December 2022 - RSI Concepts - Top IT Solution Provider Company in Dubai, UAE

December 25, 2022

The Key Elements of Efficient Software Development Project Management

The present day markets are very dynamic and heavily relying on the digital and IT technologies. A normal business environment have multiple software and IT solutions which help the employees to perform their day to day tasks and improve the organization’s operational efficiency. There are two major categories of the software that businesses use, one is COTS or commercial off-the-shelf solutions and the second is customized software. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE we have witnessed that the COTS are slowly fading, businesses are more aggressively adopting to customized, tailor-made or bespoke software solutions. The biggest advantage of a custom software development project is that it allow businesses full control over the features, functionalities, UI (user interface), UX (user experience), and each and every bit of the software. On top of that the custom software development also offer full ownership rights to the business who will be using it. These are the reasons the custom software development is gaining huge momentum all around the world.

When it comes to custom software development the initial cost is relatively high however, the custom software solutions offer much higher ROIs in the long term. Anyway, the custom software development is a time and effort consuming project. It is important that a business execute the custom software development project with great accuracy and efficiency. The final outcome of the custom software development project could affect employees/users for years. Which is why it is important to follow the best practices to ensure an efficient software development project management. Unlike any other industry the project management in software development also follows the same fundamental principles. However, for any customized software development project the project manager must have to carry out an intense cost-benefits analysis along with the optimization and timeline problems that can reduce the value of the project for the business. In this blog we will list key elements of efficient software development project management which will help our audience improve the outcome of their projects.

Why Software Development Project Management is Important

The project managers are skilled professional who got expertise in getting something done efficiently and effectively. Usually the project managers are given a goal to achieve something from others and they do the research, make plans, select teams, and execute the development phase in timely manner. Usually the project management referred to a framework and set of tools or techniques to ensure the project’s outcome matches with the project goals. These frameworks, techniques and tools enable managers to monitor everything from the day one to the final delivery and while monitoring everything and keeping everything on track and aligned with the final goals. For any custom software development project there is always a goal and a timeline. The project managers oversee the entire process, allocate sufficient resources both human and non-human resources to make sure the project is completed in the given timelines and budget limitations. The efficient software development project management ensures the final outcome on-time and within the budget while justifying the value it is adding to organization against the cost, time and resources it took to build the software product.

Efficient Software Development Project Management: Tasks of a Project Manager

The project manager for software development project or the matter of fact is for any project is responsible for effectively executing each step of the project development cycle while ensuring all the milestones and goals are achieved till completion and final testing phase. The project manager closely monitor each phase of the software development cycle and make sure that the maximum efficiency is achieved. The project manager is also responsible for ensuring smooth and easy communication between the teams and the stakeholders while allocating resources, assigning tasks and managing timelines to achieve each milestone. This will ensure the maximum user satisfaction. Here are some key tasks that a project manager is responsible for efficient software development project management:

Project Scope: The software development project scope or the scope of the work is a technical document that enlists all features and functionalities of the software application. It is basically a roadmap or blueprint of the final outcome and should be done with mutual understanding with the project manager and the customer/users of the software application.
Project Estimation: The project estimation is the most important task that a project manager should do. The project estimation based on three projections, the estimated time to complete it, an estimation of the cost and estimations of the efforts that are required to complete the project.
Scheduling:After the project estimation the next step is to assign the required resources including both human and non-human resources that are required to smoothly execute the project. The resource optimization is a key to save cost.
Staffing and Resource Allocation:This step involves the staff planning and building teams to work on the software development project. It is important to take feedback from the staff and understand their current workload and engagement in other projects and make a project plan.
Risk Evaluation and Management:The risk evaluation is done on the bases of any unexpected scenarios and obstacles that the project manager or team could face during the project execution and make efficient plans to minimize the risks and eliminate the obstacles.
Miscellaneous:The project manager also have to make other plans and strategies which are based on the project nature and demands such as quality assurance and testing, software deployment and implementation plans, integration and collaboration with other teams, etc.

The project manager have to be very vigilant and proactive to ensure the risks are minimized, the obstacles and unexpected scenarios are handled successfully and the final objectives are achieved. Above mentioned tasks can help project managers improve the efficiency of the software development project.

Efficient Software Development Project Management: Improve Efficiency

A project manager is not just an ordinary person-in-charge, in fact he/she has to be a key team player, caption and leader of the team. The project manager can greatly influence the performance of the team and help businesses achieve their goals. The project managers also keep the team satisfied by carefully listening to them, leading and guiding them and solving problems down the road. Here are some key elements of effective software development project management which can help project managers to maximize the outcome of the project:

Strong Leadership: Every manager have leadership skills, but a strong leadership attitude will make the difference. A software development project manager leads their team, guide them, coach them, listen to them and solve their problems to maximize their success.
Performance Management:Technically every team member is aware of their role and what is to be done at their end, however, setting up realistic goals, measurement metrics and deriving a mechanisms to integrate bidirectional feedback can significantly enhance a team’s performance.
Communication: The project manager should focus on the communication. Because a strong communication help them bonding with their team and build a relationship which help them communicating technical and non-technical needs to the team and help them solving problems.
Effective Time Management:The time management is not just identifying the milestones and setting up dates and making project plans. In fact the effective time management is making sure all teammates are on track and will complete their tasks on time by solving their problems and guiding them throughout the development phase.
Task Mapping:The project manager should be able to see the project in macro level and then breaking it down to individual tasks, and milestones and should be able to map these tasks with the bigger picture to allow team members understand their role and the impact of their tasks on the overall progress or success of the software development project.
Critical Thinking/Crisis Management:A project manager should be a critical thinker, usually the project manager is the first responder to the crises, problems, obstacles, bottlenecks and other show stoppers, which demand critical thinking and superior problem solving skills and abilities.

The project manager is responsible for successful software development project execution. All of the above mentioned abilities require a strong and experienced person with strong communication and interpersonal skills and a proactive attitude which help improving the efficiency and efficacy of the custom software development project management and execution process.

Efficient Software Development Project Management: Execution Methodologies

The custom software development project execution methodologies is a set of tools, techniques and principles which provide a complete framework to manage, monitor and deliver a software project. The main objectives of implementing a project management methodology is to improve efficiency, collaboration and quality of the outcome. There are so many different software development project management methodologies, each have its own strength and weakness, for example, some of the project execution methodologies work well with certain industries or project types while they are completely inefficient for certain industries and so on. Here are the most commonly used software development project management and execution methodologies:

Waterfall: The waterfall method is one of the simplest project management and execution method. It is the most linear method and the project development is done in phases, but you will only move to next phase if the previous phase is completed. It is great for highly structured projects, but the waterfall method is also popular in software development projects as well.
Scrum:The scrum method is majorly used as two-week cycles including a short daily meeting. The daily meeting is also referred to as ‘daily scrum’ and the meeting is headed by a ‘scrum master’. The scrum method is effective only with a team of not more than 10 members. The scrum is very popular in custom software development project management in Dubai and all around UAE.
Agile:The agile project management method is used where the timeline is right or you want to complete the project as quickly as possible, even before the timeline. The agile is highly collaborative, evolutionary, adaptive and self-organize method of project development. It offers great flexibility and open to changes if these changes can improve the performance and progress.
CPM: The CPM or critical path method requires to build a model of the project which includes all tasks, duration of each task, dependencies, risks and liabilities, and clear milestones and then identifying the longest sequences of activities to complete the project. It is suitable for small and medium size projects as it is hard to keep track of large sets of activities under this framework.
CCPM: The CCPM or critical chain project management method majorly focus on the resources that are required to develop and complete the project. It is a very flexible approach to project management and it doesn’t emphasize much on tasks and schedules. It is equally effective for any size of project and improve resource planning and management.
Kanban Method: The kanban project management and execution method allow managers to put all the workflows, tasks and progress visually on a board or publishing platform where all employees can access and view it. The visual planning boards are great to motivate teams and improve performance. It equally effective in manufacturing and software development projects.
Extreme Programming: The extreme programing method or XP is another branch of agile project management. However, it has shorter software development cycles with multiple releases. The project management take the course of customer requirements and as the requirements changes the project plan and timeline also get changed. It is suitable when the user doesn’t know the full requirements or doesn’t have a clear goal or keep changing requirements more frequently.
Lean Method: The lean project development method is used to reduce the waste in a project execution process to maximize the outcome or deliver maximum value. It is widely used for rapid product deliver in software development projects while removing the waste of processes on continuous bases. Equally suitable for software development and manufacturing projects.
PMBOK:The PMBOK or project management body of knowledge is basically a great framework which allow project managers to use the guidelines and definition of project planning, execution, schedules, monitoring and controlling. The framework dictates various pre-defined stages of a project which makes management easier in custom software development projects.
Six Sigma:The six sigma is a very unusual method of custom software development project management and execution as it majorly focus on what is not working in the project which includes quality of the outcome, progress of the team and the evaluation of the team members. It is only effective at large scale projects where a few hundred to a few thousand employees are involved. This most software development teams avoid this method.

These are widely used project management and execution methodologies. You can easily compare different methods and decide which custom software development project management and execution methodology can fulfill your needs.

Efficient Software Development Project Management: Project Management Stages

The project manager should improve the software development lifecycle (SDLC). Every project manager should have a solid SDLC strategy in order to ensure the efficiency and productivity in the custom software development project. The software development life cycle means breaking down the software development in multiple phases. The SDLC or software development life cycle includes planning, designing & developing or coding, testing, and deploying phases. This help project managers set milestones for all stages and give them more control and grip over the custom software development process. The efficient software development project management usually utilize a simple SDLC templates which involves following generic stages or phases:

Project Initiation:The project initiation phase is the very first step of developing a software or application. In this stage the project manager transform an abstract idea of the project in actionable and meaningful goals. The goals and objectives of a custom software development project will dictate the course of the next stages. The project manager can initiate the project charter which is usually a document that gives them authority to utilize organization’s resources for the mentioned project and gives it a legitimate status as a project. The charter document includes, project goals, objectives, timelines, deliverables, budget, limitations and liabilities and a project feasibility study. The project manager also creates a stakeholders’ register which includes all team members or project contributors that might be needed in future to execute the project.
Project Planning:The project planning stage is the most crucial stage it involves identifying all the technical requirements with in-depth explanation and deliverables. The custom software development project management planning stage also includes project schedule and development of communication mechanisms to ensure maximum communication between the stakeholders. This stage can also include collecting feedback from the stakeholders and research about the project and its technical aspects.
Project Execution:The custom software development project execution is a stage where all the actual development, designing of the software and programing is done. This stage accomplishes all the task and activities that are highlighted in the project plans along with the deliverables. The effective communication is crucial at this stage it will ensure the quality of the outcome. The project manager should ensure the communication between all stakeholders and team members.
Project Monitoring: The project monitoring is not a simple phase or stage of custom software development project but in fact it is a continuous process that enable project managers to track, monitor, manage and control the performance and progress of the team members at all stages. It involves developing the KPIs (key performance indicators) and CSFs (critical success factors). The project manager should also track cost of the project and resources consumed by it to further ensure the long term sustainability to meet the budget and timeline requirements.
Project Closure:The project closure is the last stage of the custom software development project management process. It includes deployment of the software application in the production environment and delivering or handing over to the end users. The project manager should also have to prepare a complete report that includes the performance of the team and complete review of the entire project and activities from start to finish. This report can be very helpful for future reference and can help improving the project management process.

A well organized and structured strategy to execute a software development project can save a lot of efforts, resources and risks. The communication and tracking performance is a key to optimize the custom software development project’s cost. These five stages are a generic template to work with. The project managers can also create more stages or sub-stages to further break down the project and set milestones for each stage and sub-stage to further increase the performance and efficiency.

Efficient Software Development Project Management: Project Manager

The efficient software development project management is entirely based on the competencies, capabilities and skills of the project manager. The project manager for a project is the like a pillar, which should be able to hold the entire building on it. A weak project manager will cause several problems and result in poor project execution. It is crucial to have a highly skilled and efficient project manager. Here are some key traits that a successful manager have:

Leadership:The strong leadership capabilities are must for a successful project manager. The project manager should have to lead the team which comprises of different individuals from different backgrounds and technical skills. That is why a strong leadership is a must to have trait for a successful project manager in order to make everyone deliver their best in the project.
Mentorship: A mentor is someone to whom you look up to. A project manager should not only be a great leader but a great mentor who can motivate its team and keep them at high spirit to ensure everyone performs at their best. The encouragement and understanding plays crucial role in improving team members’ morale and keeping them motivated.
Documentation:The documentation is a key to effective software development project management. The project manager is entirely responsible for preparing various documents which will have huge influence over the team performance and the final outcome of the project such as project charter, scope, plans, feasibility reports and final documentation. So, the project manager should have strong documentation skills to avoid any ambiguity or confusion during the process.
Performance Management: The performance management is extremely important. The project manager should have comprehensive knowledge and experience of project performance management. This will help them drive KPIs, CSFs and other monitoring metrics to monitor and improve the performance of the team members which is absolutely essential in achieving goals and objectives of the project.
Communication: Communication is like the blood in the body, without effective communication no business can perform well. For custom software development project management the project manager should have excellent communication and interpersonal skills to make sure everyone is aligned with the goals and objectives. It also help reducing the risks, preventing obstacles and solving problems during the process.

Traditionally businesses only appoint one project manager to a project but due to complexity and size of the project there could be multiple project managers too. In such situation there should always be a leading project manager to whom all other project managers should report. There should be hierarchal structure between different project manages to ensure efficient software development project execution.

