Redefining Performance Management System

One of the positive impacts of covid19 on performance management systems is that organizations are converting the annual process to continuous review and feedback system. During the lockdown, the majority of employees were working from home, and it was necessary for managers to keep them engaged, motivated & productive. Initially employees and managers were overwhelmed because of constant calls and reviews from managers and seniors. Daily, weekly check-ins were too much, however, after a few months it was a routine for all. Managers and employees learn how to manage this. Continuous reviews and feedback became a practice. Employees who were not comfortable became stressful and few left the job because of stress. 

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Organizations realized that this needs a balanced approach. My hypothesis is as under:

“Pandemic and consequent lockdown has forced organizations to review their performance management system.”

“They are focusing more on continuous review and feedback mechanisms which helped them to reinvent the performance management system.”

So, what has changed?   

Performance management became the integrated part of the business processes (and not a HR process)  in organizations. Organizations started working on following five areas,

• Continuous Reviews (Goal and reviews, earlier so-called PMS)
• Continuous Feedback, (Feedback and development actions)
• Continuous Recognition, (Reward and Recognition)
• Timely Reprimand, (Consequence Management System)
• Learning and Development, (Overall Learning & Development plans)

Not necessary, above all is one approach and mechanism, but different approaches encompassing all together for one purpose. Systems and practices may be different but contribute to overall performance management. 

This brought a need of 

• Transferring the HR Process to Business Process,
• Digital platform to integrate above 5 areas,
• Creating the culture of accountability and ownership,
• Educating and Empowering managers to manage their teams. 

Of course, this is not rocket science. Most of the time, we get carried away with technology and digitalization and think that implementing it will solve all your problems and your world will be perfect. Technology is the media to record; it helps you to analyze, review and retrieve the data whenever you need it. However, it is not the replacement of human interaction while reviewing & feedback. 

This is not possible without the proactive role of managers by owning the process. Managers have to change their mindset of management towards leadership. HR role is to facilitate the culture of continuous learning for managers and employees. In this process managers have to learn the approach where employees don’t get overwhelmed by the reviews and feedback. They should see the benefit by participating in the process. Employees may perceive this approach as micromanaging by managers. They may perceive the overall process as being watched too much.  I came across the approach, “tight, loose and tight.” 

Tight: Tighten the goal setting, (even flexible, changing by every month) process discussing ambitious goals (SMART) without compromising on the quality of goal. 

Loose: Give the freedom to work. Let employees decide how they wish to achieve those goals in a given framework and as per expected behaviours. 

Tight: Again have a review and feedback session seriously. Appreciate and acknowledge their contribution and achievement however understand the reasons for non achievement and  give them critical feedback directly without sugarcoating it. 

As a leader, your empathetic and compassionate approach will help you to run the process successfully.  

(Opinions are purely personal & does not represent my organizations, current or past) 

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Feel the heat.

The million-dollar question is why people change? People don’t change easily. They are driven by the habit they follow. Habits can be hard to break and hard to create new. However, we continue to acquire & create new habits unknowingly all the time. Accordingly, we demonstrate the behaviour. The behaviour is seen by many people but very few give the feedback to correct the wrong behaviour. This needs courage, courage to challenge self, challenge the status quo and challenge the overall assumption we follow every day.

It starts with the tasks and jobs we do, questions we get and answers we give. In our life all the events, all the tasks, jobs, question etc can be classified in three categories as under:

• Doable
• Stretched
• Broad possibilities

Doable: You do it easily. You have required skills, competence, and experience to handle such events or questions. 60% employees, 60% people in this world are happy doing things that they know. They are happy to handle regular jobs, in fact, maintain what they get in the legacy. You have the knowledge, skills, and experience. If you are a production engineer, you don’t go beyond that and the same applies to others. This doesn’t mean that you are not doing your job good. You are perfect; however, you are not eager to stretch yourself.  

Stretched: You have the right skills, competence, and experience but you have to take extra efforts to perform. You have to do some research, benchmark with peers, learn from others, network and influence others who are not related to you. You have to find the solution based on your skills, competence, and experience. But your current knowledge, skills, experience may not be enough to get those answers. For example, you are comfortable working with the customer to whom you are working for the last few years and all of sudden your boss assigns the new customer who is very notorious and difficult to manage. 20% employees, people come in this category.

Broad possibilities: Sky is the limit. You don’t know anything. This is a new territory, new company, new function, new geography, new people, new customers. Your existing skills, experience, competence may work or may not work. You have to reinvent yourself. Growth mindset is the requirement of such events. You have to stretch beyond your limitations and beyond your imaginations. For example, working on a greenfield project in another country, or taking a different role, which is not your functional domain, or handling the strong union, strong situation and leading the team during crisis events like pandemic. 

There are no ready-made answers, but you have the mindset where you use your skills, experiences, and competence to find the new solutions. In this process, you have pressure and stress. You feel the heat, but you learn a lot. The heat you feel may burn you, but you become comfortable afterwards. If the heat is not comfortable, you are doing too much and take a pause to think and ask the question, what are you looking for and what is the purpose? Great leaders and successful people go through this process. If you are managing such events, questions, situations, you are among 10% of employees. 

If you want to do something extraordinary find out your possibilities.

The question is where the remaining 10% have gone? Do you know them?

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