If you want high performance, act like a SME

In a world where businesses often strive for bigger, better, and more, it’s easy to lose sight of the valuable lessons that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can teach us about high performance. The key to unlocking exceptional results lies not only in expansive budgets and top-tier talent but also in the nimble and adaptive practices of SMEs. By thinking like a small business, organisations can emulate the agility, employee engagement, and innovation of them to achieve remarkable performance and productivity.

In small businesses, every employee’s contribution is critical, and their impact can ultimately make a difference to the company establishing itself or going under. For this reason, performance management becomes that much more important to get right.

Culture Amp’s recent research on company performance found that performance goes beyond structured performance feedback, in the form of a continuous process that is interwoven with one-on-one meetings, goal setting, development plans, in-the-moment feedback, and more.

The research on company size demonstrates that larger companies may be at a disadvantage when it comes to continuous performance. To close the gap, larger companies can benefit from increasing clarity on development opportunities, leveraging manager feedback, and developing an agile communication plan – much like a small business would.

Continuous performance practices enable any sized team to equitably assess their employees, scan for biases, and store this information in a manner that makes it always accessible. Not only is performance management good for business, but when done right, it materially changes the employee experience and the opportunities they’ll be presented with over the course of their careers.

No business is too small to benefit from an employee-first performance process. Learning faster through feedback and fairly evaluating employees in a fast-growing start-up is a competitive advantage and one we see our SME customers lean on to drive high-performing teams, which in turn leads to higher profitability.

We know that personalisation at scale leads to greater success for everyone.

Here is how to think like a SME when it comes to performance:

A good way to approach performance reviews and recognition is to operate a “small-business mindset”.

While the term “continuous performance” can be a bit of a buzzword, it aims to address the key components of the employee experience, focusing on progress, feedback and an ongoing conversation about development.

Our recent data shows employees who are regularly using modules relating to continuous performance are 25% less likely to leave their organisation. These models include but aren’t limited to, goal setting, one-on-one meetings, regular feedback and performance tracking.

Formal goal setting, both business and personal development, had the biggest effect on employee retention. Those who do not set goals are 26% more likely to leave an organisation than those who do.

Within smaller and flatter organisations, employees are more easily able to identify opportunities for on-the-job development.

Company size has a strong influence on the organisational conditions that support performance and development, with smaller organisations leveraging the agility to implement change and experiment.

Organisations that are more successful when it comes to creating a culture of high-performance view creating and sharing enablement materials as essential and take advantage of their smaller size to offer hands-on training.

Regardless of organisation size, however, transparency into how performance is evaluated is a key driver of employee attitudes towards performance management and development processes.

As the business landscape evolves at an unprecedented pace, it’s imperative for organisations to adopt strategies that allow them to pivot swiftly and innovate boldly. By emulating SME practices companies can navigate these challenges while fostering a culture that drives high performance. The road to success is no longer confined to size; it’s about embodying the principles that lead SMEs to triumph and using data-driven insights to power the journey toward excellence.

Michael Yallech is the vice president of small & medium business at Culture Amp.