Conclusion

In the modern work environment business have very complex IT infrastructure and they require a tons of IT resources, various different software and systems, and business tools to perform their day to day tasks and to maximize the operational efficiency. The operational efficiency and performance are a key to long term sustainable success and growth. The technology world evolves very rapidly, the software and systems keep changing and upgrading, the markets are changing and the customer needs are growing. In such circumstances the need of a new software solution is very obvious, in fact business keep upgrading and changing their software after a few years in order to ensure maximum efficiency and productivity. Furthermore the technology is also evolving on a greater pace which also compel businesses to adopt to modern and more innovative software which can help them achieving their organizational goals and strategic objectives. The custom software development industry is growing at a rapid pace, especially in Dubai and all around the UAE the businesses are proactive seeking custom software solutions due to its various perks and higher ROIs.

When a new demand arise a business will seek to develop a new customized software solution. Either they will utilize their internal resources or either they will contact a software development agency in Dubai such as RSI Concepts , to assist them with their customized software needs. The project management plays a crucial role in success or failure of a custom software development project. In this blog we have covered the key elements of efficient software development project management. If you want to learn more about the subject of if you want us to help you developing a new highly cost-efficiency and tailor-made software solution for your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

Check out this: Effective Ways to Manage Customers Queue and Service Delays

December 23, 2022December 23, 2022

5 Ways to Manage your Customer Service Queues

Businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are very active in adopting to modern solutions and leveraging technology to improve their operational performance. Tough competition and abundance of options available to customers can have huge impact over businesses’ approach and strategy. For service sector the biggest challenge is extended waiting time long customer service queues. Understanding the queues and the customers is absolutely crucial for a service-based business. The poorly managed queues and long wait time not only impact the customers but it also have huge impact on the employee performance. Which in return cause double effect and ruin customer experience. In today’s modern world, the customers will never have a second thought before moving to another service provider. Especially in Dubai or anywhere else in UAE where the customers usually have a lot of options available in the same area they will usually not give you a second chance. That is why managing queues and improving customer experience is crucial for a business’s success.

Regardless of industry, the long waiting time and customer service queues can have devastating effects on your repute and brand image, no matter how large or small your business is, no matter how cost-efficient your products/services are, if your customers are leaving unhappy, you can never sustain growth and success. The unhappy customers will talk to other people about their bad experience which will ruin your brand’s image, furthermore your marketing campaigns will become costly and the return will become smaller, which will rise the cost of onboarding a single customer. Eventually it could be catastrophic for your business. In this blog we will discuss how businesses can easily manage their queuing and reduce customer wait time using a smart queue management system solution. The queue management system will also help you improving your customers’ waiting experience and will help you improve your brand image and customer satisfaction. The queue management system have offers many perks which can help a business to monitor and improve the performance of their service centers.

1. Automate Customer Flow

The automation drives efficiency in any system. Similarly the automation of customer flow with a queue management system improve the queuing process and make it more efficient. Traditionally the customers wait in long waiting lines, which cause stress and several other problems. The customers tend to complain a lot about manual queues. The queue management system is a digital tool which can automate the customer flow by allowing them to use automated customer signup and flow processes. The customers can utilize the interactive self-service ticket dispensing kiosk to sign-up. The interactive self-service ticket dispensing kiosk can also collect basic information if needed such as what service the customer is interested in, or customer identification can be done at this stage, etc. Such information help the queue management system to implement the company policy and priority protocols if needed. Furthermore the queue management system sing-up the customers for a virtual queue, which means they don’t have to wait in physical customer service queues, in fact the can relax in the waiting areas and wait comfortably. This help improving customer experience and increase their satisfaction.

2. Reduce Customer Wait Time

The customer wait time is the single most important metric in the queuing systems. The customer wait time have significant impact on customer’s mind, experience and service quality. Longer wait time cause stress and frustration and also cause in increase in employee workload. The queue management system is based on an AI (artificial intelligence) based highly efficiency and smart software application which can collect business intelligence data and it is also capable of analyzing the data in real-time. This ability also allow the queue management software to take decisions in real-time which improve the customer experience and help reducing the average customer wait time which in return cause reduction in customer service queues. The queue management system can analyze the historic data of the system and it can accurately estimate the customer wait time. Which help it to take customer through the route where they have to wait less. The automation plays very well here, due to automation the employees are highly focused on the service delivery which expedite the customer flow and the highly managed queues help reducing the customer wait time.

The biggest problem with manual or poorly managed queues is the longer wait time. In traditional queuing management the customers will have to wait in the physical lines, which itself cause a lot of stress, furthermore there are line jumpers, and some customers who think other are prioritized by the staff and there are several other issues which cause frequent disputes. This require businesses to deploy more employees and it also keep the customer service agents engaged in non-productive activities such as managing the queues, answering to customers’ quires and solving disputes, etc. All this hustle slow down the customer flow, during the peak hours the staff can easily get overwhelmed which further deteriorate their efficiency and result in extended wait time for the customers which means longer customer service queues. The digital queue management system not only prevent all these problems but it also help speeding up customer flow and reducing wait time by automatically routing customers to the fastest path, reducing the customer stress and workload of the employee which also result in quicker service delivery.

3. Prioritize Different Customer Groups

Another important thing to consider while managing queues is to organize and arrange different customer groups on the bases of their priority. In any service center a business usually offers multiple services, furthermore the businesses also have different policies and protocols for different types of customers or customer groups. For example in the banking sector the corporate customers will have different services than the individual customers, same as the saving account is different from the current account, etc. All these different services and different customer groups need to be organized and treated differently, which can cause issues and disrupt customer flow. Therefore the queue management system software offers an intuitive administrative dashboard which allow the businesses to configure all these protocols and perimeters. Thus the queue management system can automatically segregate different audience groups and take them through their designated route. Furthermore there are customers with special needs, there could be a different process for the elderly customers, and the VIP or premium customers need different level of attention and services, all this can be managed automatically with the digital queue management system which definitely reduce customer wait time and improve their experience.

4. Improve Employee Efficiency

Employee efficiency plays crucial role in customer experience and customer flow. No matter how effective your queuing strategy is, if your employees are not working at a good efficiency then the customer experience and satisfaction goals can’t be achieved. There are several factors that impact employee performance, especially during the peak hours, when the customer influx is high, the poor queue management cause a lot of problems which keep the employee distracted from their primary tasks. The crowd formation and complaining customers can greatly reduce the efficiency of the employees. The digital queue management system can significantly boost the employee efficiency by reducing their efforts and automating several processes of the customer journey. Furthermore the queue management system can be integrated with internal databases and other enterprise tools which enables it to help service agents in pre-service and post-service activities to reduce their efforts. The queue management system can automatically reroute customers to less busy counters to maximize the customer flow and to balance the employee workload. It also keep track of various performance metrics and employee KPIs, which is also helpful in improving employee efficiency and productivity.

5. Virtual Queuing and Online Booking

The virtual queuing is another remarkable feature of a modern digital queue management system. The virtual queuing allows businesses to integrate several remote channels in their queuing processes and help them further reduce the customer wait time. In fact the virtual queuing can literally reduce the wait time to none. The virtual queuing allow customers to sign-up virtually via remote channels and mediums such as Email, SMS, Queue Management System Smartphone Apps, QR Code, Website, Customer Portals, WhatsApp, etc. All these channels offer freedom and flexibility to the customer which can greatly enhance customer experience. The virtual queuing allow customers to sign-up without physically being present at the business and allow them to arrive only when their turn came, hence they can get immediately served and they don’t have to wait. The online booking feature allow customers and visitors to utilize an online channel such as website, customer portal or queue management system mobile apps to book a time slot for their visit. It also provide them previous queuing data, current status and expected future footfall which help them to book the most suitable slot with less expectancy of delays. These features can greatly reduce the customer service queues and help improving customer experience.

Conclusion

The customer service queues can be a great challenge for service-based industry. The businesses who are in service industry they have to deal with queues at all customer facing channels, especially when it comes to customer service centers this challenge become a serious liability. Poor queue management or longer customer wait time can not only make your customers unhappy but it can completely ruin your business’s reputation and image. According to several studies the unhappy and unsatisfied customers are most likely to never return to the same business, on top of that the unhappy customers tend to share their bad experiences with other people which could be even more damaging to the business. That is why a great queuing strategy is needed. A queue management system is a very powerful tool it help businesses effectively implement their queuing strategy and it also help them to make changes in the processes. The queue management system can completely automate the customer journey, queuing process, customer routing, and customer flow which can greatly increase the efficiency and efficacy of the process.

Furthermore the queue management systems are a great source of collecting valuable business intelligence data. It can also help businesses significantly improving employee performance and improve the resource management of the business. In fact a queue management system can reduce the number of employees by half to handle same customer footfall. Which in itself is a very significant for long term strategy and profitability. RSI Concepts is a leading queue management system provider in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn anything about the subject or if you want our help to setup a highly cost-efficient and customized queue management system to boost the performance and quality of your service center, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

Check out this: Choosing a Performance Management System A Buyer’s Guide

December 22, 2022

The St. Regis Saadiyat Island Resort Abu Dhabi Acquires RSI Mobile Charging Lockers

The St. Regis Saadiyat Island Resort Abu Dhabi is a luxurious 5 star hotel which offers unmatched services and is located at a very captivating location with beach front. It is located at a beautiful natural island at the Arabian Gulf and offer travelers a great chance to relax and explore the wonderful nature of the area or reach the city center in just 20 minutes. The St. Regis Saadiyat Island Resort is well known for its unique cuisine and tons of other services. The Abu Dhabi is a hotspot for the local and international travelers and is said to be the financial hub of the region as well. There are so many other hotels and resorts which makes the market very competitive however, even in such a competitive market the St. Regis Saadiyat Hotel Island Resort made a reputation and established a well-known brand over the time. It is known for its unmatched taste, comforting experience and a huge variety of other lifestyle activities. The management is eager to evolve guest experience by adding innovative services and leveraging the high-tech solutions.

Recently the St. Regis Saadiyat Island Resort management decided to offer guests and visitors a mobile charging solution. That was because more and more guests were asking for power outlet or charger for their phones. As we know the smartphones have become more powerful than ever before. The brighter the smartphone screens get the more battery they consumed and above all the average usage of smartphone has also increased. This means that the average smartphone battery lasts less and we need chargers more frequently. Especially if someone is traveling from overseas, the might have already consumed most of their battery, so the first thing that comes to people’s mind is to immediately get a charger so they can remain in touch with their family, work and friends, etc. That is why the St. Regis Saadiyat Island Resort decided to provide its guests and visitors with a mobile phone charging station. Since these mobile charging stations are placed in public places, they also required some mechanisms to protect the user’s phones.

RSI Concepts is a leading mobile charging station provider in Dubai, UAE. We offer a variety of different products along with customized solutions. The St. Regis Saadiyat Island Resort’s requirements were pretty straight forward, we have offered them a couple of base-models along with options for customization as well. The management had decided to go with our standard 8 compartment multi-charge mobile charging station with digital passcode enabled lockers. The charging station is designed at a strong frame with elegant design and nifty finishing. The digital passcode makes it easier for any ordinary user to put their phone and lock the compartment in few simple steps which doesn’t take more than 20 seconds. The charging compartment is compatible with all smartphones (99%) with Micro USB, C-Type and Lightning cables available. The power management circuit is built on modern smart technologies which is capable of delivering high power for the compatible devices and support a multitude of charging protocols which are common among modern smartphones from Samsung, Huawei, Apple, Oppo, Lenovo, LG, Sony, and other popular brands.

Here are the remarks of our sales manager, Ms. Maheen Waheed who was assigned for this project:

“The St. Regis Saadiyat Resort Island, Abu Dhabi is a well-reputed name, the team is highly professional and the management is very supportive. We have proposed to them some of our finest models with great functional and esthetic features. The design was loved by the management and the features were proven to be very satisfactory. It was a great experience dealing with the team.”

Indeed the customer satisfaction is our top priority. Thanks to our experienced design team and technical department which enabled us to deliver such great products. We always support our customers regardless of their needs that is why we have established a great reputation in customized solutions in UAE. We are very happy to know that the customer was satisfy with our 8 compartment mobile charging station with digital lockers and we will look forward to support St. Regis Saadiyat Island Resort with their future needs.

Check out this: RSI Concepts Designed the BMW iVision Circular Exhibition Stand for Dubai Design Week

December 21, 2022

Effective Ways to Manage Customers Queue and Service Delays

In the modern day and age the customer behavior have changed a lot, now a days customers tend to consider experience more important than ever before. In fact there are several studies and researches conducted all across the world which suggest that a majority of the customer is willing to pay extra if they are assured they will get a better experience. This customer behavior compelled businesses to seriously think about the ways they are offering services to the customers. The service industry in Dubai and all around the UAE is a very competitive market. There are so many options available to the customers which also lead to high market standards and high customer expectations. This means that the business will have to beat the competition as well as they will have to meet and exceed the customers’ expectations. The biggest challenge any business faces is long customer queues and unwanted service delays. These are the things that can ruin the customer experience and make them very unhappy.

Unhappy customers tend to stop doing business with the brand and on top of that such customers also share their negative experience with their friends, colleagues and in social media which could be extremely bad for a business reputation and brand image. According to several studies if a customer is happy with a business they tend to share their positive feedback to up to 9 persons, if they are unhappy they tend to tell up to 15. Which means you can lost 15 possible prospects and the damage done to the brand image is topping on the cake.Businesses often don’t realize the importance of words of mouth, most of the businesses think that is a thing of past, however, that is not the case, in fact in the modern day and age the word of mouth have become even more impact full, thanks to the social media and online channels, the impact of a positive or negative review/comment about the business can have much stronger impact on the business’s reputation than anticipated. That is why business adopt various modern technologies to improve their customer experience and to increase customer happiness. The queue management system is one of those and it is very helpful in dealing with the modern problems.

What is the Most Effective way to Manage Customer Queue and Service Delays?

