Performance Management System Archives - Page 2 of 4 - RSI Concepts - Top IT Solution Provider Company in Dubai, UAE

July 11, 2023

Characteristics of a Good Employee Appraisal System

The employee appraisal is the most important aspect of performance management. Every business wants to increase its performance, with the limited resources in hand every business wants to generate more outcome with limited inputs. That is why business adopt various workforce optimization methods and implement performance management strategies to improve the outcome and minimize the operational cost. This can provide businesses with a great competitive advantage and help them grow and achieve its goals. The employee appraisals are extremely important as it will help businesses identifying any areas of improvement by evaluating employee performance and measuring the effectiveness of the employee. The employee appraisal system is a great tool for workforce optimization and performance management it help businesses implement their performance management strategy and align employees with the mission of the business by leveraging the employee performance data and various techniques that are designed to evaluate employee performance.

What is Employee Appraisal System?

The employee appraisal system is a combination of tools, strategies and methodologies which are used to measure the employee performance against a pre-set goal, and employee appraisal help setting up the goals for future and provide guidance for employee development and training programs. The employee performance appraisal provides a framework for the mangers to identify the areas of improvement, highlight the causes of failure and success and from future performance strategy. Businesses and organizations in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and everywhere in UAE are investing heavily in employee performance management solutions such as employee appraisal systems. We have witnessed this trend increasing since past five years. The actual reason of deploying an employee performance appraisal system is to unlock the true potential of the employees, enable them to perform at their best and achieve the highest organizational efficiency which drive growth and long term success.

Here are the characteristics of a good employee appraisal system:

Employee Appraisal System: Objectives

For any employee performance management strategy the most important point is to clearly define and communicate the objectives to the employees. An employee performance appraisal system does the same. It help management clearly define objectives which aligns with the organizational high-level goals and objectives. The employee performance appraisal system provide specialized tools which help management create objectives that are well-defined, aligned with mission, easy-to-understand, achievable in timely manner, and can be communicated to the employees. The employee can easily understand what success will look like, it help them understand what business/employer is expecting from them and what has to be done from their side to create valuable outcome. The employee appraisal system not only help making objectives quantifiable but also help managers to correlate the objectives with the employee’s skills, experience, capabilities, and resources they have along with a complete historic background of past performances which is a great way to set goals and expectations for future. The systematic approach and specialized tools of employee appraisal system increase the success rate.

Employee Appraisal System: Reliability

The trust and fairness is the main driver of the performance, if the employees think that the appraisal process is not fair or if the think the employee appraisal system is not reliable they will lose morale which can kill the performance and productivity. The employee appraisal system ensures transparency and fairness in the process and help gaining employees’ trust. The reliability is the key component to introduce transparency and gain employees’ trust. The employee appraisal system is a digital tool which offer intuitive features and empower both employees and the managers. It ensures that the performance metrics and data used for appraisal are valid, reliable and accurate. Usually the data is related to the employee’s progress toward the assigned goal, how much time it took them to accomplish the goal, and the status of the goal, all this data is stored in the system along with complete historic accomplishments of the questioned employee. The employee appraisal system can also provide contextual data which also help managers understand employees’ certain behavior and decisions they take during the performance cycle. Employees and managers trust the system when they have access to accurate and reliable data.

Employee Appraisal System: Standardization

Standardization is one of the most important characteristic of employee appraisal system. Obviously every business and organization is different from each other, even two businesses who operate in same domain, have same products and services and same targeted audience could have greatly different internal processes, procedures, strategies and methodologies. However, when it comes to employee appraisal the main difference occurs when the managers took two different employees to assess who belongs to a same employee set/class or category. For example if the assessment is required for two computer programmers who work on Native Application Development within the team, the assessment process, methods and criteria should be exactly the same for both of them. In manual practices and traditional appraisal methods, the managers have too much influence on the process hence the personal bias or emotions can hamper the quality of the assessments made by the same manager. The employee appraisal system completely remove this from equation, it standardize the evaluation criteria, performance metrics. Furthermore it provides a comprehensive framework which make employee fully aware of appraisal standards, process, and decisions hence everyone knows how their success is being evaluated. The standardization can greatly increase employee trust on the appraisal process.

Employee Appraisal System: Communication

The communication is the backbone of any performance optimization or workforce optimization campaign. For the employee appraisal the communication is most crucial component of the process. The employee appraisal system help businesses and organizations to enhance communication between the employees and managers using specialized tools and unconventional methods. The managers must communicate the goals, objectives, mission and vision and the criteria of appraisal to each and every individual employee. If the employee doesn’t know about the system or doesn’t have clear information about any process or step, they will lose trust form the appraisal process which can easily kill productivity. The employee appraisal system help integrating employee feedback at various stages, especially in goal setting process. When the employee and managers have shared vision about a particular goal the employees tend to perform well and their motivations and morale raises. The employee appraisal system strengthen the communication between the managers and the employees with more frequent feedbacks, discussions and interactions which help identifying and rectifying problems that employee might be facing and also help managers to correct course in order to ensure success by the end of the appraisal cycle.

Employee Appraisal System: Development

The employee development is most important aspect of any employee appraisal system. Businesses and organization always want to minimize the employee turnover rate. This is essential in order to develop a highly skilled and experienced workforce. But if your employee keep leaving the organization, then you must have to bear the additional training costs, onboarding costs, time wasted in integrating a new employee and obviously the delay in the work, sometimes when the employees from key position left they could hinder the performance of the entire team or department, especially in startups, SMEs and very specific businesses. Every employee wants to grow, everyone wants to improve their professional skills and every single employee wants to learn new things which add value and increase their worth as an employee. However, most of the time the employees are confused about selecting a right career path and the managers too rely on guessing while selecting a career path for an employee or designing a personal development plan .However, the employee appraisal system provides in-depth understanding of the employee performance, their capabilities, skills and ability to grow. That is why with the employee appraisal system managers can design more effective and attractive employee development plans which help them raise employee satisfaction and reduce the employee turnover.

Employee Appraisal System: Training

When it comes to training, businesses often focus on the employee training. However, the managers’ or evaluators’ training is also very important. The evaluator and managers who are conducting the appraisal should also be well-trained in principles and processes of the appraisal along with the employee appraisal system tools. The evaluators and managers should be trained and provided with sufficient knowledge which enable them to effectively design and conduct appraisals. Conducting appraisal interview is a very crucial part of employee appraisal process, the evaluator or manager must have proper training to be able to conduct those interviews. Apart from that the employee training is the core of the employee appraisal process. Every business or organization have such employees who just need a little training or polishing in order to unlock their true potential. But the question is how to identify those employees and how to design the training programs for them. The employee appraisal system provide insight to employee behavior, it provide highly accurate employee performance data and provide a greater understanding of employee’s skills and capabilities which are essential to design effective training programs. Effective training will help businesses achieve higher productivity and it also help gaining employee trust and loyalty.

