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Developing employee performance: Discovering performance gaps and providing development opportunities

This guide explores how employers can identify and address performance gaps, including assessing skills, behaviours and development needs. It helps HR and line managers support employee development and improve performance through structured approaches and practical tools.

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By Colin Lamb, Connect Three Chief Explorer | Susan Earle | Susan McRoberts, Connect Three Consultant | Bar Huberman, Brightmine Editor

Identifying and bridging gaps in performance should be an important part of your performance strategy. This will help to ensure that your people can perform at their best.

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  • Knowledge, skills and behaviour gaps
    • Strengths v weaknesses approach
    • Roles in discovering and bridging gaps
  • Tools to discover development areas
    • Personal SWOT
    • Training needs analysis
    • 360-degree feedback
  • Wait or create
  • Aspirations and motivations
  • Supporting line managers with employee development
    • Different line manager approaches
    • HR interventions to support line managers in developing their team
  • The role of the individual in their own development
  • Performance management

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About the author

Colin Lamb

Connect Three‘s chief explorer, Colin Lamb, is a highly energetic and creative development specialist with vast experience in organisational and work-based learning, development and leadership. He has worked with SMEs (including alternative business models like social enterprises and employee ownership) and larger corporates. He is extremely passionate about learning and development, with a focus on how this contributes and aligns with business strategy and growth, skills and capability, and organisational culture.

Colin is a change maker helping to innovate workplaces through their people, practices and environments. He has extensive qualifications and over 18 years’ experience. He is at the helm of innovation and always brings best practice and cutting-edge research to the table through continuous professional development.

About the author

Susan Earle

Susan has expertise in developing people strategy, driving employee engagement, talent management, training design and delivery, and generalist HR, including recruitment. Susan led the people development activity in a dynamic and fast-growing Ayrshire business to achieve national status in the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies To Work For (2015-2017) before joining Connect Three as a consultant.

About the author

Susan McRoberts

One of Connect Three‘s consultants, Susan has worked with founders, CEOs, directors and leadership teams to develop people plans that help drive business results. Working with a range of clients, Susan loves to curate the best of more than 20 years’ experience with the latest thinking, external best practice and creativity to develop engaging and practical solutions that make a difference.

About the author

Bar Huberman
Content manager, HR strategy and practice, Brightmine

Bar is a former solicitor with more than 18 years’ experience focused on serving the needs of businesses and HR professionals. She leads the HR strategy and practice team, which focuses on developing content that meets the priorities of HR professionals in strategic roles. Bar’s team works with leading experts in their field to shape practical content that helps organisations become an employer of choice, as well as guidance to train line managers in people skills.

Prior to joining Brightmine, Bar was a solicitor at a leading firm in Brighton, and she has an LLB in Law and French. Bar is also chair of the board of trustees of the charity Embracing Arts.

Connect with Bar on LinkedIn.

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