The customer queues, service delays and long waiting times are not new problems, in fact in the present day these problems become a more difficult challenge. So, businesses are using several methods and strategies to deal with these problems in the past. We have all witnessed the incredible development in technology and communication in the past two decade. The businesses and organizations have also adopted to modernized IT infrastructure and implemented several technologies over the time. The service based industry was proven to be more innovative and creative. The service sector have introduced several new customer relationship management technologies in the past two decades. These technologies have completely transform the market. When it comes to queue management and customer experience at service centers, we have noticed that most of the business are still relying on relatively older technologies, or one can say the innovation and creativity was relatively slower in this particular area. However, things are changing rapidly and now more and more businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are embracing modern technologies based solution for their queuing needs.

The digital queue management systems have completely taken over the market like a storm. We have witnessed very rapid adaptation all across the market in last decade and now businesses are more emphasizing on their queuing strategies. Because the queuing experience is the most influencing factor on overall customer experience at the branch and it can significantly impact the service delivery process and customer satisfaction. A digital queue management system have proven to be the most effective way to manage customer queues and to prevent unwanted service delays. It because its ability to automate several customer journey processes and useful features for service agents which also help them speed up the service delivery process. Furthermore a modern queue management system comes with various other features that increase customer engagement, reduce their waiting stress, and improve their experience. The digital queue management system also comes with a powerful software which can be integrated with other enterprise tools, systems and central information center which enable businesses to include several innovative features to improve the system efficiency and efficacy.

When it comes to acquiring a queue management system there are tons of different options available in the market which could make it very confusing for the managers and decision makers to choose the right queuing solution. Here are some features of a modern queue management system which will help you effectively managing customer queues and the service delays.

Features of Queue Management System

In Dubai and all around the UAE there are several companies who are offering queue management systems with different labels and branding. There are vendors who are also offering customized queue management system to meet your exclusive needs. No matter which solution or vendor you choose, here is a list of some most important features and advantages of a queue management system that you should consider while selecting a right queue management system for your business.

Features to Automate Customer Sign-Up Process

Traditionally the customer signup process is the first part of customer interaction at your service centers. It should be welcoming, simpler and shorter. A modern queue management system offers a variety of sign-up methods, the most commonly used methods is a use of interactive kiosk. This interactive kiosk dispense tickets and it can also capture basic information which help queue management system improve the customer flow. The queue management system sign-up customers and visitors for the virtual queues, which allow them to wait freely and comfortably in the wait areas, lobbies and anywhere they want, hence the customers and visitors don’t have to stand in physical lines. Since everyone get their ticket number there is no dispute or complaint by the customers. Everyone knows the customer flow is managed by the automated software system so no one complaint about staff favoritism, line jumpers, delays in their queues, etc. Furthermore the interactive ticket dispensing kiosk also allow businesses to integrate various software and hardware accessories to capture customer information such as Emirates ID card reader, passport scanner, Barcode/QR Code reader, RFID, etc. which makes it easier and more convenient for customers to provide their information.

Features to Increase Customer Engagement

Customer engagement is very important in order to improve their experience. The human brain works in a strange way, when we stressed, frustrated, unhappy, bored, or waiting the brain perceives the time is passing slower. This phenomenon is applicable to the customer waiting time at the service centers. When customers are waiting in the waiting area, there is not much activity and they are bound to sit there they tend to feel the wait time is longer, this is called the perceived wait time. The perceived wait time is always higher than the actual wait time in traditional waiting environments. However, a queue management system can help reducing it significantly. The queue management system collects historical data including both system usage and analytical data which enables it to estimate the wait time on the bases of historical and analytical data. The queue management system can print the estimated wait time on the ticket, which can be a great relief for the customers. As no knowledge of total wait time also add up to the customer’s stress.

Furthermore the queue management system also offer large displays or digital signage. These digital signage are used to display the queuing information. They show what is happening inside the branch and what are the active tickets and counters. It also make announcements of the upcoming ticket and their respective counter and it can also use to make announcements. The digital signage module is integrated within the queue management system as a simple add-on or in-built feature. It not only display the queuing information but it can also display multimedia content. The multimedia content can be adverts, information about the processes, company achievements or it can run media for entertainment. These digital signage are placed on strategic position to maximize the visibility for the customers and visitors in the waiting area, moreover more than one digital signage can be used if needed. There is multi-lingual audio announcement system which also keep distracting customers from the waiting and help reducing the stress of the waiting. These features increase customer engagement and make their waiting experience more comfortable and relaxing.

Features to Automatically Categorize Customers and Automatically Control Customer Flow

The customer categorization is an important part of any queuing environment. Businesses always have different policies for different user groups. For example, if take an example of a public office, there might be people coming with some disability, there might be expecting mothers, there might be senior citizens, there might be VIP customers or premium customers, etc. All these scenarios require different response and expect different experience from the organization. Furthermore a business offers a variety of services usually different counters offer different set of services for example, if we take an example of a bank account there is a counter which offer services to the individual customers, another is to offer services to corporate customers, maybe another counter for premium customers and so on. This requires the queue management system to be able to identify and categorize customers in different categories and groups. Which can be done easily by taking customer’s inputs during the sign-up process and the queue management system software can perfectly implement the queuing policy automatically.

Features to Support Popular Queuing Methods

Now a day’s all modern queue management systems support almost all queuing methods. There was a time when the vendors were designing different queue management system for different queuing methods, however, that is not the case. Now a day’s all modern queue management systems come with an administrative control panel which allow businesses to control every aspect of the queuing including the queuing methods. Here are some commonly used queuing methods:

FIFO: The FIFO stands for First in First out, this queuing method means that the customers who arrived first will be served first. The customers who arrived later will have to wait longer as per their turn based on their arrival.
Priority Queues: The priority queues are not for all industries usually these queuing models are used by special industries where the longer wait time could have negative impact such as healthcare, where the customers/patients are prioritized on the bases of the severity of their health condition.
SPT: The SPT stands for Shortest Processing Time, this method is usually used by the businesses who have different processing times for different customer needs. The queue management system automatically controls the customer flow to prevent crowd formation.
SIRO: The SIRO stands for Service in Random Order, in this method the customers are selected randomly from the queue. This method is not liked by most of the customers and it could cause additional problems for the service staff as well.

Different queuing methods are followed by different industry sectors. However, now a day’s businesses are using mixed or hybrid queuing methods as well. The queue management system allow businesses to configure the customer flow policies easily which allow them to implement a particular queuing method at any time as per the needs.

Features to Support Virtual Queuing

Virtual queuing is not a new form of queuing but it recently gain huge popularity all across the UAE. The biggest advantage of virtual queuing is that it can significantly reduce the wait time, in fact it can reduce it to literally none. This is because the customers are allowed to sign-up remotely. The customers are not required to be physically present at the business to sign-up for the queue. The virtual queuing offers a variety of very convenient channels to let customers and visitors sign-up for the queues and it issues them virtual tickets or e-tickets. The customers can sign-up remotely by using any supportive channel such as SMS, Call, Email, Online Booking, Website, Queue Management System Mobile Apps, WhatsApp, Customer Portals, QR Codes, etc. All these channels are easy to access and allow customers to plan their visit in a way that they arrived only when their turn comes. This way they don’t even have to spend any time in the waiting areas, they will instantly get served when they will arrive. Furthermore the virtual queuing also enable businesses to enable a direct communication channels between the service agent and the customer and it can provide live queuing information through the supportive channels along with reminders and alerts which can significantly enhance customer experience.

Features to Boost Employee Performance and Productivity

A queue management system itself is a great support for the employees and service agents. Manual queue management requires a lot of resources, it have several problems and it can keep both customers and employees stressed all the time. When queues are management manually the employees will have to spend a lot time and effort on unnecessary tasks such as regulating the queues, listening to customer’s complaints, resolving disputes, etc. Which keep them distracted from their primary tasks and reduce their performance and productivity. A queue management system manages all these things automatically thence the employees can focus on their primary tasks. Furthermore the queue management system also controls the customer flow automatically which ensures every employee works under a balanced workload which also improve employee performance and productivity. The queue management system can also support service agents in pre-service and post-service tasks which also help improving their performance. The queue management system can monitor and track various employee KPIs which help the management in resource management and training programs which eventually boost employee performance.

Features to Integrate with Third-Party Tools and Other Databases

This is one of the most important feature of a queue management system in the modern highly integrated business environments. The system integration ability allow queue management system to push or pull data from the connected system or database. Usually the queue management system is integrated with the customer database which help the businesses to identify the customers during the sign-up process and it also help businesses to capture the customer feedback after service delivery. The service agents will have to perform several pre-service and post-service tasks, which usually require them to pull information from certain data repositories and increase their readiness for the service delivery. A queue management system can also help if it is integrated with the relevant systems, similarly for the post-service activities the queue management system can save a lot of time and efforts which not only improve employee efficiency but it also help reducing the service delivery time and reduce service delays. The queue management system can also capture a wealth of analytical and performance data which can be synchronized with other enterprise tools and systems and help management in various decision making tasks.

Ability to Capture Valuable Business Intelligence Data

The modern business strategies are heavily relying on data inputs and feeds. A queue management system software is a very powerful tool, it can capture the analytical and system usage data from each and every step of the customer journey. Which help the management acquire a deeper understanding of the customer journey, it helps them identifying the bottlenecks and hurdles in the customer journey and provide them business intelligence data to take more informed decision to sort out those problems. A queue management system is not just a queuing management tool in fact it is a complete digital transformation package for a service center. The queue management system can also capture customer feedback with its in-built feedback tool or it can also be integrated with the third-party customer feedback systems. This allow businesses to capture more user information along with their feedback which can significantly improve the quality of the feedback data.

The queue management system also capture several employee KPIs and other performance data which help management in resource planning, designing employee development and training programs and can be used for other HR activities. The business intelligence data captured by a queue management system can be very helpful in decision making and strategy building processes. Furthermore the businesses can also evaluate the impact of the changes they made which is a great help. Businesses can also utilize this business intelligence data to improve various internal processes. A queue management system software is a server application which is deployed on a server either online or at cloud on at local network. This allow businesses to connect all branches and enable the main branch or head office to monitor and track the queuing processes from all connected branches in real-time. In a multi-branch scenario the businesses can also restrict the access of a branch data to its manager while the head office can receive all updates from all connected branches.

Low-cost Scalability and Maintenance

The queue management systems are digital solution consists of various software and hardware components. The hardware that is usually used within a queue management system is easily available in the market, which is why it is inexpensive and easy to maintain. In fact once a queue management system is deployed the hardware barely needs any maintenance or replacement for years. Which is why the maintenance is relatively low-cost. Low-cost maintenance also reduce the operational cost and results in a better ROI over the longer period of time. The queue management system software is a server side application with multiple dashboard such as User Interface, Agent Dashboard, Management Dashboard and Administrative control panel. Furthermore the software is deployed on a server hence doesn’t require much maintenance. If it is hosted online or at a cloud the server maintenance is the responsibility of the service provider which also reduce the maintenance cost. Furthermore the system can be easily expanded to multiple branches with relatively low licensing fees and cost of the additional hardware. All these features significantly prolong the lifecycle of a digital queue management system adding value to ROI.

Conclusion

For any service based business the long queues, crowd formation and service delays are inevitable. One time or another the business will have to face such problems. However the growing businesses and businesses with high influx these problems are more common. Any business would want to avoid such problems as they not only harm the customer experience but also the brand perception which is very bad for the long term growth and sustainability. That is why businesses always seek ways to introduce efficiency and productivity to their internal processes to maximize the performance. In order to solve the problems of having long queues and service delays a digital queue management system is the best solution. It help automating several customer journey steps, it manages the queues and customer flow automatically, it have in-built crowd prevention features, it help balancing the workload of the employees and significantly improve their efficiency and it simultaneously reduce the operational cost of a branch while improving the branch efficiency, productivity and customer experience. Which is why a digital queue management system is the best solution to solve queuing problems and to prevent service delays.

RSI Concepts is a leading queue management system provider in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want us to help you implementing a highly cost-efficient and effective queue management system at your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

Check out this: Why Automating Performance Management is Important for Businesses?

December 20, 2022

Choosing a Performance Management System A Buyer’s Guide

Businesses and organizations in Dubai and all around the UAE are continuously seeking ways to improve productivity, efficiency and quality of their work. For that businesses adopt new technological solutions, they implement different software business management tools, they adopt to modern business practices and processes and much more. The carving to grow compel businesses to compete in the market and require them to improve day by day. Most of the businesses invest heavily in IT infrastructure, manufacturing technologies, and their materialistic resources, they also hire highly paid employees with exceptional track record but even then they might not achieve their goals, that is only because the loopholes of the traditional performance management practices. There is no doubt that the performance management is absolutely essential for a modern business, but the problem is that most of the businesses and organizations never realize their performance management practices are outdated and keeping them from achieving what they truly capable of. A modern performance management is a software based solution which help businesses and organizations to unlock the true potential of their employees and achieve their goals and objectives.

In the modern fast-paced marketplace it is extremely important and difficult too to retain a highly talented and skilled workforce. Talent hunt alone is a very expensive and time consuming task for the HR. But the HR’s responsibilities not just end there. It is the HR department who is responsible to retain valuable employees and keep them motivated to perform well and add value to the organization’s outcome. The employees doesn’t only need high salaries and other perks, in order to perform at their full potential the employees need, leadership, mentorship, guidance, encouragement, motivation, satisfaction at work, trust at the business and management, development and training programs, respect and recognition, and a highly productive organizational culture which nourish them, groom them and grow them. A highly motivated workforce with less experience and technical competencies can perform well than a poorly motivated and dull workforce with most experience and highest qualifications. That is where the real difference is made and that is why the performance management system is so crucial. Usually the HR department is responsible for acquiring a new performance management system which could be very confusing task given that there are hundreds of different solution available in the market. In this blog we will discuss what you should be looking for when buying a performance management system.

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: Do you need a Commercial Off-the-Shelf Solution (COTS) or a Customized Software?