Conclusion

Performance management, workforce optimization, employee appraisals, training programs and various such activities are a part of any growing organization. Every business wants to generate as much outcome as possible with the limited resources and inputs. High performing teams and employees are a great asset of a business and can provide a much needed competitive advantage as well as help boosting performance, profitability and growth of the business. That is why businesses conduct employee performance appraisals. However, when it comes to employee appraisals, it is a very sophisticated and crucial process. That is why businesses in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and all around the UAE uses specialized tools such as employee appraisal system in order to make the appraisal process more effective and efficient. The employee appraisal system helps setting and communicating goals and objectives, it improves communication, it increases transparency and help businesses gain employee trust and satisfaction. In this blog we have listed some key characteristics of employee appraisal system, if you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to design and implement and customized employee appraisal 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.

February 13, 2023

Benefits of Implementing a Modern Performance Management System

Every employee wants to grow, develop and praised by the management, everyone wants to achieve their goal and everyone wants to perform well at their workplace. However, there are certain factors in organizational culture, work environment or even external factors which demotivate an employee and cause them to fail. Most of the time employees are way too capable but due to these factors they can’t reach to their true potential. It is the job of HR department and business leadership to provide employees a culture and environment where they not only perform well but also pursue their personal development and become more useful for the business over the time. The performance management system is the ultimate tool to do that. The performance management system is not like any other tool, in fact it is an integral process of the regular business operations. However, the problem with the traditional performance management system is that it is manual, which means it requires hundreds upon hundreds of work ours of your employees, HR team, and managers to complete this process.

Furthermore, the quality of the performance data is poor, the organizational and individual impact of the process is very limited, the reviews are once or twice in a year and on top of that both management and employees don’t trust it much. That is why business have started adopting to modern performance management systems.

What is a Modern Performance Management System?

A modern performance management system is a technological solution based on software and online platforms which help businesses and organizations to monitor, evaluate and improve the performance of their employees and help them align their available resources with their high-level goals and objectives. The modern performance management system help businesses implement modern performance management practices and enable them to adopt and implement more innovative and impactful strategies by introducing digital components and automation to the process. By implementing a modern performance management system businesses can significantly reduce the time, efforts and expense on the performance management process and above all the modern performance management system also have huge impact on individual level and organizational level. The efficiency and convenience enable businesses to focus on continuous performance management instead of once or twice in a year.

The modern performance management system help businesses develop a culture of higher collaboration, continuous learning and coaching, highly engaging, transparent and continuous feedback which help business and organizations to maximize their performance and increase employee satisfaction.

Benefits of Implementing a Modern Performance Management System

A modern performance management system provides a highly structured and efficient framework which help businesses to improve the overall performance, efficiency, productivity and profitability of the entire organization by improving the performance of the individual employees, teams and even managers. The performance management system has become an integral and very crucial business process, it help businesses keep improving their workforce and help building strong relationship between the employees and the employer which reduce employee turnover and strengthen the workforce. There are many benefits of the performance management, in this blog we will list a few most important and impactful benefits of the performance management system.

Benefits of a Modern Performance Management System: Frequent Feedbacks

The performance management system provides a highly structured and well-organized framework to enable businesses to collect more frequent feedbacks. Whether it is quarterly reviews, monthly discussion, project-based reviews, frequent goal setting, one-on-one check-ins or just open-discussions, the performance management system provides a systematic approach with added benefits of automation and digitalization. All the data, surveys, feedback forms, or any other inputs is digitally stored in a centralized data repository and information system which allow managers to access and compare historic data and understand improvement patterns and behavioral insights. The easy access to such data help managers prepare more effective and impactful feedback for the employees and help them take actions and steps to maximize the performance. It really doesn’t make any sense to set course and get guidance for a year in just single meeting that is why the more frequent feedbacks are a pillar of a modern performance management system and can greatly boost the performance.

Benefits of a Modern Performance Management System: Multi-Source Feedbacks

Another great feature of a modern performance management system is that it doesn’t only increase the frequency of the feedbacks but it also allow businesses to collect feedback from multiple sources. Such as the 360 degree and 720 degree feedback strategies. Where the users can submit feedback for their peers, upward, downward, cross-departmental feedback, and any stakeholder can share their feedback. Furthermore it also account for the feedback from external sources such as customers, suppliers, business partners, contractors, etc. Which further help broadening the scope of the feedback and enable businesses to collect more in-depth insight. All these feedbacks are stored in a common data repository and allow managers to perform various different analysis on the data using the in-built analytical tools. The data is already available for all relevant users, and the data, reports or analysis can be shared to specific users (employees or managers) and it can be downloaded as printable formats as well. All these features help preparing actionable reports and driving meaningful outcomes to achieve higher performance and productivity.

Benefits of a Modern Performance Management System:Increased Productivity

The modern performance management system offer a multitude of features which help HR and business leaders to set shared or common goals, align individual goals with the high-level organizational goals, empower communication and enable both parties to understand the objectives and the relevant outcome which help motivating employees and set clear expectations. Moreover the real-time monitoring, continuous feedback and multi-channel communication help maximizing the productivity. When employees gets guidance whenever they need and wherever they need, and when their problems and concerns are addressed in timely manners, the efficiency and performance automatically increased. Furthermore each business have different objectives and different standards to measure the success. For each business there are different challenges and problems to address. The modern performance management system doesn’t only streamline reviews, but it provides a very effective problem-solving tool which help businesses to customize their performance management strategies as per their goals, for example, some businesses might be interested in improving the training programs, some might need to focus on accountability, and some might be seeking a way to align employee performance with the high-level goals, all these features help significantly boost the productivity of the employees and teams.

Benefits of a Modern Performance Management System: Transparency & Trust

When it comes to performance management system the biggest concerns of most of the HR and the business leader is that their employees and even managers also don’t trust the system. The employees have a lot of transparency concerns and even the managers are unable to fully justify their judgments based on the incomplete or poor performance data. This is one of the major cause of the failure of a performance management systems. Usually with the annual performance reviews the managers often forget about the a few months old events, that is why the annual performance reviews are majorly based on the very recent few months’ events, interactions and incidents, which is totally unfair and couldn’t justify the entire year’s performance. Furthermore due to manual process the human factor is also considerable, majorly the manager’s bias and favoritism cause the most damage, and due to lack of a comprehensive framework in place, most of the time the managers start applying their own ideas and strategies which can derail the process. A performance management system on the other hand, provide a complete historic data, it didn’t even miss a single bit, the managers can access the past data, both managers and employees knows the expectations, there is no room for micro-management and everything is streamlined, well-organized and in a systematic order which help building trust and make the performance management process highly transparent.

