacing a team member dwarfs the time spent on one-to-ones. In any industry where turnover is high, keeping good people is a competitive advantage you can't afford to ignore.
Accountability — When expectations are documented and discussed regularly, underperformance conversations are based on evidence, not opinion. Managers feel more confident addressing issues early because the facts are already there.
Legal protection — If performance management ever leads to formal action, documented expectations, conversation records, and review evidence are essential. Without them, any process is vulnerable to challenge. Employment tribunals ask for documentation first and foremost.
Fairness — Consistent standards, applied to everyone in the same role, build trust in the system. Your team can see that performance is assessed against clear criteria, not personal preference.

A complete performance management programme has three parts:

Job Descriptions

Clear expectations from day one

One-to-Ones

Regular conversations that make a difference

Performance Reviews

Reviews that are fair and useful

The three parts build on each other: job descriptions set the expectations, one-to-ones maintain the conversation, and performance reviews formalise the assessment. Each part depends on the others — a review without clear expectations is subjective. Expectations without regular check-ins are forgotten. One-to-ones without a framework for assessment lack direction.

Part 1: Setting clear expectations

Job descriptions are usually treated as a recruitment tool — something written to fill a vacancy and then filed away. That's a missed opportunity. A well-written job description is the shared baseline for every performance conversation you'll have with that person for as long as they're in the role. It defines what "good" looks like before you ever need to assess whether someone is doing a good job.

Outcomes versus tasks

The difference between a useful job description and a useless one usually comes down to outcomes versus tasks. "Responsible for cleaning" tells someone they have to clean. "Work area is clean and ready at the start of every shift" tells them what the standard is and when it needs to be met. One is a vague duty. The other is a measurable expectation you can actually manage against.

This distinction matters for every role:

A sales associate's responsibility isn't "help customers" — it's "every customer is greeted within two minutes, product recommendations are relevant, and the sales floor is merchandised to standard throughout the shift"
A site supervisor doesn't just "manage the team" — they "deliver projects on schedule, maintain safety compliance across the site, and develop the team's skills through structured training"
A hotel receptionist doesn't just "handle check-ins" — they "ensure every guest is checked in within five minutes, room preferences are confirmed, and any issues are escalated before the guest reaches their room"
A warehouse operative's responsibility isn't "pick orders" — it's "orders are picked accurately, dispatched within SLA, and stock discrepancies are flagged before they affect fulfilment"

When responsibilities are framed as outcomes, both the manager and the team member know what success looks like. When they're framed as tasks, success is undefined and assessment becomes subjective.

Success criteria

Success criteria are where most job descriptions fall short. If you can't define how you'll know someone is doing a good job, you can't fairly assess their performance. For a warehouse operative, success might mean orders are picked with 99.5% accuracy, returns are processed within 24 hours, and stock counts are completed on schedule. For a branch manager, it might mean labour costs are within budget, team retention is above a target threshold, and compliance scores are maintained. The point is to make these explicit rather than leaving them in the manager's head.

Good success criteria share common traits:

Observable — You can see whether they're being met, not just feel it
Specific — "Good performance" isn't measurable. "Every complaint is acknowledged within two minutes and resolved or escalated within ten" is
Relevant — Tied to things the person can actually control
Discussed — The team member knows what they're being assessed against before the assessment happens

Living documents

Roles change. The job description written when someone was hired twelve months ago might not reflect what they actually do now. A team leader who's taken on scheduling and supplier relationships has a materially different role than the one described in their original job description. Reviewing and updating job descriptions at least annually — ideally as part of the performance review cycle — keeps expectations aligned with reality. If you're assessing someone against an outdated description, neither of you benefits.

Job descriptions also provide the foundation for fair pay conversations, promotion decisions, and restructuring. When every role has a clear, current description with defined success criteria, decisions about people are grounded in documented standards rather than memory or impression.

How Pilla helps with job descriptions

Record video walkthroughs of each role — the manager explaining what the job actually involves, showing the working environment, and walking through the key responsibilities
Link videos to onboarding so new starters see expectations from day one, not three months in when problems have already developed
A growing library of role-specific templates covering responsibilities, skills, behaviours, and success criteria for roles across multiple industries

Part 2: Regular conversations that build trust

One-to-ones matter more than reviews. A performance review is a summary — it captures what's already happened and sets direction for what comes next. A one-to-one is where the actual work of management happens: building trust, catching problems early, supporting development, and maintaining the relationship that makes everything else possible.

The early warning system

Think of one-to-ones as your early warning system. The new starter struggling with a piece of equipment. The team member clashing with a colleague on every shared shift. The experienced employee thinking about leaving because they feel overlooked for development. You hear about these things in one-to-ones, not on the floor. By the time problems surface operationally, they've usually been building for weeks. Regular, private conversations give people the space to raise issues before they escalate.

One-to-ones also surface positive signals that managers otherwise miss:

A team member who's ready for more responsibility but hasn't been asked
Skills someone has that aren't being used in their current role
Ideas for improving processes that people don't raise in team meetings
Early signs that someone is engaged and growing, which you can reinforce

Structure prevents drift

Without a template or framework, one-to-ones tend to become either status updates about the schedule, or casual chats that don't address what matters. Both are a waste of time. Role-specific prompts keep conversations focused on the things that actually affect performance: how they're finding the role, what's going well, what's difficult, what support they need, and how their goals are progressing. The structure doesn't make the conversation formal — it makes it useful.