There are two major categories of software development, one is COTS or commercial off-the-shelf software development and the other is bespoke or customized software development. The COTS are the software that are developed by a vendor for a mass audience and any business can acquire then and start using them right away. However, the customized software development means a software or app development which is designed according to the very specific needs of a business and exclusively developed for a particular business or a user group within that business. Moreover the COTS or commercial off-the-shelf software are owned by the vendor and the businesses who use them doesn’t own the application. The customized software are designed exclusively for a particular client/business hence the ownership also belongs to the user/business. The vendor or software development agency deliver the application to the client/business along with all source code and ownership to the final product. These are some of the major difference between the COTS and bespoke software. Furthermore there is another most important factor which is the cost. The initial cost of the COTS is fairly less, however, businesses might end up paying more for renewals, upgrades, customization, up scaling, etc. The initial cost of the customized software is slightly high but overall the ROI is excellent.

Why Custom Software Development is a Good Choice for Performance Management System?

There are many reasons to choose custom software development for your performance management system. The COTS are expensive, have comparatively lower ROI, the future readiness and up scaling is expensive, the customization is very limited and very expensive. Most of the time businesses end up purchasing a package which have a lot of features that they might never use, the UIs are very rigid, the work flow and the processes are designed for masses hence mostly misalign with your internal processes and work flows. A business might have to make huge changes in their internal processes, work flows and practices in order to fully adopt a COTS performance management system. On top of that you don’t own the software, and you are also bound to a single vendor which have a lot of drawbacks. It is also very difficult to respond to the market changes and adopt to new methods while using a commercial off-the-shelf performance management system. On the contrary the customized performance management system doesn’t have any of such problem. The initial cost is relatively higher, and the businesses also have to spend time and efforts in research and discovery phases, however, the final outcome of custom software development is a perfect match to your exclusive needs. It perfectly align with your internal work flows and processes, it is easy to integrate in organization’s culture and infrastructure, and on top of that it doesn’t require you to make changes to your existing processes and practices, which results in better efficiency, productivity and more user satisfaction.

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: How to Choose the Right Custom Software Development Agency in Dubai, UAE?

When it comes to COTS software service provider, the best formula to choose a right software development agency is to check how much of your needs it can fulfill, usually the corporate sector follows a 20/80 rule. It means that if any software can meet your 80% of the needs and can’t offer solution for your 20% of needs, than that is best option. However, usually businesses and organizations also settle down with COTS who can meets their 70% or more of the needs. However, the custom software development is different, as the software is exclusively designed for the business, so it mostly meets the 100% of the needs and businesses doesn’t have to compromise. When it comes to performance management system software the HR department usually tries to get their all needs and requirements met, which is why the custom software development is the best solution. However, here in Dubai and all around the UAE there are hundreds of custom software development agencies. Which makes it very difficult for the HR to decide which bespoke software development agency they should chose. Here is how to choose a right custom software development agency in Dubai, UAE:

Step 1:Start making a list of custom software development agencies in Dubai, UAE. Ask friends, colleagues, search online, take recommendation from industry experts, choose from the companies you have experience in past and short list at least 10 companies.
Step 2: Share your objectives and basic needs with all and compare their responses, proposals, offers, suggestions and then make a list of at least 5 best among them.
Step 3: Compare each company on the bases of their work experience in the relevant field, their clients, and the client feedback/testimonials, etc. It is important to explore their portfolio and then further reduce your list to 3 companies.
Step 4: Sign NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) share your complete details, held meetings and discussions, provide them the information they might be needing to prepare the technical scope of the project.
Step 5: Ask them to provide you with detailed commercial and technical proposals. Negotiate the price and the scope of the work and finalize the best option. Sign-off the project and immediately start the work.

These steps will help you finding a best custom software development agency in Dubai, UAE. It is extremely important to choose a right partner for the custom software development project. Because most of the time if businesses failed to properly scrutinize the vendors, they end up prolonging the development time which may results in disputes and it could also raise your cost.

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: Features of a Good Performance Management System

One of the biggest advantage of a customized or bespoke performance management system is that it is capable of fulfilling 100% of the needs and requirement of the business. The process of the custom software development begins with the discovery phase and requirement gathering phases, in which the business/users have full contribution and they can ask for whatever feature they need, they can control the entire work flow, process and everything as per their own convenience. The UI (user interface) plays an important role in any software application, with the custom software development the businesses can design highly effective user-friendly UIs to maximize the usability and efficacy of the system. This is what makes custom performance management system more efficient, user-friendly and impactful. Regardless of your choice whether you go with COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) software or custom software development, here are some key features that you should consider while choosing a performance management system:

Feature for Setting Effective Goals and Objectives

For any performance management system the goals and objectives are one of the most important part. The business goals and strategic objectives are inspired by the vision and mission of the business. The vision and mission is a very long term objective, however the goals are usually for one year or a few years at most. In the traditional performance management framework usually the business goals are for one year. Even in modern and digital performance management systems the business goals are set for one year, and that is also called performance cycle, but the difference is that the business can set more short term goals which are aligned with the annual goal or long term goals. A good performance management system offers several features to set up goals and it also provide analytical data and historical overview which help the management set up more realistic goals and objectives. The performance management system provides SMART framework which is considered to be the most successful framework. The SMART stands for Specific, Measureable, Attainable/Achievable, Realistic/Relevant, and Time-bound. Furthermore a good performance management system allow the management to set dynamic goals and objectives, which means that the employee goals and objectives can be changed to further allow them to grow, improve and achieve higher success.

Features to Digitalize and Automate the Performance Management Process

The technology is making our lives simple and more efficient. The performance management system software is one of the most modern and advanced tool any business can utilize to support their growth and progress. The digital performance management system help businesses digitalize and automate the performance management process. The manual performance management was a very time and effort consuming process that is why it was expensive too. The traditional performance management cycle is annual, it is done once a year or in some cases businesses do it twice a year. The performance management system software help businesses minimize the effort and time required to conduct performance evaluation which enable businesses to adopt to modern and more effective performance management practices such as agile and continuous performance management methods. Furthermore the digital performance management system also help businesses to improve the quality of the performance management process by providing fully automatically, semi-automatically and manually collected performance data. The highly accurate in-depth performance analysis help businesses improve the process and its outcome and bring transparency and efficiency to the process.

Features to Increase Employee Engagement and Satisfaction

In order to inspire performance the employee engagement plays an important role. Without engaging employees in the processes it is hard to motivate them. The performance management system should offer features that help facilitate communication process and increase employee engagement. The communication is a key to improve performance and productivity. The performance management system help managers effectively communicate the high-level organizational goals and objectives and long term business vision this is what induce a sense of destiny and motivate employee to accomplish more. Most of the time there is a gap between the individual goals and the high-level company goals. Managers often communicate individual goals to the employee, but they failed to show them the bigger picture. The performance management system help bridging this gap. It enables managers to communicate the organizational goals and objectives and also the individual goals and objectives and help employee to understand the relation between their efforts the business success, which can greatly motivate employees to perform well. It also help managers to include employees in goal setting and decision making process and the performance management system provide employees with features to provide their feedback and share their opinion which increase their engagement and boost their morale.

Features to Enhance the Communication

The digital performance management system offer effective features to enhance communication and eliminate the common problems caused by the communication gap between the managers and the employees. The communication plays an important role in building the relationship between the employees and the managers which is vital for various performance management objectives such as mentorship, guidance, motivation and also help managers enhance their leadership skills and make their role more effective. The performance management system make sure that the manager and their sub-ordinate communicate more often and maintain an optimum communication frequency. Furthermore the digital performance management system also provides a comprehensive framework for the one-to-one meeting, reviews and feedbacks. It also allow the employees to share their opinion and feedback. This help building trust among managers and employees which make employee more comfortable and open to their management. The strong communication help managers understand the concerns and problems of the employees which are keeping them from performing well. Furthermore the communication also help employees to understand the importance of their role and achievement it help them understand the organization’s expectations from them. The communication also increase employee engagement and give them confidence to share their innovative ideas. Basically the communication is the backbone of performance management system and it helps greatly to boost the performance.

Features to Improve Feedback and Review Processes

The employee performance management and appraisal systems are nothing without feedback and reviews. The feedback and reviews are the soul of the process. A digital performance management system not only provide features to improve the processes but it also bring transparency and fairness to the system which is a much needed feature in the modern performance management. When we think of the feedback the 360^O degree feedback is the first thing that came into the mind. That is because it is the most popular and widely used method in Dubai and all around the UAE. Traditionally the feedback and reviews were taken only from the managers for the performance of the employees, however, this method have many drawbacks, it lacks transparency and eventually both the managers and the employees lost trust on it. However, the 360 Degree feedback and review method includes the feedback and reviews from the managers, peers/colleagues, supervisors, subordinates, relevant stakeholders across the organization, even customers and suppliers too. Which make the process more transparent and make the conclusion more accurate and fair for the employees. Furthermore the performance management system treats feedbacks as a cyclical process and introduce continuous feedback in the system. This helps solving many problems and hurdle which are hindering employee’s performance. The performance management system can automatically track previous communications, and it can set a mechanism to remind both employees and managers to have a feedback session or discussion and it can also support online feedback methods. The reviews help managers and employees to assess their competencies and help manager set more realistic goals and increase the success rate which give employee confidence and encourage them to perform well in future.

Features to Set Clear and Accurate Metrics to Measure Success

For any performance management system it is crucial to have a clear and easy-to-understand performance metrics. The employee should know what success will look like, what they should do to be successful and how their success will be measured, this will help them understand what is expected from them by the organization. Most of the time the employees don’t have a clear understanding of the success metrics which tend to hinder performance. There are four major types of performance metrics:

Qualitative Metrics

The qualitative metrics are subjective in nature, they tend to measure the progress or success in objectives furthermore the feedback by managers, peers, and other stakeholders are also important factor in qualitative metrics. It is always difficult to measure the quality of the work, however, the performance management system provide qualitative metricswhich are usually weight, value, percentage or point scores which make objectives more tangible.

Quantitative Metrics

The quantitative metricsare easy to understand and measure, there are tons of way to measure the quantity of work produced by the employee. The quantitative metricscan be measures by collecting the right data and applying simple formulas to it to measure the accurate contribution of the employee. The quantity of work is important for both the employees and the managers. The number of sales or percentage of revenue or the number of produced items, etc. are the common quantitative metrics.

Efficiency Metrics

The efficiency metricsinclude both quality and quantity aspects of the work produced by an employee. The quantity of the work alone or the quality of the work alone can’t fully justify the efficiency of the employee. The performance management system provides efficiency metricswhich combined both and measure the efficiency and efficacy of the employee such as at a service center how many customers are serviced, how many left satisfied and how much time is consumed to perform those tasks, etc. will provide a clear and highly accurate measurement of the efficiency of the employee.

The digital performance management system further help the management by digitalizing and automating the data collection processes. It also links different data feeds in a single dashboard and it can automatically perform analysis and formulas to find conclusions and to prepare reports.

Feature to Track and Monitor Organization’s Performance Metrics

Another great advantage of the performance management system is that it not only accurately monitor and measure the employee performance but it is very capable of monitoring organization’s performance. It offers a variety of metricsthat measure the performance of the large groups, departments, teams, and even the entire organization. That is a very useful feature which help higher management understand how improvements or decline in the employee performance is impacting the overall organization’s performance. Furthermore it also help management understand the contribution of each team, department, or employee group. Here are some important organizational performance metrics:

9-Box Grid: This metric is used to understand or assess employee’s potential or capabilities along with their current performance and that is a great tool to identify and promote high-value employees and identify future leaders.
MBO: The MBO or management by objectives is basically a goal setting tool it helps setting up goals and objectives for the individual employees based on the high-level organizational goals and objectives and a great metric to understand the individual and collective progress towards high-level organizational goals.
NPS: The NPS or net promoter score is one of the most used metric, it tells how likely a customer is going to recommend your business/organization to others. It is also used to assess the performance of the sales and service staff.
360 Degree Feedback: The 360 degree feedback includes the feedback and reviews from the managers, supervisors, peers, clients, suppliers, relevant stakeholders, and even from the sub-ordinates to track and measure the performance.
180 Degree Feedback: The 180 Degree feedback is slightly different from the 360 degree feedback, although the method is same but the feedback is collected from only the managers and the peers/colleagues.
720 Degree Feedback: The 720 Degree feedback is same as 360 degree feedback, the only difference if it is conducted twice, after conducting first 360 degree performance the individual development programs and designed and implemented and another round is conducted after that to understand the impact of the individual development programs.
Errors Count:The error count is sort of self-explanatory, it is used to count the number of errors the employee or teams make, it could be as simple as a syntax or grammatical error in official correspondence or it could be an error in the source code or production machine’s inputs, etc.
Absence Rate: The absence rate or absenteeism is the measurement of the absence of an employee, the high-performing employees have less absence and even if they are absent they would have a valid reason. This is a very useful metric to identify high-performers.

These all metrics and several others like that will help management to understand the overall progress of the entire organization as well as individual business function, project teams, different employee groups up to the individual employee and help management understand the impact of their performance on the overall performance of the organization.

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: System Integration

The system integration is a very important aspect to consider while acquiring a performance management system. Regardless of what solution do you choose, the COTS (commercial off-the-shelf solution) or the custom software development, the system integration is a must to have feature for a performance management system. The system integration is a technical way of allowing two software or databases to talk to each other. It means one system can push or pull data from another system. Usually the system integration depends on the technology that is being used to develop the software. In case of performance management system as it heavily depends on data integration in order to offer more modern features, both the commercial off-the-shelf solutions (COTS) and the customized performance management systems offer an adequate support for system integration. However, the system integration of a customized performance management system is much superior then the COTS. Another great advantage of integrating performance management system with other business tools, enterprise solutions and central information system is to leverage the digitalization and automation. The digitalization and automation has many perks and it can significantly improve the performance management process and its outcome. Another great advantage of having a customized performance management system is that its integration is relatively easy and is much more cost-effective than the COTS systems.