Benefits of a Modern Performance Management System: Digitalization

The digitalization have many benefits, when business implement a modern performance management system it help them make the process more cost-effective, efficient and impactful. The digitalization help bringing automation which reduce the human efforts and make process more convenient. That is the reason businesses who implement performance management system can easily adopt to most modern performance management practices which help them maximizing the employee engagement and satisfaction and also provide highly accurate performance and business intelligence data. Moreover the HR data is considered to be the most critical for any organization, businesses always have protective measure in place to protect it. The performance management system beef up the security and privacy of the data with the help of password protection, administrative access control, data encryption and multiple firewalls and other security measures. The digitalization also make the performance management system more impactful by enabling simple and easy integration with other business tools, databases, and communication channels. This is what makes a modern performance management system far superior and beneficial than an ordinary traditional performance management system.

Conclusion

The performance management is absolutely vital for business who want to compete and grow in the modern fast-paced technology driven marketplaces. Businesses in Dubai and anywhere else in UAE are rapidly adopting to modern performance management practices and solutions. The traditional once or twice a year performance reviews are not enough, employees need more continuous guidance and the management need more frequent feedback to deal with the disruptions and unexpected challengesof the modern day marketplaces. The modern performance management system allow business leaders and the HR to improve the organizational culture and work environment. It help managers to get timely information and updates, and it help employees to get timely guidance and support. The innovative features of a modern performance management system can be a game-changer for the business. In this blog we have listed the key benefits of implanting a software-based modern performance management system, if you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to design and implement a highly cost-effective tailor-made performance management system solution for your business. Please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

Check out this: The Benefits of Electronic Queuing System

February 11, 2023March 29, 2023

Performance Management System: Best Practices

The HR and business leaders in Dubai and all around the UAE are largely agree that the traditional performance management methods are outdated and unable to meet the needs of a modern fast-paced, digitally connected, and data driven workplaces. This is because two major factors, first the conventional performance management process is manual which makes it very expensive and time-consuming, the second problem is the poor quality of performance data which also raise transparency concerns. The modern performance management systems are based on AI (artificial intelligence) powered smart software engine and autonomous algorithms which can produce far more superior qualitative and quantitative performance data. The traditional performance management methods have failed to enable businesses leverage the true potential of their employees. In the modern highly competitive and dynamic market landscape the flawed performance management practices could harm your performance and can have negative effects instead of improving employees’ engagement and productivity.

What is a Modern Performance Management System?

Well the definition of the performance management system is still the same, no matter if it is a traditional or modern performance management system. The performance management system provides a structured framework which help businesses monitor and improve the performance of their employees and align them with the strategic goals to help business increase its effectiveness and operational capabilities and drive progress and growth towards the high-level organizational goals and in long terms, excel towards the mission and vision of the business. However, the modern performance management system is a software based solution which help streamlining several processes, introduce automation to the system and maximize the efficiency of the process. The modern performance management systems are so effective and efficient that a business can easily convert the traditional once-a-year performance management process into a round-the-clock process enabling businesses to leverage the benefits of agile and continuous performance management practices.

Modern Performance Management System Strategies and Best Practices

The primary goal of implementing a performance management system is to maximize employee engagement, satisfaction and provide them a culture and environment where they can unlock their true potential and help business achieve its high-level goals. In the last two decades we have witnessed a huge evolution in the markets all around the world. The major cause is massive adaptation of the technology and IT solutions. Furthermore the technology penetration in an average person’s daily life has also been causing paradigm shifts in market trends and customer behavior. This have changed the way businesses were operating in the past. Especially in Dubai and all around the UAE where the technology has deeply penetrated the entire society and markets are very dynamic the businesses need to adopt to modern methods, practices and technologies in order attract and retain customers. The performance management was one of the most overlooked process, and still to this day a lot of businesses in the country are following the traditional methods.

However, this is changing rapidly and we will see within a couple of years the conventional performance management will become obsolete.When it comes to modern performance management systems, there is no one solution that fits all. Every business develops and evolves differently and every business is unique, two businesses can never be same even if they operate in same market and industry. However, there are some common strategies and best practices that can be equally beneficial for all. In this blog we will compile these best performance management practices which can be a real game changer for everyone, regardless of industry, size or type of the business.

Performance Management System: 1. Continuous 360 Degree Reviews and Feedbacks

The 360 degree reviews were and still are one of the most important part of performance management system. The 360 degree performance reviews are feedback from multiple sources including managers, supervisors, peers, team leads, cross-department teams/management, stakeholders, and even external sources such as customers and suppliers, etc. The modern performance management systems are very robust, intuitive and make it very simple to conduct continuous 360 degree feedback campaigns. The continuous feedback from manager will help them understand their performance and progress, it is also very helpful in aligning the employees with the most important strategic goals. The annual reviews and feedbacks are outdated, both employees and the managers have concerns about this practice. The continuous feedback on the other hand help employees perform well, in fact businesses have witnessed 3 to 4 time better performance by enabling continuous performance feedbacks and reviews. The intuitive performance management system can greatly help in improving the process and making it easier and convenient for all participants.

Performance Management System:2. Agile Goals and OKRs

Setting up goals, building strategies and making plans are the foundation of any performance management system. The goals are the ultimate guideline for the entire process, however, most of the time business leaders and HR don’t emphasize much on the process of setting up goals. The long-term and high-level organizational goals and objectives are hard to swallow by an ordinary employee, however, when the same goals are broken down into smaller goals, it immediately start making more sense. When the high-level goals are segmented into smaller attainable steps or key results, it become easier for an employee to understand them and achieve them. The OKR stands for objectives and key results, usually the goals are set at the beginning of the performance cycle, however, there could be interim reviews to revise the goals according to the circumstances. The performance management system provides a dedicated dashboard for the 360 degree reviews and feedbacks along with innovative features to further simplify the process which help increasing employee engagement and improve the outcome.

