How To Make Your Performance Management System Future-Ready? Hear From Industry Experts

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Gone are the days of holding the performance evaluation meeting once a year and expecting the organization to thrive. These days, the process of enhancing organizational performance goes beyond annual or bi-annual feedbacks, evaluations, raises, and promotion. The ideal solution, in this case, would be taking a proactive approach to performance management. How about unraveling how performance management is doing in 2021? Where might it be headed this year and next? Is it still the king of organizational goals? Long story short- Performance management can make or break any organization because the world is moving towards ‘people-first management’. 

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As per the report published in the Harvard business review, a survey was conducted by Deloitte on PMS. It says that more than 58% of executives believe that their current performance management approach is driving nowhere, not in favor of employee engagement, nor increasing their performance. This leads to a disconnect between the organization’s vision and objectives of the performance management system. Thus, keeping performance management at the center stage is crucial to make it a seamless cog of the whole strategic perspective. 

What does a future-ready Performance Management system Look like? 

It’s as constructive as it gets. Performance management is a crucial driver for any company aiming to grow and maximize its current strategic pathways. And if you are not investing enough in the process of effective performance management, you already lag behind your competitors. The process is becoming agile in recent years as effective performance management focuses more on aligning the company’s goals and targets with employees’ OKRs (objectives and key results). This not only helps in improving employees’ performance but also helps in bringing in better business outcomes. However, doing this merely as an annual activity or quarterly will not help in achieving the result. If anything, it can lead to employees’ demotivation and can leave the process counter-intuitive. Thus, to get the most of employees’ potential while motivating each individual to thrive in the workplace, performance management needs to be a continuous conversation and not just a spot treatment happening once or twice a year.

So, have you now been wondering how to make your performance management system future-proof? If industry stalwarts are to be believed, then employee retention and workforce capability drive business success. 

  • Employee Engagement:

Employee engagement and performance go hand in hand. Thus, increasing employee engagement to have effective people management in the coming years is more than necessary. For this, JOP suggests conducting engagement surveys to gain some insight into what matters the most to the employees. This will help in multiple ways, from telling if your employees are engaged or not to providing some inspiration on how to improve the pain points. While there’s no hard and fast formula for measuring the employee’s engagement, Some factors do have proven benefits. These factors include recognition, training and development, leadership, work environment, and pay, and other benefits, to name a few. 

  • 360-degree feedback: 

To keep doing a good job, employees must know how they are performing. 360-degree feedback can be crucial to making the performance management system future-ready. It is a vibrant method for giving and receiving constructive performance feedback from their peers, reporting managers as it goes upward and downward, where everyone in the company can create a well-rounded view of performance for their peers and managers and help employees across the organization get a clearer understanding of their strengths and weaknesses.

  • Employee Recognition: 

The future of any company lies in the hands of its employees, and recognizing their efforts will make the future brighter. Thus it’s essential to acknowledge the contribution they make to the success of their team and the company overall. This should be an important factor to address in your performance management system. A performance management system (PMS) that only floats on the surface and offers no detailed employee performance review is of no value. A study found that employee recognition can improve productivity at work. Additionally, A study in Gallup found that employee recognition can result in 12.5% more productivity in comparison to no recognition received. This is why employee recognition is needed in the PMS to build a sense of security that their company values. This will also help in motivating them to continue to strive for outstanding work.

  • Transparency:

A survey by Ceridian found that 92% of the participants liked it when they were told that their work makes an impact on the business. Such employees are happier with their jobs and more likely to apply high levels of effort towards meeting business goals. A performance management system works well if authorities and responsibilities are clear among all levels of employees. Apart from this, job expectations and appraisals should also be very clear. This channels the communication among employees and helps them contribute more to the organization’s goals. 

  • Goal Alignment and Setting: 

Setting specific goals for the employees and aligning them with the company’s goals and objectives results in higher performance than when no goals are specified and set. This makes goal setting and aligning even more crucial components in making your performance management system future-ready. Now, one thing to consider here is that goals should be flexible and provide room for improvement. Experts believe that growth-oriented organizations change their goals according to the changing business scenario and team structure.

  • Promote employee-centric culture: 

Keeping your Performance management system promoting employee-centric culture will help your organization meet even in the changing business environment. Always remember, your Performance management system doesn’t act as cement to fill in the gaps; rather, it’s more like a barometer of what’s working for your company and what is not (in terms of training, compensation, management, working culture, and processes). Apart from quarterly performance reviews, there should be proper coordination and clarity in the everyday assignments and the long-term value it adds. 

Final Take: 

The year 2020-21 has also forced organizations to bring employee wellbeing into the limelight. This is why performance enhancement tools focus more on developing a robust performance management system that boosts agility on all levels of the organization. Such tools provide a continuous approach to PMS to provide ample support to employee wellbeing to build them into organizational goals and objectives. If done correctly, performance management can prove to be the most powerful and vibrant tool to allow managers to get the most out of their team. 

Intrigued by how JOP can support your company to achieve flawless execution? Schedule a demo today.

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Gaurav Sabharwal

CEO of JOP

Gaurav is the CEO of JOP (Joy of Performing), an OKR and high-performance enabling platform. With almost two decades of experience in building businesses, he knows what it takes to enable high performance within a team and engage them in the business. He supports organizations globally by becoming their growth partner and helping them build high-performing teams by tackling issues like lack of focus, unclear goals, unaligned teams, lack of funding, no continuous improvement framework, etc. He is a Certified OKR Coach and loves to share helpful resources and address common organizational challenges to help drive team performance. Read More

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