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: Maintenance and Scalability

Maintenance and scalability is one of the must have feature of not only performance management system but any other modern software solution. Both commercial off-the-shelf solutions (COTS) and the custom software development offer maintenance and scalability to some extent however, the customized performance management systems are superior here too. The COTS require less maintenance but the updates and security patches are responsibility of the service provider, which usually happened to be slower than expected. However, with the custom performance management system the business itself or the maintenance contractor can take care of it. Furthermore the customized performance management systems can be hosted in cloud and also in local or in-premises data centers which provide businesses or the maintenance team more control over the software and the environment. With the COTS since there could hundreds if not thousands of businesses using the same product all around the world, the upgrades, changes and updates are slower and less frequent. But with the customized performance management system the business can keep them up-to-date fairly easily, they can make changes to the system anytime they want, they can update or upgrade it anytime without any restriction. For COTS the up scaling is relatively expensive but with custom performance management systems it is absolutely free.

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: Data Protection and Privacy

Obviously the performance management systems have the most important and confidential data about the business, which is why they data privacy and data protection should be one of the top priority while choosing a performance management system. Any breach to that data could be catastrophic. We have witnessed in past few years that giant multi-national businesses and organizations have suffered billions upon billions of losses after data breaches. For a medium sized or even a small business such misshape could be more devastating. The first thing that happens after such incident is that the customers immediately lose faith in your business. They will question everything about your brand your values, your practices and even your capabilities. This could harm the reputation of a business to an extent where it could take years to recover from such an event. That is why the data protection and privacy should be the top priority when implementing a performance management system. The COTS or commercial off-the-shelf solutions are used by hundreds of businesses worldwide, this means that their infrastructure and source code could be exposed to thousands of users all around the world which is what makes them more vulnerable. However, the customized performance management systems are exclusively designed and developed for a business, and the business also have all ownership rights to it, so there would be no other business who would be using the same system. Hence the software architecture and source code remains hidden form anyone outside of the organization which makes it more secure. Furthermore all of the data is stored on the servers which are fully controlled by the business or its outsourcing partner, hence the data breaches are very rare in such systems.

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: Cost and Long-Term ROI

Apart from all technicalities the cost is one of the major factor that can significantly influence the decisions of a business. Usually only a few of the decision makers have enough technical knowledge to make in-depth technical comparisons, most of the decision makes focus more on timelines and cost of the system and also its operational/running cost. The COTS performance management systems have relatively less initial cost, but the system expansion, scalability, upgrades, updates, customization, integration and other such needs can significantly increase the cost of the system and reduce its long term ROI (return over investment) value. Which is why most of the businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are diverting their attentions from the COTS and are rapidly adopting to the customized software solutions. A customized performance management system might have higher initial cost which includes the system design and development and implementation expenses, but in terms of operational/running or long term ROI the customized software solutions are much superior then the COTS. As thecustomized software solutions are exclusively developed for a business and the ownership belongs to the end-use there is no additional subscription or rental cost. The system is owned by the business, so they can also chose any vendor or outsourcing partner for maintenance and future customization/upgrades. They are not bound to a single vendor hence they can get very competitive services. Furthermore there is no restriction on the scalability and growth which also makes its ROI much better in long term.

Conclusion

A performance management system is one of the most important part of modern business environment. In the present day the markets are very competitive, the customer demands are rising day by day, the disruptions and abrupt changes in the market trends are becoming more common which demand a business to perform at its highest efficiency possible. It is not that the performance management and appraisal is a new phenomenon, however, the ways businesses were managing their performance to optimize their efficiency and productivity in past have drastically changed. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the markets are growing steadily, the governments are very business-friendly and more and more investors are joining in, which requires businesses to maintain a strong competitive edge in order to stay relevant and keep growing. The employees are the most critical resource and a crucial asset for any business. The HR department puts tremendous efforts to hire highly talented and skilled workforce, however, the common problems that any HR department faces are lack of motivation among the employees, poor or average performance, and higher turnover. That is why the businesses implement a performance management system which help them boost employee performance, engagement and morale, it help them groom their employees, find future leaders, improve the skills and capabilities of their workforce, highlight the strengths and weaknesses of their employees and guide actions to improve that.

In this blog we have discussed some of the most important aspect any business should consider while choosing a right performance management system. This blog was intended to provide our audience a basic understanding of how different features of the performance management system works and what they should be looking for while comparing different performance management system available in the market. RSI Concepts is a leading custom software development agency in Dubai, UAE. We have a highly experienced and skilled team of experts, analysts and software developers. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want us to help you with developing a highly cost-effective and impactful performance management system for your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

Check out this: How Performance Management Impact on Organization’s Culture?

December 13, 2022

Why Automating Performance Management is Important for Businesses?

In the modern fast-paced markets such as Dubai or anywhere else in UAE the businesses need a very effective performance management strategy to boost their efficiency and operational capabilities in order to compete with the tough competition. The performance management is an integral part of any business’s success strategy. It help improving the entire work environment and organization’s culture and groom employees to increase their potential, capabilities, skills and performance. For any business producing maximum outcome form the resources they have in hand is a perfect strategy to maximize their profits and sustain a steady growth. It is also not only about the outcome, it is also about the quality of the outcome that matters. For any business it is crucial to utilize all resources effectively and extract maximum high-quality outcome from these resources. In order to have an excellent skilled hard-working workforce, the HR will have to face many challenges, one of the biggest challenge is employee turnover and the second is lack of motivation among the employees.

Here the important thing for the HR is to understand that the employees spend almost most of their day at their work, the workplace environment, organization’s culture and the relationship of employees with the managers and with peers is what determines the success or failure of business. The employee performance have a huge impact on the quality of products and services a business or organization produces. The traditional performance management methods are already failing businesses and both employees and managers are losing faith in orthodox performance management practices. According to several studies both the managers and the employees are not happy with once a year evaluation and appraisal process. The Dubai and in fact the entire UAE is one of the most competitive marketplace. The competition is very high due to favorable market conditions and government policies and the customer demands are also very high, which is why the performance management become an essential in order to sustain growth.

What is the Difference between the Traditional and Modern Performance Management?

The performance management is a set of processes and actions that a business takes in order to evaluate and improve the performance of the employees by the end of each year. The employee appraisal or evaluation once a year or twice a year is no longer effective due to highly customer oriented, dynamic, and rapidly evolving markets. There was several other problems with the traditional performance management system such as the entire process was manual, the transparency is poor, and the quality of data is low and many more. The modern performance management systems digitalize and automate the performance management process. The modern performance management system is based on a software application which not only digitalize the performance management process but it can also automate several steps and collect a wealth of performance data. Furthermore the digitalization and automation improve the efficiency and reduce the resources required to conduct the appraisal and performance management processes.

What is a Digital Performance Management System?

A digital performance management system is a software based solution for performance management and appraisal processes. The HR department is responsible for all these activities, however, the performance management system provides a much better visibility with live coverage of performance data and intuitive dashboard which are available for everyone. The HR users can utilize their dedicated dashboard, the senior managers, board of directors, MD/CEOs, etc. and even the individual employee can have their performance dashboard with different level of access to the performance data. For example, the individual employees might be able to see their own performance data or at maximum they might also get an overview of their peers’ performance. The line managers or supervisors will be able to access the performance data for their subordinates and so on. The digital performance management system offers a user-friendly workflow which matches with the administrative hierarchy of the business. These dashboards are connected with the core application that is usually hosted at a server.

The digital performance management system server application is the brain of the system, it contains all of the source codes, algorithms and the actual data collection and analysis is done at the server side application. The performance management system software can be hosted at online hosting, in-premises servers, and at cloud which makes it very flexible and convenient. The different user dashboards are dedicatedly designed for the different levels of the management in order to provide the relevant and important information on the priority. The intuitive user interfaces make navigation simpler and easier and allow managers and user to perform several analysis based on the data collected and it also enable them to prepare performance reports and download them in pre-set formats. The digital performance management system provides a structured framework for the reviews and communications, and help businesses improve their management practices. Furthermore it is a digital tool and it can automatically collect a tremendous amount of performance and analytical data which is not only very helpful but also reduce the efforts required for the performance management process.

How Digitalization and Automation of Performance Management Benefits Businesses?

The digitalization and automation are used to facilitate human work, it help reducing human efforts, bring more accuracy to the processes and tend to produce high-quality outcomes. The digitalization and automation of performance management can help businesses in adopting to modern performance management practices such as agile or continuous performance management which is the most effective solution for the performance management needs in the modern marketplaces. Businesses always adopt new methods, systems, tools, software and solutions to improve efficiency and operational capabilities. With the rise of AI (artificial intelligence) ML (machine learning) and smart algorithms our entire lives are revolutionized. Just think of the social media, people use it for various purposes such as for communication, or for entertainment or to gain commercial benefits and so on. All this is possible because of the artificial intelligence (AI) based smart systems and computer programs. That is why businesses can leverage the digitalization and automation in their performance management process to make it more accurate, highly efficient, cost and resource effective and less time consuming.

The digitalization and automation in performance management process offers many advantages, such as it improve the overall efficiency and efficacy of the process. Traditionally the performance management is a very time and effort consuming process that is also one of the reason businesses conduct performance analysis once or twice a year. But things have changed drastically, especially since past decade, now a day in such a modern and fast-paced work environments the businesses need to be more vigilant and responsive towards unexpected scenarios and abrupt market changes. Which is why the businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are proactively seeking modern performance management systems which can provide them a comprehensive solution for all their needs. Here are the key advantages of digitalization and automation in performance management processes.

Adopt Agile and Continuous Performance Management Practices

The Dubai or in fact the entire UAE is a very dynamic marketplace, it has tougher competition, the trends are rapidly changing the customer needs are continuously growing and the businesses need to align with those changes and demands very quickly in order to remain relevant. On top of everything the competition is also very high and the businesses need to establish a strong brand image by gaining a greater competitive advantage in order to attract more customers. These circumstances demand unorthodox solutions, which lies in agile and continuous performance management methods. The agile performance management is conducting performance evaluation and appraisal more frequently than traditional methods, usually the performance cycle is three months or less. Whereas the continuous performance management is a cyclical performance management which consists of more frequent performance management cycles throughout the year. The continuous performance management cycle includes evaluation, planning, setting up goals & objectives, conducting reviews, collecting feedbacks, and more frequent communication/check-ins.

Usually the agile and continuous performance management terms are interchangeable however, the difference is not major so businesses often utilize a mixture of both performance management types. Whatever the case is these types of performance management are not possible without adopting digitalization and automation within your performance management process. On an average the performance management and appraisal processes require a lot of efforts and resources which is time-consuming and expensive too. However, with the help of a digital performance management system and the automation it offers, the performance management become easier, less time-consuming and highly cost-efficient. In fact the digital performance management system offers a continuous monitoring and provide real-time performance analysis data which help businesses to quickly adopt to changes and align themselves with the market trends. It also increase the readiness of the management to deal with unexpected situations and interruptions in the regular operations due to internal and external factors which significantly reduce the negative impact of such incidents.

Improve the Transparency of the Performance Management Process

Studies have revealed that both the employees and the managers showed distrust at the traditional performance management process. Mostly it is due to lack of transparency and other problems that are associated with the manual processes. However, with the digital performance management system as most of the steps are fully automated the employees and managers both trust it. As the system keep record of historical data and provide a full 360 degree view of the employee performance hence the chances of missing out something or personal bias are reduced. Furthermore the modern performance management focus more on the contextual performance rather than measuring the outcome alone. Which also goes in favor of the employees and help manager to understand the actual performance of the employee for the entire performance cycle unlike traditional performance management where usually the managers focus only on the most recent events and incidents. Moreover the data is digital and stored in the performance management software which also raise the trust of the employees.

Acquire In-depth Performance Data with the Digital Performance Management System

Another great benefit of digitalizing and automation the performance management process is the ability to acquire highly accurate and in-depth performance data. The system can automatically collect a variety of KPIs, it can link the data from multiple departments and provide a broader picture of the performance. It also help facilitating various performance management methods such as 360 degree reviews, KPIs, OKR, Balanced Score Cards, Behavior KPIs, Technical Competencies and much more. The managers can also manually upload performance data to the system which further enhance the quality of the performance data. The ability to automatically and manually collecting digital data also have other perks. Such as it provides a variety of in-built analytical tools to assess and evaluate the employee performance from multiple angles. The performance management system also help filling the communication gap between the employees and the managers by providing a structured framework for the one-to-one interviews, discussions, and performance reviews. All this data is very helpful in taking effective and impactful decisions and help improving the outcome of the performance management cycle.

Digital Performance Management Help Increasing the Quality of the Personal Development and Training Programs

For any organization the personal development and training programs are very important they are expensive hence the business need to ensure they achieve the desired goals. Designing a training program or guiding employees through a career path is a very complicated part of performance management. The digital performance management system collect a variety of analytical data and performance matrices which can help managers identifying the strengths and weaknesses of their employees and even the entire teams. For example the managers can easily compare the employee performance in different setups or circumstances such as if an employee is working at a customer service center where the business is offering multiple services, when the employee is working on certain services they perform well and when they have to work on certain services their performance might decline. As the digital performance management system brings automation to the process so it can collect performance matrices in real-time which help managers identify the exact cause of poor performance.

The reliability and outcome of the training and personal development programs is heavily depending on the data and information that are being used to design those programs. If the performance data and information are incorrect or insufficient then the managers tend to make guesses or start making assumption which is very bad for the efficiency and efficacy of such programs. Furthermore the employees are continuously monitored hence the business can also evaluate the impact of the training and personal development programs by simply comparing the performance matrices from before and after these programs. Here it is important to understand that the training and personal development programs are expensive and they require a lot of effort and time which means it is absolutely necessary to get the desired outcome of these programs. Thanks to the digitalization and the automation the management can collect valuable performance and business intelligence data to ensure the training program or personal development program they will offer will make the desired affects.