Performance Management System:3. Increased Employee Engagement

The employee engagement is one of the pillar of any performance management process. Businesses who do not listen to their employee’s or doesn’t include them in the planning and strategy building stages of the performance management process are tend to have lesser performance and productivity. No matter how strong and frequent the communication is between the employee and the managers, there are certain things that might be hidden form the sight of the manager. Especially during the goal setting processes, building strategies and making plans to execute those strategies, the employee involvement can boost performance to several times. Involving employees in those processes not only help management increase the success rate but it also motivate employees to put more efforts which definitely boost the performance. When employees are heard by the management and their say is included in the decision making processes, they feel more connected and responsible, which raise their morale and encourage them to perform better.

Performance Management System:4. Public and Social Recognition

With the integration of the Gen. Z and a monumental shifts in the market trends and overall behavior, the monitory compensations which were the strongest motivator just about two decades ago have lost its power. Now a days the monitory compensations and social recognitions works side by side, in fact many market researches and surveys have proven that the employees value public praises and social recognition more than the monitory rewards. According to these surveys the Public Recognition or Social Recognition was the most memorable recognition according to the majority of the participants. The performance management system offers a variety of tools and features to enhance your reward and recognition process. It provides dedicated dashboards and employee community hub where employees and the management can share their remarks and appreciations. These public and social recognitions are visible to each and every employee, hence when the employees are publically praised for their achievements, they feel more proud of their accomplishments which help to boost their morale and performance.

Performance Management System:5. Continuous Development Discussions

The more frequent and regular discussions help management to understand the performance and progress of the employees and give employees a chance to discuss their problems/obstacles or to seek guideline and help from the managers which can significantly increase their success rate. The continuous development discussions and check-ins help employees achieve their goals and give management a chance to course-correct and align employees with high-level goals to keep them on track. The collaborative conversations are always empowering, it help employees express their concerns and understand the management’s expectations. The performance management system offers great features such as scheduling continuous development discussions and check-ins on a pre-set time frame and frequency to align the employees with the goals and to help them with their professional and personal development needs. The employee development discussions are very helpful in improving employee engagement and strengthening their relationship with the management.

Conclusion

The HR and business leaders in Dubai and all around the UAE are agreed that the traditional performance management system has lost its value and flawed performance management practices can bring harm instead of benefiting the business. Therefore almost all categories and industry sectors are rapidly adopting to a more technology-based modern performance management system. The modern performance management system is a software based highly integrated application which not only greatly increase the data quality and quantity but also help businesses to implement the modern strategies and adopt to market-proven performance management practices. The HR and business leaders should also understand that every employee wants to succeed, they want to grow and develop both professionally and intellectually, and the employees want to achieve their goals and like to be praised and admired. In this blog we have listed the best modern performance management system practices which will help you make your performance management process beneficial and appealing for both employees and the management. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to implement a highly effective and tailor-made 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: The Benefits of Electronic Queuing System

January 18, 2023

5 Performance Management Problems and How to Solve Them

The businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are facing many challenges, especially when it comes to talent acquisition and retention. The HR is not only responsible for hiring skilled staff but they will also have to establish a system where they can nurture the relationship between the employees and the business. This system should be able to help HR and management to foster the hidden talent of their employees. This system will have to provide a framework which help businesses to laydown excellent training and development program which up lift their employees and help them identify the future leaders. This system is called performance management system. The performance management process is becoming more complicated day by day. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the high employee turnover rate is a very common problem. There are many factors that can contribute to that problem which is what makes its solution more complex. That is why the HR leaders always emphasize on the use of a modern digital performance management system which help them laydown excellent plans, enable them to collect valuable performance data, improve the employee assessment practices, and help them build impactful training and development plans.

No matter how excellent your performance management process is or how great your plans are, you could still run into some really challenging situation, it is your response and capabilities to handle those challenges which will determine the success of your performance management program. A modern digital performance management system is a very capable and powerful tool which is used by the businesses and organizations to boost their employees’ performance, improve and groom their talent, increase their retention and engagement and maximize their outcome to succeed in achieving high-level goals and objectives. However, when businesses and organizations failed to use this tool correctly they face a lot of problem, the problems which could complete derail their performance management efforts and could inflict significant damage to the growth and progress. The work environments, employees’ mindset, and business practices differs from country to country, here in Dubai and anywhere else in UAE the markets are very dynamic, the HR manager and business leaders need to be more active to increase employee engagements and productivity. In this blog we will highlight the 5 most common performance management problems businesses are facing in Dubai and all around the UAE and we will also discuss how you can solve them with a modern performance management system.

Performance Management Problems: 1. Failure to Set and Communicate Clear Goals

Setting up goals and objectives for a performance management cycle is essential and everyone does that. However, most of the HR managers or business leaders failed to clearly define goals and their strategic objectives which is the root cause of several problems. When the goals and objectives are not clear or not communicated properly the employee will lose focus, direction and motivation to achieve those goals. If you don’t clearly know what is to be expected from you, how could you do that? That is why most of the performance management failures are caused by unclear goals and lack of communication. It is extremely important to set clear, achievable and easy-to-understand goals and it is equally important to communicate them properly to your employees so they can have a clear sense of direction which will help them focus on their progress. Setting up clear goals and communicating them properly will help employee understand the expectations from them and will provide them a standard for the success hence they will know what the success will look like and what is the measure of the success and how their contribution will add up to the high-level organization goals and objectives.

A good performance management system offers a variety of in-built features along with customization abilities which enable businesses to easily set goals and communicate them with the individual employees. The performance management system also provide a clear understanding of the performance evaluation metrics and will help employees understand their progress in real-time. The success and performance metrics further simplify everything and set clear expectations which help employees align themselves with their goals and objectives. Any modern performance management system will offer OKRs (objectives and key results) and KPIs (key performance indicators) to set clear goals and also set metrics to measure the progress toward these goals. The SMART framework is ideal for setting up goals and performance metrics. The SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable, Relevant/Results, and Time-bound. Every goal should be time-bound, without a measure of time there is no point in setting up a goal. The performance of each employee should be evaluated as per their progress during a specific time period. That time-period is usually called performance cycle, which will help employee understand what is to be expected from them and when so they can prepare themselves to achieve those specific tasks during the given time period. That is why a digital performance management system is a great solution to fix this problem.

Performance Management Problems:2. Poor Communication

The communication is considered to be the lifeblood of any corporate environment, whether it is performance management or any other process, the communication is an absolute essential for everything. Without good communication businesses can never utilize their resources at full potential, the performance management process in particular is designed to break down the silos and to encourage engagement between employees, different teams, departments and management as well. The poor communication can create a lot of problems and it can have huge negative impact on the overall performance of the business or organization. There could be many reasons of poor communication and many factors that can undermine your communication, here are some of the most common factors which have huge impact on your communication:

Poor communication network which is unable to deliver the required information to the relevant personals or team within time
Unproductive and unregulated meetings and discussion which ends-up going off-topic
Poor feedback framework which fails both managers and employees to deliver their concerns to one another or highlight the problems they are facing
Poor email communication which results in incorrect or lack of actions

The poor communication can have very negative impact on the employee performance, furthermore it also demoralize them, harm the relationship between employees and the managers, it hurt the trust and it gradually increase the employee turnover rate.

