People are the most valuable assets of any lab. Helping the lab staff to develop, grow, and reach their potential is a vital responsibility of lab management, and effective performance management is a key part of this process. Effective performance management includes setting roles, establishing SMART objectives, providing constructive feedback, and conducting useful performance reviews. Most people hate the performance management process because it is designed around opaque forms, criticism, and lack of caring—as lab managers, we can turn this around. We can provide a process that is easy to complete, simple to understand, and useful to both management and staff. It starts by caring for the staff as people and includes effective conversations rather than traditional performance reviews.

In this presentation, you can expect to learn:

• How to write effective roles, performance reviews, and objectives
• How to provide ongoing performance feedback throughout the year
• How to prepare for and conduct a constructive performance review
• How to navigate some of the difficult conversations that come up with staff around performance