Increase Employee Engagement and Reduce Turnover

The lack of employee engagements and the high employee turnover rate is one of the most common problems any HR department faces. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the markets are rapidly growing the job opportunities are in abundance which makes employee retention more difficult. The digital performance management system not only collect valuable business intelligence and performance data but it also help increasing employee engagements. It offers dedicated employee dashboard where they can see their performance in real-time and it also enable employees to see the performance of their peers which encourage them to perform well. The digital performance management system include employees in the decision making processes which not only increase employee involvement and engagement but also raise their sense of responsibility and encourages them to perform well. It also increase employee engagement by offering them a platform to share their opinion and feedback. Furthermore it facilitates the communication and improve the employee interaction with the management and increase their engagement which tend to yield better performance.

The biggest cause of the employee turnover is the lack of engagement which cause stress, uncertainty, lack of trust on the performance management and training programs and inability to choose a right career path, all these reasons cause employees to switch jobs more often. The digital performance management system address all these problems and offer an effective solution. Furthermore when the employee engagement is increased and their involvement in decision making or other important tasks is increased they feel more connected with the business and tend to stay longer. The digital performance management system brings transparency to the performance management process and it help building a fair reward and recognition system which not only improve the performance but also increase employees’ trust on the system and help them bridging the communication gap which increase their success rate and keep them interested in their work and raise their morale. All these advantages help HR to retain more talented employees and increase employee satisfaction.

Make Reward and Recognition Process Fairer

The reward and recognition is one of the most important part of any performance management process. Employees simply crave for respect and recognition. It is not that the monetary reward that matters, in fact verbal or written appreciation can do wonder. Several studies have shown that the employee put monetary and non-monetary rewards at equal. With traditional performance management methods the biggest problem is lack of transparency and trust. Employees usually don’t trust it, they think and feel that the reward and recognition processes was not fair, another most common perception is the presence of bias and favoritism. Although the favoritism and bias is very common in traditional performance management methods, but the another major aspect is unfair or inaccurate evaluation. Since with manual process the managers tend to focus only on the most recent events and performance they might completely neglect the early year achievements. Furthermore the lack of contextual performance appraisal and consideration of external factors is absolutely absent from the system.

The traditional performance management methods usually failed to achieve the fairness in the reward and recognition process which can satisfy the employees. However, the digital performance management system brings automation to the process, it collect data and provide real-time analysis which are available for both the managers and the employees as well and the peers can also view the performance of their colleagues. These feature brings transparency to the system and make it more acceptable and fairer. The rewards and recognition is purely based on the performance data which completely eliminates the bias and human emotion form the equation and make the process more accurate, fair and justified hence the employee satisfaction is high. The one who got rewards are happy with their performance as they know what exactly they did to earn it, and the poor performer would also know where they have to make improvements in order to compete for the better performance and success.

Conclusion

The performance management is an essential business function these days, every business who want to compete and want to grow must have a great performance management strategy and system in place. The Dubai and in fact the entire UAE is a very dynamic, competitive and fast-moving market. It requires businesses to be more vigilant, pro-active and prepared for the abrupt changes, unprecedented market trends, competition and innovation. The UAE as a country has proven to be the innovation capital of the entire MENA region. That is why business need to unlock the full potential of their human resource to maximize the quality and quantity of the outcome. Furthermore the HR department’s top priority is to make sure the business have the required talent and technical skills to deal with all the problems they are facing and they might be facing in near future. For that the HR department always emphasizes on employee retention, training and development programs. In order to keep your employee motivated a fairer and justice based evaluation is absolute necessity.

A digital performance management system not only ensures employee satisfaction, but it also ensures the maximum performance which translates to high profitability and growth. The digitalization and automation of the performance management processes help the management acquire a great deal of valuable performance data and business intelligence which help them keep their employees motivated, engaged and loyal all the time. RSI Concepts is a leading custom software development agency in Dubai, UAE and is among the pioneers of the customized performance management system software solutions. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to implement a highly cost-efficient and effective tailor-made performance management system, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

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December 12, 2022

How Performance Management Impact on Organization’s Culture?

The performance management and the organization’s culture are both intertwined concepts and as per market experts shouldn’t be treated separately. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the performance management have become a buzz word since past few years, especially since mid-2021 and up till 2022 we have witnessed all types and sizes of businesses, enterprises and government departments have started adopting to more modern and digitalized performance management strategies and practices. The performance management and organizational culture are the integral parts of the business success strategy. Every business wants to achieve higher performance, optimized cost, high-quality outcome, better profitability and steady growth. Like the movement of a car depends on the engine, gearbox, wheels, etc. the operation of the organization depends on the performance of the employees. That is why we have witnessed the increased focus on performance management across all verticals of the industry in Dubai and all around the UAE.

What is Performance Management?

The performance management is a very simple concept, it means improving everything. However, by definition the business performance management, corporate performance management or enterprise performance management is a set of strategies, analytical processes and a structured framework to support improvement and eliminate the hurdles from the way of employees and enable them to work at their highest possible potential to achieve business goals and objectives. That may sound complicated but it is not as that difficult. The performance management consists of processes that are designed to help management monitor, track and improve the efficiency, productivity and progress of the employees and drive a strategy to execute these processes as per a pre-set plan of action. The performance management is an integral part of the modern work environment. It not only help improving the efficiency but it also help improving the entire organization’s culture, which have deeper impact on employees and the outcome they produce for the business and customers.

What is Organization’s Culture?

The culture is a very vague term, yet everyone knows what a culture is. A culture is defined by the people who practiced it, for example, here in GCC the primary culture is the Arab culture, than each nation, and even regions have some distinct features which might not be as prominent to the outsider but can be recognized by the people who belongs to the culture itself. The cultures doesn’t have any defined boundaries, sometimes more than one nation follows the same culture if we look at the macro level, and if we see at a microscopic level in fact every household could have slightly different culture than the others. Similarly the businesses and organizations also have a unique culture it is how the employee behave, how they deal with certain aspects of day-to-day functions, and how they respond to different demands, difficulties and certain circumstances. The organization’s culture includes the long term vision, mission of the business, the ideology of the leaders, and even the rewards and recognition system.

The organization’s culture keeps evolving all the time and always maintain a unique identity which is what fuel the competitiveness of the business and make it more desirable to the customers. Here are the key aspects of the organization’s culture that are closely linked with the performance management:

Engagement
Collaboration
Agility & Efficiency
Productivity
Innovation
Team Performance
Values
Behavior
Motivation
Personal Development
Respect & Recognition

These are the key ingredients for any success strategy. An organization or enterprise can’t achieve their long term goals or sustain growth without improving all of the above aspects of the organization’s culture.

How Performance Management can Impact the Organization’s Culture?

The performance management doesn’t have any rule book or a template to set up an organization’s culture, but it have a huge impact on every aspect of the organizational culture. The performance management does have certain rules which dictates how the employee might behave or react to a certain situation, these rules are governed by the vision, mission, values, and traditions and practices a business or organization follows. That is why the performance management have such a profound impact on the organization’s culture. The performance management sets the course for the evolution of the organization’s culture and it can be used as a tool to completely transform it. The performance management not only help businesses align their employees and resources with their company goals and objectives but it also keeps them motivated to achieve them. In this blog we will discuss how the performance management impact on the organization’s culture and values.

Align Employees with the High-Level Organizational Goals and Objectives

The high level organizational goals and objectives are dictated by the vision and mission of the organization. These goals scaled down to the individual employee goals and objectives. It is crucial to align the employees and all available resources with the high-level organizational goals and objectives. The employee orientation and alignment with the high-level organizational goals is the indicator of a good organization’s culture. And it is not possible with a good performance management system and strategy in place. A performance management system provides a fully structured framework which facilitates various processes and help management communicate the high-level organizational goals to the employees and align their individual goals with the high level company goals and objectives. When all employees are aligned with the high level goals the progress improved. This also help improving the organization’s culture, and build a productive environment for the employees. A healthy and productive organization’s culture is a key to long term success and growth.

Build High Employee Collaboration Culture

In any organization the day-to-day operations can’t continue without effective collaborative attempts. An organization is like a car engine, there are too many moving parts, but all must have to move in harmony to move the vehicle. Similarly the performance management system help businesses increase collaboration. There are certain matrices that are specifically designed to measure the employee behavior and their performance in teams and individually. This help managers improve employee collaborations and identify and address problems with the collaboration processes. The performance management system also help management assign goals to the teams and measure each individual’s performance in the team. These steps help organization to build a highly collaborative culture which improve performance and productivity. The employee collaboration not only help increasing the productivity and efficiency but it also help building good relationship among team members and employees which is great for a healthy work environment and a high-performance organization’s culture.

Increase Employee Engagements in Organization’s Culture

Employee engagement is an essential component for the performance management it serves two major purposes one it increases employee involvement/interest in goals and the second it increases employee retention. Increasing employee interest is crucial to achieve high performance and the employee retention is also necessary for a long term success. Whenever a business hires a new employee it take a few months to integrate them within the organization’s culture and let them adopt the new practices, methods and environment. Losing an employee will have negative impact on the performance and in certain cases it could completely jeopardize the performance of the entire team or department. Furthermore hiring employee is an expensive and difficult task, hunting right talent is not easy. The performance management help businesses engage employees in the decision making processes and listen to their say in goal setting and strategy building processes. Employee’s contribution in these activities and processes will increase their interests and also responsibility which help boosting the performance.

Improve Communication between Employees and Managers

The performance management system and the organization’s culture both have only one primary aim which is organization’s success. The health of any work environment and culture can be measured by measuring the communication and relationship between the employees and the management. A healthy organization’s culture establishes a strong communication between employees and the managers which strengthens the employee-manager relationship. A performance management system provides a structured framework for the communication which help schedule one-to-one meetings and performance conversations between employees and managers. When the communication is increased, the employee feel more connected with the management and they are more expressing and blunt about raising their concerns and highlighting the problems they are facing which help management understand those issues and let them take appropriate actions to solve them. The communication is a key to achieve higher performance and it also help improve organization’s culture.

Drive Innovation and Creativity in Organization’s Culture

The performance management system help driving innovation and creativity in the organization’s culture. The performance management system enable employees to actively participate in the decision making and other vital tasks, which help establishing a democratic environment in the workplace and encourage employees to take more creative and innovative approaches to maximize the outcome. These activities are also great for the management to identify the future leader and help them pick right talent with leadership capabilities. The innovation and creativity not only help improving the performance but it also help businesses to evolve into better and more efficient enterprises. The performance management also facilitate communication which help bridging the gap between the employees and the managers. When the employees are comfortable in expressing themselves without any fear or repercussion they are freer to think out of the box. The innovation and creativity doesn’t only help improving performance and productivity but it also provide a great competitive advantage.

Build a Culture of High Performance Teams

The team performance is equally important as the individual performance. High-performing teams mean more collaborative and supportive team members. The performance management helps building a collaborative organization’s culture. The performance management not only measure individual performance but it also provide team performance matrices which help management understand the team’s performance and the individual contribution in the overall progress. Furthermore the performance management system also have a highly effective feedback collection mechanism which not only take feedback from supervisors and managers but also from peers, other teams/departments and even external stakeholders such as customers and suppliers. This enables a sense of responsibility, collective effort, and support for each other in the organization’s culture. When the employees know that their team’s performance also matters they tend to help out their team-mates more and usually such culture inspire higher performance and high-quality outcomes. The performance management system help evolve a culture of mutual support and collective efforts which significantly improve team performance.

Improve Employee Behavior

Traditionally for any society the culture depends on the behavior of the people living in that society. Same is applicable for the businesses and organizations the organization’s culture heavily depends on the behavior of the employees. If the employees are provided with the good organization’s culture and high values, the employees tend to behave good which help improving the performance and the outcome. However, if the employees’ behavior goes unchecked then it can gradually deteriorate and cause a bigger problem for the management. The performance management system is a great tool to maintain and sustain a highly productive and desirable culture at workplace. The organization’s culture doesn’t only impact the employee but it is also very important for the management. A modern digital performance management system emphasize greatly on the behaviorally anchored rating mechanisms. These tools help management to actively monitor the employee behavior and set rating matrices to reward employee for their good behavior. That is why the performance management is a great tool to improve employee behavior which have huge impact on the organization’s culture.

Bring Transparency to the Organization’s Culture

Transparency is one of the most important factor for employee satisfaction. Employee satisfaction drives employee loyalty which help increasing employee retention. And employee retention is very important for long term growth. The HR department’s top priority is to provide the required skillset and talent to each business function which becomes extremely difficult with high employee turnover that is why employee retention is important for long term success. The performance management system is a digital tool which ensures maximum transparency and adopt modern and more effective practices in the organization’s culture. The modern performance management consider the entire performance of an employee throughout the performance cycle, it completely eliminates bias and also facilitate contextual performance evaluation processes. The performance management also improve communication and strengthen the relationship between the employees and the management which also help increasing the transparency in the evaluation processes and have a great impact on overall organization’s culture.

Eliminates Micro Management from Organization’s Culture

The micromanagement is one of the biggest problem almost every organization and business face at some time. The employees usually feel tremendous pressure and stress when the work in a culture of micro management. Usually the managers who micro manage everything doesn’t trust their subordinates. This also cause distance between the managers and the employees and eventually it cause hopelessness and have huge toll on the performance. Such managers also keep checking the employees enquiring about their work, which also make situation more stressful for the employees, eventually the employee start avoiding discussions with such managers which further cause more problems. The communication is a key to high performance if an organization’s culture failed to set up a proper communication mechanism the performance could significantly reduce. The performance management system provides a highly structured communication mechanism and it also provide real-time performance data to the managers and it can significantly reduce the impact of micro management and help improving the performance.