The poor communication is one of the most common cause of the poor performance, if this problem persists for a longer time, it could cause unrepairable harm to a business. That is why not only to achieve higher efficiency but in order to keep the operations running a business need to solve the poor communication problems. There are certain types of communication that are more important than the others. However, the management frequently utilized different channels to communicate with the employees on regular bases but certain communications are necessary to boost the performance, such as regular discussions, one-on-one meetings, regular bidirectional feedbacks, frequent performance reviews, and other such communication types which are associated with the performance management are a key to a successful performance management strategy. Implementation of a good performance strategy by deploying a modern digital performance management system and integration of a multi-channel communication framework within the work environment can solve almost all major communication problems. Furthermore the businesses can implement strategies to make sure the written and verbal communication is delivered and understood by concerning parties. Reaching out to the employees, even if they are off-campus is essential for employee engagement. Personalized communication is also very important. The performance management system provides a comprehensive communication strategy which help solving all communication related problems.

Performance Management Problems: 3. Lack of Transparency and Trust

Another most common cause of failure of a performance management strategy is the failure to satisfy employees with the sufficient steps to ensure transparency in the system which is essential to gain employees’ trust. Without trust on the system the employee can never get motivated. There has been several studies and worldwide researches which have suggested a positive relationship between the trust and the employee performance. The problem with the traditional performance management practices is that there is no framework to ensure fully transparent evaluation and reviews. Most of the time it the traditional performance management systems are designed for annual or biannual evaluation. This biggest problem with that system is that when the managers are evaluating an employee they might not be able to recall all of the events in the distant past, they might focus on the activities and achievements of the past few months. Furthermore the personal bias, favoritism and other factors also cause the lack of trust by the employees. If an employee doesn’t trust on the business and their manager, the leadership and mentorship efforts goes straight out of the window. A leader or a mentor can only be a leader or mentor if the people he/she is leading will trust them. That is why the lack of transparency and trust is one of the most common cause of poor performance.

The solution to that problem is to implement a modern and technology based performance management system which not only introduce transparency but also address the most common concerns of the employees and gain their trust. If the employee don’t trust of the system or if they are not aware of how the system is working and how they are being awarded or if the performance metrics are confusing the employee will lose the trust and they might not support the system. However, a performance management system which clarifies all these confusions and offers clarity and transparency in the system could help gaining employees trust. Furthermore the digital performance management system also remove the most common problems with the traditional performance management system such as lack of understanding, poor communication, biased opinions and reviews, lack of performance data and much more. This will help business leaders and HR to establish employee trust on the performance management system and process and encourage them to support it. The dedicated features of the performance management system also improve the employee reviews and appraisal processes and make them more transparent which further strengthen the relationship between the employee and the managers. The digital performance management system transform the process into a proactive process rather a reactive process which help quickly addressing employee problems and concerns and raise their satisfaction.

Performance Management Problems: 4. Too Much Relying on Technology

Another common reason to fail in performance management is the ability of managers and leaders to understand that the technology alone is not the solution. We have witnessed in Dubai and all around the UAE the business leaders and the HR managers implement advanced technologies and software based performance management system and then expect that everything will improve automatically. However, that is not true. The performance management system is not just implementing a highly advanced and popular performance management system and not focusing on the right areas. The lack of strategy or poor performance management strategy can also result the same. But most of the time is not the performance management software or tool that you have implemented but it is your inability to focus on the right areas and lack of integration of processes and technology in the organization’s work flows. The prime goal of the performance management is to ensure the growth and profitability however this can only be achieved by employees’ individual growth and development. The business leader most often doesn’t realize that the performance management system should be able to improve your workforce and help you identify the need for the new skills in future to get you prepared for coming challenges.

The technological advancements and innovation is definitely transforming the businesses and also the performance management systems. However, the technology is solely not the solution to your performance management problems. The HR managers and the business leaders should have to actively participate in the performance management process to ensure higher employee engagements and to lead employees to ensure higher success rate. The managers should understand that if they are failing to solve the problems or addressing the concerns that their sub-ordinates are reporting or having, then there is no point for these employees to help you out or to support you with higher goals. That is why an active involvement of the management is essential for the success of the performance management strategy. Another most important point to consider while utilizing a digital performance management system is to ensure the performance data and information are regularly shared with the stakeholders. For example, generally all performance management systems allow employees to see the performance of their peers and other employees to encourage them to outperform the others. Furthermore the self-assessment and your own performance data should be presented in an easy-to-understand format which will help you perform better in order to achieve your goals. Similarly there are tons of other features that a performance management system offers but it is the management who will determine if all those features are utilized to gain the benefits or not. So the technology alone is not the solution the performance management also needs full involvement of the management in the process.

Performance Management Problems: 5. Micromanagement

The micromanagement is one of the main concern of the modern workplaces. It is a culture that is being discouraged all around the world, but in reality every business or organization have to deal with it. The biggest problem with the micro-managers is that they firmly believe that they are doing the right thing for their employees, teams, and even the organization, however, in reality they are just harming the performance of the employees by demoralizing them and taking their confidence away. The micromanagement causes a lot of problems as the micro-managers usually don’t focus on the macro level in fact they are completely occupied by the minute details and focus only on the very small issues and problems. They want to control or inspire each and every tiny action of their sub-ordinates and they want to get everything done in their own way, which they think is the only way to do a certain thing. It is this belief that led to a lot of problems and cause frustration and hopelessness among their sub-ordinates. Furthermore when the employees are dealing with a micro-managers who doesn’t regard of their skills, experience and capabilities the feel worthless, they start suppressing their ideas which kills the innovation and creativity. They start focusing only on pleasing their manager no matter even if they will have to cheat the system or they will eventually rebel which result in higher turnover.

