Role contribution expectations
Relevant goals and success measures connected to the work, with a way to update them as priorities change.
06Performance Management and Reward
Performance Management Framework
Make performance conversations useful through clear expectations, timely feedback and practical support throughout the year.
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Current and clear expectations
Feedback close to the work
Development with follow-through
PMFPERFORM Framework
Start with your situation
When this framework helps.
- Annual reviews are completed but everyday performance discussions remain weak.
- Goals become outdated without being revised.
- Managers need a consistent way to discuss contribution, barriers and development.
The decisions it supports
- What does good contribution look like in this role?
- What does current evidence show, and what support is needed?
- Which expectations, development actions or management responses should change?
The framework at a glance
PERFORM Framework
Connect meaningful goals, regular feedback, fair evaluation and development.
Explore the complete model
The approach
Make performance management useful in everyday work
Connect strategy to contribution through clear expectations, continuous dialogue, capability growth and fair decisions. The HR Delivery PERFORM Framework helps organisations build a practical performance system that supports people throughout the year and gives leaders a stronger basis for consequential decisions.
Research-informed. Seven-stage framework. Ninety-seven practical tools. Designed for implementation.
Explore the PERFORM Framework. Discuss your performance management priorities.
An annual review cannot carry the full responsibility for performance. Goals become outdated, barriers go unresolved and feedback arrives too late to help. Completing the process may tell leaders little about the quality of contribution or the fairness of decisions.
PERFORM connects business priorities with role expectations, regular conversations and practical development. Formal reviews bring the evidence together at useful points, while shorter check-ins address progress and barriers as they arise. Choose the frequency and records to suit the work so the process helps people rather than adding unnecessary administration.
The aim is strategic execution, performance and growth, trust and fairness, and agility and business value. Achieving these outcomes depends on manager capability, employee voice and the quality of the system around the conversation.
What you can take forward
Useful work. Clear next steps.
Conversation and evidence rhythm
Proportionate check-ins that connect progress, feedback, barriers and supported development.
Review and calibration arrangements
Clear responsibilities and evidence for consistent reviews, recognition and follow-through.
PMF · In practice
Seven stages that connect contribution and improvement
PERFORM is a recurrent operating cycle. Its stages work together and can be revisited when priorities, evidence or circumstances change.
P — Purpose & strategic alignment
Translate the strategy into the contribution expected from functions, teams and individual roles. Describe the important results and the working practices needed to achieve them. Leaders and HR check that employees can see how their work supports the wider plan.
E — Expectations & success measures
Agree outcomes, standards, behaviours, team contribution and learning goals. Define the measures, evidence and guardrails needed to judge progress fairly. Manager and employee create a contribution contract and development plan that are relevant to the work and clear about support and dependencies. Here, contribution contract means their recorded agreement about expectations, evidence and support; it is not a replacement employment contract.
R — Regular dialogue & evidence
Use timely check-ins to review progress, gather evidence, address barriers and adapt goals. The employee and manager maintain a proportionate record of important decisions and actions. The purpose is useful dialogue and shared understanding, with a rhythm that reflects the work rather than a universal meeting quota. When priorities change, record the revised expectation, when it applies and the support agreed. Reviews need to recognise both the original work and the change, rather than judge the whole period against a late target.
F — Feedback, coaching & growth
Use specific, credible feedback to reinforce strengths and identify practical improvements. Explore the causes of difficulty and build capability through work. Feedback actions, coaching plans and stretch or learning activity should connect to the capability needed, with support for applying it.
O — Outcomes review & calibration
Review the full period against expectations agreed in advance. Bring together employee and manager perspectives, apply evidence standards and calibrate for consistency and equity. The review and calibration record should explain the judgement. Calibration compares how standards and evidence have been applied, challenges inconsistent interpretations and records justified contextual differences; it does not require identical ratings or quotas. Where ratings are used, they must be evidence-based and appropriate to the system's purpose.
R — Recognition, reward & response
Recognise contribution, provide appropriate reward and career inputs, and respond proportionately to performance gaps. Explain the basis of administrative decisions and use the relevant development, support or employee-relations route. Keep different decision purposes clear so that a developmental conversation does not become an unexplained pay or disciplinary decision.
M — Monitor, govern & improve
Use employee voice, process evidence, equity checks and business outcomes to improve the system. HR, analytics and the designated governance group maintain a scorecard, review risks and own the improvement backlog. A process that is completed consistently still needs testing for usefulness, fairness and value.
PMF · In practice
Five lenses give a balanced view of performance
- Results: the outcomes, outputs and service delivered
- Behaviours: how values, leadership and risk responsibilities are demonstrated
- Contribution: teamwork and value created beyond individual targets
- Adaptation: learning, innovation and response to change
- Capability: skills built and applied in work
These lenses help organisations recognise the full contribution required by a role. Weight and interpretation should follow the work. For a service role, speed needs context from accuracy, user understanding and teamwork; a target met through avoidable rework may not represent good contribution. Strong results cannot be used to average away serious behaviour or safety concerns. Equally, an innovation team may demonstrate good judgement by stopping a weak proposition after credible testing.