A good one-to-one template covers:

Progress — What's happened since the last conversation? Any wins to recognise?
Challenges — What's been difficult? What support would help?
Wellbeing — How are they coping with the role? Workload, hours, team dynamics?
Development — What skills are they building? What do they want to learn?
Goals — Progress against any agreed objectives. What's on track, what needs attention?
Actions — Clear commitments from both sides for the next period

Frequency and consistency

Frequency matters more than duration. Monthly one-to-ones are not enough. Things move too fast — schedules change, team members come and go, issues arise and resolve within days. Every two weeks is the minimum cadence for meaningful performance management. A focused twenty-minute conversation every fortnight is far more valuable than an hour-long meeting once a month that tries to cover everything that's happened in the intervening weeks.

Consistency matters as much as frequency. A one-to-one that happens reliably every two weeks builds trust. One that gets cancelled whenever things are busy sends a clear message about priorities — and it's the wrong message. Protecting the time for one-to-ones is one of the most important things a manager can do.

Why documentation matters

Documentation turns a conversation into evidence. The difference between "I spoke to them about timekeeping" and a timestamped record of what was discussed, what was agreed, and what the follow-up actions are is the difference between management by memory and management by evidence. When it comes time for a performance review — or if formal action becomes necessary — having a documented trail of conversations makes everything simpler, fairer, and more defensible.

How Pilla helps with one-to-ones

Recurring work items with role-specific conversation prompts that appear on the manager's schedule at the right cadence
Timestamped records of what was discussed, agreed, and committed to — completed on the manager's phone straight after the conversation
History that feeds directly into performance reviews — no reconstructing from memory what was discussed three months ago
A growing library of role-specific frameworks covering each role's typical challenges, development areas, and wellbeing considerations

Part 3: Fair, evidence-based reviews

If you've been running regular one-to-ones, a performance review should contain no surprises. It's a structured summary of conversations that have already happened, an assessment against criteria that were already clear, and a discussion about direction that both parties have been building towards. The review formalises what's already understood.

Competency frameworks

Competency frameworks replace gut-feel assessments with documented standards. Instead of a manager deciding whether someone is "doing well" based on their general impression, a competency framework breaks performance down into specific, observable areas: technical skills, teamwork, communication, reliability, leadership (for management roles), and role-specific competencies. Each area has defined criteria for what "meets expectations" looks like, making the assessment transparent and consistent.

A competency framework for a team leader, for example, might assess:

Technical skills — Role-specific knowledge, process execution, quality standards
Operational management — Planning, workflow, resource allocation, waste control
Team leadership — Training, delegation, managing the team under pressure
Compliance — Regulatory requirements, safety standards, procedural adherence
Communication — Briefings, feedback to the team, working across departments
Development — Problem-solving, learning new techniques, growing into the role

Each competency is assessed against the same criteria for every person in that role across the organisation. The framework, not the manager's mood, determines the assessment.

Rating fairly

Rating fairly means applying the same criteria to everyone in the same role. A store manager should be assessed against store manager competencies, not compared informally to the last person who held the role. It also means guarding against common biases:

Recency bias — Rating based on the last few weeks rather than the full review period. One-to-one records counter this by providing evidence from the entire period.
Halo effect — One strong area inflating the assessment of everything else. Structured competency frameworks force you to assess each area independently.
Leniency bias — Rating everyone as "meets expectations" to avoid difficult conversations. This helps nobody and undermines the entire system.
Similarity bias — Rating people you get along with more favourably. Documented criteria applied consistently reduce this risk.

The review conversation

The review conversation itself follows a clear pattern. Start with strengths — what the person does well and where they've improved. Be direct about areas for improvement, using specific examples from one-to-one records rather than vague impressions. Listen to their perspective — they may have context you don't. Agree on goals for the next period that are specific, achievable, and aligned with the role's success criteria. End with a clear picture of what the next few months should look like and what support will be available.

Honest reviews are kinder than generous ones. Rating everyone as "exceeding expectations" because you want to avoid difficult conversations helps nobody. The person doesn't know what they need to improve, the team sees that standards aren't applied consistently, and when you eventually need to address underperformance, there's no documented evidence to support the conversation. Fair assessment, delivered with respect and backed by evidence, is the foundation of trust.

How Pilla helps with performance reviews

Structured review templates as work items that guide managers through a consistent assessment process
Competency ratings, evidence fields, and development planning built into the review template
Linked to one-to-one history for evidence-based assessment — managers can reference specific conversations and agreed actions
A growing library of role-specific competency frameworks covering skills, behaviours, and outcomes relevant to each role

The complete performance cycle

The three parts of performance management form a continuous cycle:

Job descriptions define what "good" looks like for each role
One-to-ones maintain the conversation and catch problems early
Performance reviews formalise the assessment and set direction
Goals from reviews feed into the next period's one-to-ones
Changed expectations update the job description

This cycle is the difference between performance management that develops people and performance management that stores up problems for an annual confrontation. When the cycle works, reviews are straightforward because they summarise what's already been discussed. Underperformance is addressed early because one-to-ones catch it. Expectations are clear because job descriptions define them. And evidence exists because every conversation is documented.

Getting started

Where you start depends on where you are:

If you have no documented expectations — Start with job descriptions. You need a shared definition of what each role involves before you can assess whether someone is doing it well.
If you have expectations but no regular conversations — Start with one-to-ones. Documented expectations without regular discussion are just paperwork. Conversations bring them to life.
If you need to formalise assessment — Start with performance reviews. If you're already having regular conversations, structuring them into a review framework is the logical next step.
If people are leaving and you don't know why — Start with one-to-ones. You'll find out. People rarely leave without warning — they leave without being heard.