The problem with the micro-managers is that they think they are acting in the best interest of the organization, their this belief prevent them from trusting others as they always keep correcting others and start believing that no one else is loyal to the organization. This mindset can completely kill the relationship between the employee and the managers and it also harm employee loyalty. Another most common trait of a micro-manager is that they always need updates, they always try to check-in to know the progress and they always want to see the progress of the work. These all problems can be solved by implementing a digital performance management system which not only provide real-time performance data to the managers and employees but it also provide a complete communication framework which reduce the unplanned follow ups and communication. Hence the employee gets the space they need to breath. They don’t get interrupted too often, they remain focused and their performance and progress is shared with the managers automatically. Furthermore it will also help the micro-managers to focus only on the employees who are lacking or not doing so well. The fully structured and pre-planned performance discussions also prevent micro-managers to reduce interruption and let them focus on more important tasks. Furthermore the performance management system also help managers to understand the performance management process and improve their skills to conduct the regular performance management tasks and help improving the overall performance of both the employees and the managers.

Conclusion

Businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are eagerly adopting to modern technologies and solutions to maximize their operational capabilities and to gain a competitive edge which will help them to attract more customers. No matter how much you have invested in technology or modern solutions, if your employees are not up-to-the-mark then everything will be in vain.Businesses need to integrate a technology based performance management system and the HR and the business leader should invest their time and efforts in the performance management process in order to achieve the full benefits of the system. In this blog we have addressed the 5 most common performance management problems and how you can solve them using a digital performance management system and a well-crafted performance strategy. The lack of trust and transparency, poor communication, unclear goals and objectives and difficult or confusing performance management processes will undermine your performance management efforts. That is why it important that the HR managers and the business leaders doesn’t only rely on the technology but also put sufficient efforts to it. Businesses who have properly implemented performance management systems have witnessed huge improvements in their outcomes, productivity, and profitability. A performance management is a long term success strategy, it help businesses retain the required talent and develop their employees and culture to unlock the true potential of their workforce and resources. RSI Concepts is a leading performance management system provider in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to design a customized 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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January 4, 2023

How to Customize Performance Management System

The performance management is an integral part of a business’s growth strategy. The performance management help improving the operational capabilities, improve resource management, align employees and resources with high-level goals and objectives, maximize the productivity and profitability of the business and make them ready to be reactive and responsive to the abrupt changes in the market and customer trends. The modern businesses face modern problems, the markets are evolving on a rapid pace, the customer demands are skyrocketing, the workplaces become more dynamic, the employee’s demands and needs are also continuously changing. Above all the Dubai and in fact the entire UAE is a very competitive market. The human resource management have evolved a lot over the past decade, with the introduction of Gen Z in worldwide marketplaces the values, norms and standards have transformed a lot. Several surveys are market research proved that the managers and even the employees felt difficult to share an honest opinion in a fear or harming the relationship with their employees, managers or peers. It is not that this bias is new, however, it got amplified in the recent years.

Similarly there are several other variables, such as intense integration of the technology, which have completely transformed the work environment and digital ecosystem. The communication channels have been changed, the digital customer experience is paving its way, the customers are more focused on having a good experience, the competition is becoming tougher day by day, and the customer retention needs more focused efforts than ever before and so on. We can discuss hundreds of different factors that have completely changed the work environment, culture, customer behavior and marketplaces over the years. However, the important thing is to understand that a performance management system is an absolute necessity for a high-performing business. When a business or organization will have to choose a right performance management system they can easily get overwhelmed with the variety of available solution in Dubai and all around the UAE. However, a good one-fit-for-all type of performance management system or solution doesn’t exists, otherwise it wouldn’t be so difficult for many enterprises to implement a best performance management system. That is why the customization is the only way to implement a good performance management system/software which can full-fill all your business needs.

What is a Performance Management Software?

The modern performance management system is software application which is exclusively designed to support a business’s performance management processes. It is like any other software tool that a business might use to improve any other work flow or process. For example, a document processing tools or a complaint center tool is a digital solution to improve the efficiency and performance of the document processing and complaint management processes. Traditionally the performance management was done manually, where the evaluation is majorly based on the reviews by the managers. However the digital performance management system or performance management software is a modern digital solution that help businesses to increase the efficiency and efficacy of their performance management process. By leveraging the performance management software businesses can easily adopt to:

Agile Performance Management
Continuous Performance Management
Contextual-based Performance Management
Project-based Performance Management
KPIs, OKRs, Balanced Score Cards
Performance Management by Objectives
Modern Performance Metrics

And much more. The performance management software help businesses adopt to modern practices and methodologies to maximize the outcome of their performance management campaign. Furthermore the performance management software is a great tool to digitalize the performance management processes which brings automation, accuracy and transparency to the system.

How to Customize a Performance Management System that fits all your Performance Needs

Every business and organization have its own very unique culture, work environment, practices, business processes, management structure, strategies, plan, goals, work flows, etc. which make it significantly different from others. The organic evolution, natural growth and the leaders are responsible for this uniqueness and it is considered to be one of the best competitive advantage one can have in highly dynamic markets. This uniqueness also means that every business and organization have different needs hence they need a different performance management solution. There are two major categories of software solutions, whether you are acquiring a software solution for any internal or external business processes, these two categories remain same. The first one if the commercial off-the-shelf solutions (COTS) and the second category is customized, tailor-made or bespoke software. The customized software are exclusively designed to meet the very unique demands of a business hence are more reliable, perform well, integrate within organization easily, and produce much higher and better quality outcome. In this blog we will discuss how a business can customize their performance management system software to unlock the true potential of their workforce and achieve higher goals and objectives.

Customize Performance Management System: Engage Employees in Discovery Phase

Like any other software the performance management system also require a comprehensive discovery phase. Since you are aiming to develop a customized performance management software you need to do proper research before making a plan for the software. Usually business pay adequate amount of efforts in the research and discovery phase however, the most important thing that most of the businesses undermine the importance of engaging employee in the discovery phase. Most of the times businesses doesn’t include employees in the discovery phase or any other phase of the performance management system development. However, engaging employees in the early stages of the performance management system development will help you build a better and more compatible system which will align with the needs and expectations of the employees as well as the business goals. This will help you define the metrics, incentives, goals, objectives, critical success factors, and much more in a way which make sense for the employees. This also help businesses in implementing the new customized performance management system and enable them to adopt it with a more positive attitude and help you achieve better efficiency and efficacy of the system.

Customize Performance Management System: Make a List of all Required Features and Performance Metrics

One of the biggest advantage of a customized software is that you can add all the features you want. Every business have different performance objectives and even goals also. The performance management process and practices also differs from case to case, that is why each business requirement is different from the other. It is important that you include all the features that you need. Such as goal setting features, communication framework, performance metrics and data analytical tools. Whatever you want you can include in the system at this stage. The best is always to consult with the external consultant or the performance management software development company. As they would have more experience with the performance management system and their feedback can be very vital. It is important that all the performance measurement metrics are also discussed internally with all stakeholders and relevant personals. You can also engage employees at this stage and consolidate all the feedbacks in one document then refine that document and for a charter document or scope of the work. This charter document or scope of the work will include all the features that you will be getting in your customized performance management system. It is important to invest as much time and effort as you could in this stage as it is the most crucial aspect of the customized performance management software development.