PMF · In practice
Connect strategic intent to role contribution
The strategic line of sight moves through Purpose & value agenda, Enterprise goals, Operating plan, Function & team priorities and Role contribution. Each connection should explain the value being created and the trade-offs involved.
Shared outcomes need shared evidence and clear individual contributions. If two teams optimise separate measures at the expense of the same customer outcome, the system needs a better shared goal and guardrails. The review should examine those incentives as well as individual delivery.
PMF · In practice
Diagnose the system before redesigning the form
HR Delivery can review the current employee journey, goal quality, dialogue, evidence, manager capability, technology and decision practices. A maturity review considers eight dimensions: Strategy, Expectations, Dialogue, Feedback, Evidence, Fairness, Governance and Outcomes.
The five maturity levels are Administrative, Consistent, Continuous, Integrated and Adaptive. Their purpose is to identify practical priorities and uneven patterns. This is directional organisational self-reflection, not a validated psychometric instrument, employee assessment or legal compliance audit.
The diagnostic combines stakeholder perspectives with relevant artefacts and operational context. It should establish the problems to solve and baseline evidence before selecting workflow, rating or technology changes.
PMF · In practice
A phased route into practice
Implementation follows Mobilise, Diagnose, Design, Build, Pilot, Scale and Embed. The sequence establishes a mandate, confirms the problems, designs the end-to-end system and prepares tools, workflow, communication and manager support.
The pilot should include representative work segments and test the complete experience from expectations to review. Establish baseline measures for clarity, fairness, dialogue quality, administrative effort and relevant business outcomes. Observe conversations and examine artefact quality alongside employee feedback. Agree stop, adjust and scale criteria before rollout.
Manager preparation needs practice in strategic translation, goal setting, feedback, evidence judgement and fair decisions. Policy awareness alone does not demonstrate those skills. Ongoing clinics, observation and quality reviews help embed the method after launch.
From insight to action
Practical outputs and implementation resources
An engagement can produce the contribution architecture, role-relevant goal and measure standards, a dialogue and evidence approach, review and calibration arrangements, manager-development priorities and a governed implementation plan. A balanced scorecard and improvement backlog support continuing oversight.
The original toolkit contains 97 tools across eight packs: Strategy and diagnosis; Architecture and governance; Expectations, goals and measures; Dialogue, feedback and evidence; Review, ratings and calibration; Development, recognition and performance response; Data, digital, equity and assurance; and Implementation, change and evaluation.
Tools are selected for the decisions the organisation needs to make. The framework supports proportionate documentation and accountable judgement rather than requiring every tool in every team.
PMF · In practice
Fairness and human accountability throughout
Four enablers sustain PERFORM: Manager capability; Culture and employee voice; Data and digital workflow; Governance, equity & assurance.
Evidence should be relevant, sufficient, representative, credible, balanced and proportionate. Use calibration to test consistency, without forced distributions. Where practical, separate developmental and administrative purposes. Give employees clear expectations, timely feedback and a route to correct inaccurate evidence.
Distinguish capability gaps from conduct, medical or support needs and systemic barriers. Apply the appropriate confidential processes and local requirements. Digital tools can support workflow and analysis, while people remain accountable for consequential decisions. Automated ratings or predictions should not replace responsible judgement.
Your questions, answered
Frequently asked questions
Does PERFORM require annual ratings?
No universal rating design is prescribed. Decide whether ratings serve a clear purpose, then establish appropriate standards, evidence, calibration and communication. Regular dialogue remains essential whichever approach is selected.
How frequent should check-ins be?
Match the cadence to the work, level of change and support needed. Continuous performance management means timely, useful dialogue; it does not require constant monitoring or excessive meetings.
What happens when performance declines?
Investigate clarity, capability, workload, resources and other relevant conditions. Agree support and review evidence before drawing conclusions. Use the appropriate formal route when necessary, with fair process and local requirements observed.
An illustrative application
Make performance useful between annual reviews
Illustrative scenario.
The situation
A support team meets a case-closure target, but users often return with the same unresolved question. Annual reviews reward volume while managers and employees lack an agreed view of service quality.
Explore the evidence
Use Purpose and Expectations to connect the role with the intended service outcome. Review representative cases and user feedback through the five lenses. Regular dialogue should examine workload, system constraints and unclear guidance as well as individual practice; repeat contact alone is not an individual verdict.
Agree the next step
Revise the contribution agreement to include clear resolution and quality guardrails alongside volume. Use Feedback, coaching & growth for specific practice needs and assign process barriers to their owners. Record support, evidence and review points. Calibrate consequential review judgements against the standards agreed in advance.
Review what changes
Check service quality, user understanding and the usefulness of dialogue, as well as delivery measures. Explain which changes were made to the system and which support was provided to employees. Use Monitor, govern & improve to correct incentives that still encourage closure without resolution.
Put the framework to work
Build a performance system that helps people contribute
HR Delivery can help you diagnose current practice, design PERFORM around your work, strengthen manager capability and establish a fair, practical implementation route.