How to Start with Continuous Performance Management: A Beginner’s Guide

You scored between 0–25 on the CPM Readiness Survey

Your results show you're in the early stages of building a continuous performance management culture, and that’s OK. Every company starts somewhere.

Right now, your performance management process is likely built around traditional reviews, annual cycles, limited feedback, and manager-owned processes. But that also means there's a huge opportunity to shift the culture, improve engagement, and drive real performance gains.

Here’s how to begin 👇

🔑 1. Build the Business Case Internally

Before changing your process, start by changing the conversation. Leadership buy-in is critical.

✅ Next action: Share data on why continuous performance matters — better retention, productivity, and engagement.

📘 Recommended reading:
👉 Why Traditional Performance Reviews Are Broken
👉 The Business Case for Continuous Feedback

🛠 2. Audit Your Tools (or Lack Thereof)

If your reviews still live in spreadsheets or Word docs, that’s slowing everything down — and missing opportunities to scale.

✅ Next action: List the current tools/processes you use and highlight gaps: goal tracking, one-to-ones, feedback, etc.

📘 Recommended reading:
👉 How to Modernise Your Performance Reviews
👉 10 Easy Ways to Make One-on-One Meetings More Effective

🧪 3. Pilot One New Practice

Trying to change everything at once often backfires. Instead, run a small pilot — for example, introduce structured monthly one-to-ones with one team.

✅ Next action: Choose one team or department to trial a new performance habit and gather feedback after 4–6 weeks.

📘 Recommended reading:
👉 How to Run a One-to-One Pilot

🎯 Small Wins First. Culture Change Follows.

You don’t need to transform everything at once. But with the right mindset, tools and champions, you can shift from a rigid review process to one that actually drives performance.

📥 Download: Moving Beyond Traditional Performance Reviews

🗓 Ready to explore tools that make this easier?
👉 Join our next Open Demo