Customize Performance Management System: Intuitive UI (User Interface)

For any software the UI or user interface is a key to success. Studies have revealed that people tend to avoid complex software and their efficiency declined with complex UIs and difficult user experience. Same is applicable for your customized performance management software. If the UIs are simple and easy-to-navigate the user response will be good. Furthermore it is important to customize your UIs look and feel to match with your company branding. The navigation of your customized performance management software should be simple enough to let user access the tools/features or information within a few clicks. Performing different tasks should be simple, such as defining KPIs, setting up goals and objectives, viewing performance data or any such feature should be easily accessible for all the users. Furthermore several features can be added in UIs to make them more intuitive and user-friendly such as adding tool tips, mouse hover functions, dialog boxes to share instant help materials, a dedicated help and FAQs section and guidance for the users to understand each feature of the customized performance management system. Offer simple options to save the work and continue it on the next day/session. That is a very useful feature. The textual content should be simple, avoid using complex and technical terminologies and use plain and simple language to make the system more understandable.

Customize Performance Management System: Digitalization and Automation

One of the biggest advantage of implementing software based solution for manual processes is the digitalization and the automation. The digitalization means that the performance management software will convert manual processes in digital which are more convenient. It also allow several dashboards for different users with different level of access and according to their job roles. The administration or higher management and power users will get maximum system access. This enable businesses to make a process simpler and convenient. For example, if a manager want to schedule a one-to-one discussion or meeting with an employee, they can schedule it in the system. If reviews are to be conducted this can be scheduled, and the management will get full overview of what is happening. If a review is pending they will immediately know, if they want to get the information that who conducted the review and what were the findings, etc. and all that can be done with a few clicks. Furthermore the automation help managers collect the performance data automatically which can save a lot of time and efforts and make the processes even more convenient. These are the advantages which enable businesses to easily adopt to continuous and agile performance management practices and other more frequent performance reviews.

Customize Performance Management System: Third-Party Integration

In today’s modern work environment the organizational software, tools, and databases work in harmony with each other where a well-connected network and data sharing mechanism is development to increase collaboration and communication between different software and tools a business is using. The performance management software is not different, it also support different levels of integration. However, most of the time the HR managers or the decision makers doesn’t realize that certain technological platform are better in integration than the others, furthermore it also depends on the existing network and digital ecosystem. So, the technology that you are selecting to develop your customize performance management system should be able to integrate with your existing business tools, enterprise solutions, databases and central information center. The central information center is a digital hub which hosts the data of all connected software and tools. Your new customized performance management software should be able to integrate. It doesn’t matter if you need integration or not, but the compatibility should be there. As organizations and businesses keep growing and high-performing enterprises need support from their IT infrastructure. That is why it is important to ensure your new customized performance management software will support the required third-party system integration.

Customize Performance Management System: System Administration and Configuration

Usually the HR managers or other decision makers doesn’t emphasize on the customization features and abilities of the system’s administrative panel. Most of the time when the word customization comes, people often think it is having a change in the source-code of the program or layout, which is only done by skilled professionals. However, every software also have an administrative control panel which allow certain level of customization which help system administrators and power users to manage and modify the system’s features and certain aspects. That control panel is very vital for a performance management software. Obviously it depends on the vendor, but on your part you can think of different scenarios that you could face in future which might require to make certain changes in the system. For example, currently you are conducting employee performance evaluation twice in a year, you might want to ramp up the frequency by conducting performance evaluation after each quarter. You might want to set up on-demand based reviews and assessments such as project-based performance evaluation, etc. Similarly there could be so many different scenarios and practices which you are not needing today but maybe in the distant future you might going to need them. Similarly you might want to control the alerts, notification, or even the data access for different users, etc. All these features will be available on the administrative control panel which will allow you to change or customize the system configuration to suit your needs and requirements.

Customize Performance Management System: Mobile Compatibility

The performance management system is a very important tool, the key to better performance management is always communication, in case of a performance management software you will always want your employees to interact with it more often. However, usually businesses keep the access to such systems restricted within their networks, or even the access is not the issue such software and tools come with desktop version only. The administrative and user access panels and dashboards are mostly web-based interfaces. Which means that an employee will have to login to a web-page in order to interact with such systems and software. The modern performance management system is also a similar software, it offer multiple web-based UIs (user interfaces) which can be accessed through a web browsers. However, these days the smartphone and mobile technology have completely transformed our work and personal behavior. People tend to spend more time on their smartphones and mobile devices. Above all there would be a lot of employees who will be always on the go or who will be working off-campus. For all such employees interacting with performance management software could be a big problem. That is why offering mobile compatibility can significantly increase their interactions and engagements which also have positive impact on the performance. The mobile compatibility can be achieved by two methods, one is making your UIs responsive and the other is offering a dedicated smartphone application. Both methods are good, but the dedicated smartphone applications tend to offer a better user experience.

Customize Performance Management System: Scalability, Upgrades and Maintenance

The scalability, upgrades and the maintenance are the most important components of any custom software development project. Similarly your customized performance management system should also have a crystal clear strategy, plans and mechanisms for the scalability, upgrades and maintenance. Another great advantage of the customized software application is that they are exclusively designed for a particular business and the ownership belongs to that business and not the vendor or outsourcing contractor who is developing the software. This completely solve all commonly associated problems with the scalability, as the customized performance management software is completely owned by the business itself, hence they can expand it as much as they want, they can have unlimited numbers of the users without paying anything extra. There would be no monthly or annually fees or subscription charges or associated licensing fees. The upgrade policy can be mutually worked out with the vendor or outsourcing contractor. Since you will own the customized performance management system software hence you are not bound to the same vendor, you can have in-house team to keep the system up to date or upgrade it whenever needed or you can sign an agreement with the vendor or any other third-party software development company who is familiar with the technology and can support your with further customizations in future. Same is the case with the maintenance too.

Conclusion

In the present day’s dynamic marketplace and skyrocketing customer demands, it is crucial for a business to efficiently and effectively utilize its resources. For that every business have some kind of performance management strategy. Usually businesses follow traditional by-book methods to execute a performance management strategy. However, the marketplace have changed very rapidly and the performance management is also not the same as it was a decade ago. This require businesses to be more proactive and reactive towards abrupt market changes which is why businesses adopt and implement technological solutions to increase their capabilities, productivity and readiness to respond to the market changes. A performance management system is one of the most important part of any business’s success strategy. However, recently businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE have started adopting customized software and application instead of going for COTS or commercial off-the-shelf solutions. The biggest advantage of the customized performance management system software is that business can design is exclusively to meet their specific and unique needs. Unlike COTS the customized software doesn’t require you to adopt the new system and make changes to your existing processes, practices and methods.