Fair Reward & Recognition Improve Organization’s Culture

The reward and recognition is crucial to motivate employees and to raise their morale. If a business or organization is failed to recognize the achievements of the employees they employee will eventually lose interest and their performance will decline. A healthy organizational culture will always include traditions of rewarding and admiring the high achievers. This will not only motivate them to perform better in future but it will also inspire average and poor performer to do better. Most of the time the employee doesn’t trust on the reward programs due to bias or inefficient evaluation mechanisms. However, with the performance management system the employees know that all of their work will be included in their evaluation and there would be no discrimination or personal bias against them, they tend to perform well. The performance management system also provide detailed performance data to the employees and it can also provide the progress details of their peers and other employees which increase the competitiveness and encourage employees to trust more on the system and perform well. A fair reward and recognition program is a key to improve organization’s culture.

See More: Key Tips to Improve Service Quality through Queue Management System

Conclusion

The performance management and the organization’s culture both are intertwined deeply. The employee usually spend most of their time at the workplace which means that the organizations and businesses should be able to offer a great employee-friendly and supportive environment where they can grow and progress and in return the overall organization can grow. We have always witnessed that businesses and organizations failed to utilize the full potential of their employees and their capabilities. That is majorly due to the flaws of the organization’s culture and the poor performance management. The organization’s culture is set by the values, standards, and communication. The performance management system provides a highly structured framework which significantly improve the communication and help management form and shape the organization’s culture. Furthermore the performance management provides a deeper monitoring and accountability mechanisms which also help improving the organization’s culture.

In this blog we have listed some key features of a performance management system which can help improving the organization’s culture. If you want to learn more or if you want us to develop a highly effective performance management system for your organization, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

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December 10, 2022

Why Organizations need Performance Appraisal System in UAE in 2022

The performance appraisal system is a great tool for the HR department. It help them to unlock the full potential of their workforce. The performance appraisal system is a necessity in a competitive marketplaces such as UAE. The UAE is one of the largest economy of the region with a high-paced growth and very friendly environment for businesses. That is why businesses and organizations are flourishing in the country. The local market and the international markets both are accessible form the UAE and this has attracted a lot of businesses and organizations to operate in the country. These circumstances also led to a very competitive market with high standards and very high customer demands. In order to ensure the sustainability and growth a business must have to operate at the maximum levels of efficiency and productivity. These factors led to a rapid adaptation of the digital performance appraisal systems all across the entire country. Businesses have started implementing various different types of performance appraisal systems however, most of the businesses preferred a customized performance appraisal system in 2022 and we are hoping to see a rise in this trend in coming years.

A modern performance appraisal system is a digital tool that enable businesses to evaluate their employees with high accuracy and enable them to identify factors that are impacting the performance of the employees. The biggest advantage of a digital performance appraisal system is that it is a data-driven performance framework which provide highly accurate and structured methods to evaluate the employee performance and help businesses align them with the high-level organizational goals and objectives. Traditionally the performance appraisals are a very time and resource consuming activity, hence only done once or twice a year. However, with the help of digital performance appraisal system several processes can be automated and the data is fully digital which enable businesses to conduct a performance appraisal with very less resources, time and efforts. The businesses who use a performance appraisal system usually have more performance evaluation cycles in a year, usually quarterly, but it can be further reduced to monthly or even project wise appraisals.

Why Organizations in UAE Needs a Performance Appraisal System in 2022

Since the economies all around the world are recovering from the 2020 pandemic, the marketplaces have evolved rapidly and become more customer oriented. Furthermore the customer demands and trends are also continuously changing. The competition and other market conditions are also rapidly changing and need businesses to be more vigilant, resilient and proactive. A business can only respond to such changes quickly enough if their employees and resources are working at their full potential. Most of the time businesses have all the ingredients of success, but still failed to achieve their goals because they are not performing as well as they could. The performance appraisal system provide a structured framework to manage and improve the employee performance and drive productivity by effectively evaluating the employees, solving their problems and inspiring them for better performance. The modern performance management systems have become more integrated, smart, and easy-to-operate and become more autonomous than ever before which makes the process more effective, accurate and agile.

Advantages of the Performance Appraisal System

The performance appraisal system have many advantages which makes it as perfect companion for modern businesses in 2022. As the system is digital so it can offer great visibility and customized view of performance data for different user groups. It provides a structured framework for communication and help organizing the conversation repository which also enables it to offer various comparative analysis and past performance data. Here are the key advantages of the performance appraisal system:

1. Align Employees with the Organizational Goals and Objectives

The performance measurement might seem a simple process however it is not as that easy to integrate a performance appraisal framework in organizations. For that businesses require a good performance management strategy which always begins with defining the goals and objectives for the employees, managers, teams, departments and for the entire organization. Each organization has a long term vision, all their annual or shorter goals are derived from that vision. Obviously the vision or mission is not something that can be fully communicated to the individual employees. However, the vision and mission statements can be communicated effectively to the employees along with their goals and objectives which are derived from the organizational goals and strategic objectives to achieve that vision. The top management define the organizational goals and objectives that are always aligned with the vision and mission. Then these goals and objectives scaled down to the departments, teams, and individual levels. These goals will provide a reference point to measure the performance.

The employee performance is measured based on their progress towards their goals and objective during a given time period or appraisal cycle. For example if the appraisal cycle was for 3 months, the goals of an employee was to produce 300 parts at a lathe machine and they have produced 250 parts during that time period then their progress can be measured as 83.3%. That was a very simple matric the performance measurement was simple and easy. However, most of the time the performance measurement is a bit more complex that is why the managers set quantifiable goals for the employees so their performance can be measured accurately. In some cases only one matric is not enough to measure the actual performance which makes things a bit more complex. For example, in case of a service center, a service agent was given a goal to serve 300 customers in 3 months, however, they served only 250, but their performance can’t be taken as 83.3% success. In fact it the customer experience that is equally important. Just by calculating the number of customers alone can’t determine how beneficial the employee was for the organization.

The digital performance appraisal system allow businesses and managers to set up goals along with the scale to measure the progress. Usually the goals and objectives are defined using SMART framework, it means scalable, measureable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. Adopting SMART framework can eliminate almost all major mistakes that any HR or line manager can make setting up goals for the employees. The employee performance appraisal system allow both the employees and the managers to access the system through their dedicated dashboards to monitor their performance and progress in real time. Which is also very helpful in encouraging the employees to perform well. Furthermore the performance appraisal system also support managers to communicate the goals and objectives to the employees along with their impact on the high-level organizational goals and objectives. When the employees know what their efforts worth for in term of achieving the high-level organizational goals, they tend to perform well. Communicating the organizational goals and objectives is crucial for the employees to understand how they are and how they can contribute to the organizational goals and objectives.

2. Organize Communications and Reviews

The digital employee performance appraisal system provides a structured communication framework and make communication more effective, organized and convenient for both parties. The communication is the most crucial aspect of performance management. An organization can never achieve higher performance without an effective communication mechanism in place. The communication help the management to acquire the required feedback to understand the performance and progress. It help them understand what employees are doing, how they are doing and what is to expect from them in future. Furthermore it also help management understand the employee’s problems and help them identifying the factors that are harming the performance. The performance appraisal system streamline the communication, it provides a structured framework to establish effective relationship between the managers and the employees. All one to one sessions are logged, scheduled and recorded in the system along with the regular performance reviews and other feedbacks. This will help management take actions to improve the performance and increase the chances of success.

3. Increase Employee Engagements and Collaboration

The digital employee performance appraisal system allow managers to include employees in decision making processes which increase employee engagement. When the managers and the employees collaborate to set goals the employees are most likely to achieve them. It is the employee who can completely understand their circumstances, limitations and strengths. The managers obviously have a good understanding of work environment but it is the employee who have deeper knowledge about the ground realities. When the employees and the managers sit together the chances are they will set more realistic and achievable goals. This help increase the success rate and also increase employee morale. Moreover when the employee knows the goals are set with their consent they are most likely to get attached to it and feel more responsible for that. This encourage them to put extra efforts to achieve such goals and increase the success rate. The success itself is a great factor to increase employee courage, confidence and passion about their work. The increase employee engagement and collaborative environment always tend to produce better performance and higher productivity.

4. Bring Transparency to Reward and Recognitions Processes

The reward and recognition is one of the primary objective of any employee performance appraisal system. Traditionally the employee performance appraisal system was based on manual assessments, which are usually done by the managers. This method is outdated and no longer viable, employees in businesses and organizations are not happy with the traditional assessment processes. Usually the employee complain about the lack of transparency in the system. Studies have revealed that the managers only consider the most recent and most prominent events to assess the overall performance of the employee for the entire year. Most of the time the managers failed to recall the employee performance and behavior from the earlier months of the years, which in itself cause a lot of problems and reduce the accuracy from the system. However, the digital employee appraisal system can record and provide the employee performance data of the entire year. The managers can view the employee performance of the entire year along with the recorded reviews and feedbacks at their dashboard which help improving the accuracy and transparency of the system.

The employees are also provided with the data collected by the employee performance appraisal system hence the chances of misconduct or mistakes are very less. There is no room for favoritism or personal bias in the evaluation process which also build confidence of the employees on the system and produce highly accurate performance data. Furthermore the management can embrace the employees who have performed well and they can try to improve the performance of the employees who lagged behind. The appreciation, recognition and reward for good work plays a crucial role in employee satisfaction and raise their morale. It also increase their loyalty and motivate them to perform even better. The performance appraisal system doesn’t only rely on the reviews of the manager, but it collect quantifiable performance data and also allow other stakeholders to provide feedback. The peers, managers, senior management, cross-department managers, and even relevant customer can provide their feedback which significantly increase the transparency of the performance appraisal process and help gaining employee’s trust.

5. Offer a Better Career Path to the Employees

The employee performance appraisal system is a great tool to harvest future leaders. The modern performance management is leaning towards more contextual analysis rather only measuring the quantity of the work. The employee performance appraisal system help managers to implement contextual performance measurement techniques and enable them to include both the quality of the work and the quantity of the work in the evaluation process. Furthermore the performance appraisal system also help businesses effectively analyze the skills, technical competencies and the behavioral competencies which help them determine the exact value of an individual employee. The employee performance appraisal system can also be integrated with the accounts and help HR department with cost-accounting appraisal processes. It is extremely important for an organization to determine the exact value of individual employee and then propose them right career path to keep increasing their potential and talent. When the employees are provided with the right opportunities they grow, when they grow they become more beneficial for their organization. This require highly accurate performance data and in-depth analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of each individual employee which is only possible with a digital employee performance appraisal system.

6. Improve HR Efficiency

The performance appraisal either annual or interim is one of the most important function of the HR department. It requires a lot of resources, efforts, planning and time. The primary function of the HR department is to select the right talent for the business, retain employees, ensure employee satisfaction to maximize the outcome and keep filling the skill gap in the organization’s talent pool. These all tasks require a lot of in-depth understanding of the workforce and individual employee. The digital performance appraisal system not only help HR department achieve their organizational goals, but it also facilitates all these processes and make the appraisal more simpler and easier this it help boosting the efficiency of the HR department. It is the employee performance appraisal process that generates the right data to let HR understand what talent and skills they have and what is missing or what can be added to further boost the productivity of the business. Without accurate performance data the HR’s decisions could be risky and might failed to generate the desired outcome. That is why the employee performance appraisal system is absolutely essential for the HR in modern work environments in 2022.

7. Improve the Efficacy of the Training and Development Programs

The training and personal development or employee development programs are crucial for any business. They are expensive and it requires a lot time and efforts to develop an effective training and employee development program. The employee performance appraisal system not only provide the required information and performance data that help HR to design most effective training and personal development programs but it also help the HR to further analyze and evaluate their training and development programs. The HR departments can complete several appraisal and performance cycles to reach to a conclusive decision for these programs. This means that it also require a lot of resources and time. Once the HR department have designed an employee training and development program they can measure the efficacy by simply conducting another appraisal after those programs to measure the effects. The performance data will provide highly accurate results which will help determining the efficacy of these programs. The HR department can further tweak and upgrade those programs to generate the desired outcome. That is why the employee performance appraisal system is so crucial for organizations.

8. Reduce Employee Turnover

The employee turnover is one of the most impactful factor at enterprise and organizational performance. The HR department have invested a lot of efforts and resources to hire an employee, then the business will also have to bear the retention cost. Usually the HR can successfully target the right talent but the problems come when the HR will have to retain those highly-talented and ambitious employees. Most of the time the organization failed to retain those highly valuable and talented employees. There could be so many reasons why employee leave but most common is the lack of appreciation, acknowledgement, engagement and future score at the job. The employee performance appraisal system help the HR to solve employees’ problem and fulfill their needs which help reducing the employee turnover. When the employees are happy and satisfied with their current position they are most likely to stay. The employee satisfaction can be achieved by gaining their trust, appreciating them for their efforts and helping them out when they are not performing well. The employee performance appraisal system help streamline the communication, it improves the employee satisfaction and engagements, it improves communication and help HR to understand the needs and problems of the employees. Which help HR to take actions to retain employees and prevent unwanted disruptions in the performance.

Conclusion

The UAE is a rapidly growing economy and a very competitive marketplace, the businesses and organizations need performance appraisal system to maximize their productivity and profitability. In the year 2022 we have witnessed a huge increase in the adaptation of the modern performance management methods and digital employee performance appraisal systems. This is an indicator of how important it is for the modern work environment. No matter how expensive and advanced IT infrastructure an organization builds, or how modern and effective solutions they have acquired for their daily operations, if the employee are not performing well then everything else is just worthless. That is why the businesses emphasize a lot on performance appraisal systems. The traditional appraisal systems have already failed the business and organizations in UAE and in fact all around the world. The employees and the managers both are rapidly losing faith in the traditional appraisal methods and practices all around the world. This requires businesses to adopt a modern and highly advanced employee performance appraisal system.

