HR Experts Talk about Employee Performance Management

The performance of an employee in an organisation is what determines the value of the employee to the organisation. This makes performance assessment a very crucial process and the key responsibility of the HR department. The performance assessment should be designed such that the efforts and achievements of the employees are recognized and everyone gets a fair appraisal, just as much as they deserve. To make this happen, enterprises need to have a system in place for effective performance assessment. However, many enterprises are not successful enough in implementing this, leading to a drop in employee engagement levels and employee morale.

61% of employees worldwide say their efforts are not recognised that the workplace.

This shows that most enterprises still have a long way to go when it comes to implementing an employee performance management system that works effectively to ensure a fair appraisal and a transparent appraisal system. Here we shall see what some of the experts have to say regarding the process of employee performance assessment.

1] Continuous feedback is the way to go

Heather Howe, Associate Director of Human Resources at Visual IQ, insists on the significance of communication as one of the pillars of a successful feedback mechanism. More often than not, it is not as much about what we say, as it is about how we say it. Communication is essential for growth of an enterprise as well as its employees and performance issues of employees should be addressed then and there instead of waiting for the annual review meeting. It is also essential for people to work as a team.

Heather says, "Continuous feedback came out of necessity for us. I partnered with one of our Senior Directors who had done continuous feedback at his previous company, so he helped me get everything set up. We’re a little behind on quarterly-reviews, but my advice is to not worry about the when, but worry about the how first. You want to make sure you have a process in place that is as structured as possible.”

Your organization can easily implement continuous feedback with the help of a performance management system as available with the new age HR Software.

2] 360 reviews can be tricky

Sophia Mills, HR Coordinator, explains how the approach of 360 reviews is not always as real or accurate as it is perceived to be. Share their is important to focus on the the possible demerits of 360 reviews approach as it has loopholes that allow for biased reviews from colleagues as well as others.

She says, " On our first review cycle, we ran into issues with 360 reviews. We let employees choose who would evaluate them, and they chose peers that they knew would give them high ratings. Even managers would give employees constructive feedback, but rate them in the highest bucket because they didn’t want to be too harsh. This gave us skewed results, so we’re rethinking our approach for the next cycle.”

However, should you really need to implement 360 degree feedback, an HR software that offers an automated performance management system will be the right tool to invest in.

3] Employee performance can be maximized through employee engagement

Davis Zinger, Global Employee Engagement Expert, mentions how employee engagement can be a key driver to enhanced employee performance levels. He insists that organisations should take the necessary steps to boost employee engagement in order to witness its positive effects on the performance of the employees. A performance management system like Digital HRMS can go a long way to make this possible.

David says, " the work landscape has changed and today performance management must recognise and respond to the flexible, dynamic, ambiguous, complex and stressful elements of performance. Add to the challenge is the increasing level of mobile workers, reaching over 1 billion this year. We want to maximize employees performance and not tick them off with the use of structured inauthentic performance appraisals that sucks the energy out of both employees and their managers."

Thankfully, today you have performance management systems that focus not just on the performance parameters, but also offer ways to make the employees feel more connected and boost employee engagement.

4] Employees should be encouraged towards personal performance focus

Michael King, Senior Director of Human Resources at Stanford, insists on how today it is very important for every individual employee to be performance oriented. Only an approach like this can make a team perform well. Mike says, "Performance occurs when you are happy doing the job you do.  Study after study shows that money does not bring happiness to life or a workplace and so you have to find joy in what you do to truly perform at your best.  Finding ways to enjoy your work are important regardless of what you do with your used cell phones.”

The new age performance management systems motivate employees to keep track of their goals and focus on improving their performance through reward based programs.

5] Taking performance reviews to the next level

Sophia Mills, HR Coordinator, mentions of performance assessment as a process that is about the entire organisation and not just the HR department alone. While HR managers need to be actively involved in shaping the process, the responsibility of its implementation is solely on the employees of the organisation.

Sophia says, “We are working on moving performance management away from being a totally HR-driven process. I want to push it back to the managers to create it. They know their teams and their expectations better than I do. Competencies like “integrity,” while a great quality to have, are too broad and should be specific to the individual teams rather than to the broader company.”

An advanced performance management system like Digital HRMS focuses on employee self assessment to enable the employees to rate themselves on various pre-defined parameters. This way, the employees feel more empowered and their self-ratings set the pace for their performance assessment. This can work wonders for employee engagement.

Looking for an effective performance management system for your enterprise? An advanced HR software like Digital HRMS is what you need. Visit www.digitalhrms.com or drop us an email on marketing@digitalhrms.com and our team will get in touch with you.

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