The employee appraisal system is a digital tool it helps businesses set up most effective goals and also enable them to communicate these goals effectively to the employees. It help monitoring the employee performance in real-time hence make managers more ready and prepared for interruptions and unprecedented scenarios. It help improving the evaluation practices and provide highly accurate performance data which help the HR and the management to take informed and effective decisions. The modern performance appraisal system also help organizations to reduce the cost of the appraisal process and make it very simple so much so that the businesses who have implemented a digital performance appraisal system can conduct performance appraisal activities many times a year. It also help businesses to adopt modern appraisal practices such as in-depth contextual based performance reviews and support them to boost the skills and performance of the employees over the time. RSI Concepts is a leading employee performance appraisal system provider in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject of if you want our help to build a highly efficiency and cost-effective customized employee performance appraisal system for you. Please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

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December 9, 2022

Key Tips to Improve Service Quality through Queue Management System

For any business the primary goals is to satisfy its customers, generate more revenue and grow. The service sector in Dubai and all around the UAE is very concerned about the rapid changes in the market trends, market behavior and technology advancements. The customer experience and service quality are the most important factors for any business’s success. However, each business will have to find a balance between the resources they have and the quality of service they provide. Investing a lot of resources in service delivery processes can surely improve the service quality but this approach could jeopardize the growth. That is why each business has to maximize the efficiency, productivity and performance in order to achieve the high quality of work with whatever the resources they have in hand. For that businesses adopt different methods and bring innovative solutions to maximize the operational efficiency and the quality of the work. This enable businesses to utilize their resources at maximum potential and achieve higher performance efficiency.

When it comes to efficiency and quality of work, for the service based businesses the service centers are the main customer facing channels. Customers tend to visit the service centers to avail various different services, for that the business have multiple counters in a service center to ensure maximum customers get served with minimum wait time. Sometimes there are some exclusive counters for some exclusive services, sometimes there are stepped services which require customers to go to multiple counters to get the full service and so on. There could be different service methods and work flows as per the business model and their practices. However, one thing in customer service centers is universal and very common, which is long waiting lines. The queue management is one of the most critical business function. Different service based industries have different footfall patterns, but all have some peak hours or busy days than the others. The customer footfall will be higher in certain hours of the day which could cause slow moving queues, long waiting time, and even crowed formation is common. That is why a digital queue management system is used to deal with these sort of problems. In this blog we will discuss how a queue management system improves the efficiency of the branch and how it improves service quality.

What is a Digital Queue Management System?

A digital queue management system is a modern solution to manage queues at the large customer service centers. The queue management system is a digital tool, it consists of two parts, one is software and the other is hardware. The major hardware components are interactive kiosk or ticket dispensing machine, digital signage and audio announcements system. The software is designed with highly advance AI (artificial intelligence) based smart algorithms which makes queue management system capable to continuously reading analytical data and take decision in real-time to maximize the efficiency of the queuing process. The queue management system software is usually hosted at a server, or online or at cloud. The agents gets their agent dashboard which provide them features to perform their queuing related tasks and it can also help them improve the service delivery process. The customer UI (user interface) is designed for the interactive kiosk.

However, some modern queue management system allow customers to interact with the system through multiple channels such as smartphone apps, online portals, and other channels. The administrative dashboard is for the management and staff and it is the main command and control system of the queue management system. Furthermore there are different types of software and hardware accessories that can be added to the system on the bases of needs of the business. The virtual queuing is the most modern form of the queue management system it is capable of reducing the customer wait time to literally none. There are several hardware accessories that can be added to the queue management system such as Emirates ID card reader, passport scanners, RFID Job ID Card Reader, Barcode & QR Code reader and several others. The software is capable of integrating with several systems and databases which allow the queue management system to offer more innovative features to enhance customer experience and to maximize the service quality.

Key Advantages of a Queue Management System that Help Improving Service Quality

The queue management system is used to deal with day-to-day queuing problems. However, the queue management system doesn’t only regulate the customer flow but it is a very capable tool which can help improving each and every touch point of the customer journey. The service quality doesn’t only depends on the capabilities of the service agent, in fact there are a lot of other variables which help businesses gradually improve the service quality. If a business is failed to manage the customer flow and the queues effectively the customers will have to wait longer, their waiting experience would be average or mostly below average, they will get waiting stress and they could reach counter in a highly uncomfortable mental state. After a long waiting time most of the customers just want to get everything done as quickly as possible, hence they make the job of service agent more difficult. Moreover when the queues are poorly managed the service agents also have a lot more work to do, they will get distracted from additional tasks to manage the queues, communicating with the customers in the waiting lines, and much more. Which effect their performance. All this led to a poor service quality. Here are the key advantages of a queue management system that help businesses improving the service quality.

Reduced Wait Time

One of the most crucial part of customer journey is the wait time and it could have profound effect on service delivery as well. As per industry standards and several international studies the average acceptable wait time for a customer is 5 to 13 minutes, depend on the industry. In traditional and manual queuing environment an average wait time could reach somewhere from 20 to 100 minutes on an average, depends on the footfall and industry type. However a digital queue management system can reduce the customer wait time by 30% to 70% depends on the industry. Furthermore the virtual queuing is a highly efficient queue management system which can literally reduce the wait time to zero. That much of reduction in the customer waiting time can have significant impact on customer happiness and customer satisfaction. Traditionally the queue management is not an easy task, it requires a lot of manpower and even then it cause a lot of problems which result in customer unhappiness and dissatisfaction, such as line jumpers, long waiting lines, dispute among customers, customer complaints about favoritism or poor management and much more. All these issues not only make your customers unhappy and frustrated but also have a toll on the employee performance.

A digital queue management system let customers sign-up for the virtual queues, hence they don’t have to physically wait in the lines. It offer customers freedom to wait comfortably in the designated waiting areas and help improving their experience. Furthermore the queue management system is a digital tool, hence the customers and visitors knows that the queues are managed by a computer operated program. This assure them there would be no line jumping, no favoritism and no mismanagement. Hence the customer complaints reduced to literally none. The queue management system automates the customer sign-up processes with the help of self-service solutions. Furthermore the self-service interactive ticket dispensing kiosk can be used to acquire some basic information about the customer’s needs. Which help queue management system to put them in the right queue. Furthermore the queue management system can divert customers from one counter to another in real time to ensure maximum efficiency. This entire process is automated, hence the wait time is significantly reduced. Since there is no human involvement the entire process is automated, the efficiency is high which improve customer flow and reduce wait time.

Improve Customer’s Waiting Experience

Reducing the customer wait time is a great advantage however, the improving the customer waiting experience could double their satisfaction. There are certain features that a queue management system offers which help businesses improve the customer waiting experience. The wait become more difficult if we don’t know how long we would have to wait. A queue management system captures analytical and system usage data, it also monitor several employee performance KPIs. The AI based smart algorithms can easily determine the expected wait time. Publishing the expected wait time help reducing the stress of the customers. Furthermore the digital signage keep displaying the live queuing information which also keep customers engaged and distracted from the waiting. The queue management system also allow businesses to publish multimedia content for information and entertainment to keep user busy. The multi-lingual audio announcement system keep announcing the next ticket number. These all things keep user distracted from the boredom of the waiting and keep them engaged which reduced the stress of the waiting and improve customer’s waiting experience.

Improve Customer Flow

The customer flow is of the major aspect of queue management. Usually in each service center there are several counters, there are several services and each service is different from the other. There are so many factors that can affect the customer flow. For example, some services take more time than the others, there are certain services which can be only offered by the exclusive counters, different service agents work on different pace, etc. All these factors can impact the customer wait time. The queue management system take account of all these aspects and it is capable of taking fully autonomous decisions in real time, which enable it to utilize the full potential of the service agents and maximize the productivity. For example, if a particular service is offered at 3 out 10 counters, two of the service agents are working at a good pace, one is relatively slower and takes more time to serve a customer than the peers. In such case the queue management system can sense the customer flow pace, and it can move more customers from the fast moving queues than the slow moving queues to maintain the balance which also increase the overall performance of the team.

Furthermore there are several services which are exclusive and there are customer groups which require different treatment as per the business policy. In such scenarios the queue management system can completely understand the customer route and ensures a smooth customer flow. The queue management system can automatically direct the premium or VIP customers to exclusive counters, it can direct the customers to the designated counters based on their service requirements. If a counter stopped, it can automatically divert and distribute the load at the other counters. These features are fully autonomous, the businesses can configure their policies as an instruction set for the system and the queue management system takes all the decisions in real-time based on the data it is capturing from different sources and touch points. The queue management system can also effectively improve the customer flow for the stepped services. A stepped service is a service that is distributed among more than one counters, the queue management system can not only ensures smooth customer flow but it also direct customers to the next steps. Basically the automation plays a vital role in maximizing the customer flow.

Offer Virtual Queuing

The virtual queuing is the most modern and advanced type of queue management system. The virtual queuing allow customers to utilize remote channels and mediums to sing-up remotely for the queues. It means that the customers are not required to be physically present at the branch. The virtual queue management systems are integrated with multiple channels, such as queue management system mobile apps, online customer portals, company website, SMS, QR Code, WhatsApp, etc. All these channels improve customer experience by providing them freedom and control over their interaction and facilitate each customer journey step. Since the customers are signing up remotely, hence they can plan their visit to arrive only when their turn comes. They don’t have to sit in the waiting areas anymore. They can do whatever they want to do, this offer a great relief to the customers and doesn’t put any waiting pressure on them. Furthermore the remote channels also allow businesses to enable communication with the customers and send them alerts and notifications to keep them updated with the queuing status. Less wait time means no stress or frustration, the customers get served as they arrived. This has a great impact on customer interaction and make it easier for the service agent to deliver a satisfactory experience.

Reduce Employee Workload and Improve Efficiency

With the traditional queuing the employee works under high pressure and they have to deal with a lot of unwanted tasks such as managing the queues, answering to people’s queries, solving their disputes, and such activities. This can have a serious impact on employee efficiency and on top of that the business will require a lot of additional staff to ensure a smooth customer flow during the peak hours. However, with the queue management system the employee doesn’t have to deal with any of such task, the entire customer flow is managed by the queue management system. This reduce the work load of the employee, furthermore the queue management system automatically manages the customer flow which is also very helpful in evenly distributing the customer among all available counters. When employee work under balanced workload their performance automatically got improved and they tend to be more satisfied. Moreover the queue management system can also be integrated with internal systems and other business tools which enables it to help service agents with their pre-service and post-service tasks, and reduce the delay. Happy and satisfied employees tend to deliver better service and on top of that since the customers also arrive with a calm and stress-free mind, it is easier to satisfy them.

Collect Business Intelligence Data and Improve Decision Making Processes

As the queue management system is a digital tool it has capability to collect and record analytical and performance data. The queue management system can collect information about the footfall, the peak hours/days, different patterns, the data about the service usage, the employee performance data and even the customer feedback data which help management to take informed decisions and based their policies and strategies upon the analytical, historic and feedback data to maximize the customer satisfaction and service quality. For example the understanding of the peak hours, will let the management effectively utilize resources, the understanding of the wait time can help understanding the strength and weaknesses of the queuing strategies. The employee performance data will help the management and the HR to design effective training programs and improve employee performance and technical competencies. Furthermore the customer feedback data help the management to understand the customer’s needs, expectations and desires. It also help identifying the areas of improvement and enable the businesses to gradually improve the services and service quality.

Integration with Third Party Tools and Databases

The queue management system is designed on a highly adoptive and technologically advanced platforms. Which enables businesses to easily integrate in the internal IT infrastructure and the central information center. This enables the queue management system to send and receive data to and from all integrated systems, databases and the central information center. The integration also allow queue management system to offer more innovative features. For example the integration with the customer database allow queue management system to identify the customers at the self-service ticket dispensing kiosk via the customer ID, barcode/QR code, or even with the Emirates ID Card and so on. Integrating biometrics identification is also very common among the HR departments. The integration also allow the queue management system to facilitate the agent’s tasks. For example each agent have to prepare for the next service, this preparation require accessing certain information that are required for the service delivery, which can be automatically pushed to the agent dashboard if the queue management system is integrated with the relevant systems and databases and so on. All these features are possible because of the integration capabilities of the queue management system and directly or indirectly help improving the service quality and customer experience.

Conclusion

The service quality for any service based business is the crucial and extremely important. If a business failed to deliver the high-quality service they can’t retain customers for long. The customer retention depends on the service quality and customer experience. If the customers are happy and satisfied they tend to become more loyal with the brand. The loyal customers are a great asset for any business and are considered to be the key to success. Furthermore several studies and market researches shows that it is 5 to 25 times more expensive acquiring a new customer than selling to an existing customer. That is why the customer happiness, satisfaction and loyalty is crucial for the businesses. When it comes to customer service quality and satisfaction the queuing plays a crucial role. The traditional and manual queuing methods have completely failed the businesses that is why the businesses are actively seeking digital solutions to improve their queuing process. A digital queue management system is one of the most effective tool to manage the queuing process and it also have several other benefits too. The queue management system help businesses streamline the customer flow and automates several internal process which further help businesses reducing the customer wait time.

The wait time is one of the most crucial aspect of customer experience. The reduction in wait time have great effects on the customer experience, furthermore the queue management system also help improving customer’s waiting experience and the virtual queuing is capable of completely eliminate the wait time. Furthermore the queue management system help improving the employee performance and it can also support them with their primary tasks. The queue management system can significantly reduce the employee workload, which also help increasing the employee service quality. The queue management system also collect and provide highly valuable business intelligence data. The business intelligence data help businesses evaluate their ongoing strategies and policies and provide them valuable information which enable them to gradually improve the strategies and help them making informed and fruitful decisions. RSI Concepts is a leading queue management system provider in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to deploy a highly effective, cost-efficient and customized queue management system, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

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