The customized performance management system can easily integrate in the existing digital ecosystem and it can be designed as per the user’s demands hence very less or no training is required. Furthermore the businesses own their customized performance management system which means that their data will be more secure and they can customize the system the way they want in future as well. There are several other advantages of the customized software which make this method far superior than acquiring a commercial off-the-shelf software solution. That is why reason we wrote this blog to help our audience understand how they can customize their performance management system software to maximize its efficiency, impact and efficacy. If you have any question or if you want to learn more about the subject or if you want us to help you design and develop your new customized and cost-efficient performance management system software, 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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November 21, 2022

Top 5 Trends that will Change Performance Management Forever

The performance management is a crucial business process. It is extremely important for a business to align all its resources with its goals and objectives. The performance management help businesses unlock the true potential of its employees, teams and departments. The performance management help businesses in establishing a high-potential workforce to ensure maximum productivity. Maximum productivity means high profitability and long-term sustainable growth. Another most important aspect of performance management is the employee retention. The businesses can’t retain an employee if the employee is unsatisfied or disengaged. The performance management help managers motivate the employees, increase their engagements, provide them opportunities to grow and develop themselves. When employees are motivated and happy with their job they tend to perform excellent. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the market conditions are very favorable, the government policies are supportive, and it is very easy to startup a new business. This lead to higher competition, which makes performance management even more important.

The performance management is not a new thing, it was a very old processes and businesses are applying these methods since the early ages of modern business. However, it has been continuously evolving and improving. The modern day performance management is heavily relying on technology based software solution which help businesses improve the process and make it more efficient. The digital performance management system or software help managers easily and quickly do the reviews and evaluations, earlier this took a lot of resources, time and efforts. This also enable businesses to conduct multiple performance reviews and evaluations in a year. Furthermore, the performance management software or PMS helps automating several steps, it provide a well-structured framework which makes it even more efficient. The performance management systems allow businesses to adopt to modern methods and trends. The performance management have become a highly advanced and sophisticated process, however, it is still evolving. Businesses might think how they could adopt to the most modern and effective performance management methods and tactics, in this blog we will discuss top 5 trends that will serve as a foundation for the modern performance management in the future.

Performance Management Trends: 1. Continuous Performance Management

Businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE or in fact all around the world have realized that the traditional performance management is losing its impact and is no longer viable. Another drawback of traditional performance management is that it is a manual process, it requires a lot of resources, efforts and consume a lot of time too. Usually the traditional performance management have once a year evaluation or at most twice a year, which is not enough. The manual methods lack transparency, and cause employees to lose trust on the system as well as the business. Then the bias and favoritism is also a very impactful factor which can completely undermine the benefits of the performance management. That is why a continuous performance management system or agile performance management has started replacing the traditional performance management. The continuous performance management have more frequent reviews, evaluations and discussions.

Most of the business in Dubai and all around the UAE prefer performance management activities once in a month. However, some businesses do it on weekly bases and some do it on project bases, which is usually less than 3 months. The modern businesses are very dynamic, fast-paced and required to respond to the continuously changing market and customer trends. Businesses need agility to grow and be competitive in the market. This require a continuous monitoring mechanisms which can provide up-to-date data. The continuous or agile performance management also help managers to quickly identify a problem or if someone loses the focus or get off the track, etc. the manager can easily identify such issues and take actions to ensure all resources align with the high-level organizational goals and objectives. More frequent discussions, one-to-one meetings and reviews boost employee engagement. Employee engagement is an essential ingredient for the better performance.

When employee are engaged and connected with the business they tend to perform well. It also help them align with the high-level organizational goals and objectives and it also help managers to improve communication. The continuous or agile performance management also encourage collaborative goals and objectives setting, which itself is a great method to boost employee performance. These are some of the main reasons why continuous performance management is getting popular and this trend will continue for several coming years. The continuous performance management also provide real-time performance data to the higher management and strategy makers, it gives them a chance to correct course and remodel their objectives as per the current scenarios. In general the continuous performance management increase the readiness of the organization to deal with incidents, disruptions and unexpected scenarios.

Performance Management Trends: 2. Collaborative Goals & Objectives

For any performance management strategy the goals and objectives are the most important and crucial part of it. Traditionally the high-level organizational goals and objectives are set according to the mission and vision of the business. Then these goals are scaled down up to the individual level. The managers set the goals and objectives for the individual employees, and make plans for them. However the modern performance management system also include the say of the employee in the goal setting process. It is important to understand their point of view and let them participate in the vital decision making processes. There are several benefits of including employees in the goal setting process. The collaborative goals and objectives are more likely to be achieved. As the employees were agreed with the managers in setting up a particular goal or objectives, they feel more responsible for completing it. These methods increase employee engagement, give them more trust and help bridging the gap between the strategy and implementation.

Another great advantage of collaborative goals and objectives method is that it allow managers to acquire a deeper insight of the employee performance, their capabilities and the actual situation on the ground. When the managers and employee discuss the high-level organizational goals the employee knows what is to be expected from them in order to achieve company goals. Most of the time managers are not fully aware of the employee situation, the limitation and obstacles they might be facing, only the employee knows very well what they can achieve. But important thing here is to understand that the goals shouldn’t be too easy to achieve, they should be challenging but realistic. If a goal is too easy, then it might not produce enough value, if it is too hard or extremely difficult, then the employee might not even attempt to complete it. That is why the collaborative goal setting process is a great method to help managers achieve a balance between the value and the attainability of the task. The collaborative goals and objectives tend to produce the maximum value and help achieving high performance and efficiency.

Performance Management Trends: 3. Employee Engagements

The employee engagement is basically the emotional attachment or connection that an employee has with the business and its goals. It is easy to understand why the employee engagements are considered to be the most important factor in performance management. When an employee is emotionally connected to the business and its goals, they will behave differently, they will take more responsibility, the will get motivated and work harder, and they will become more efficient. There are several factors that help increasing employee engagement and there are several factors that could distant employees from the business. The employee engagement begins with communication, if there is no effective communication between them and the manager they will feel disconnected from the system. It is important to establish a healthy two-way communication channel between the employee and the managers. The best way to do is to increase the one-to-one discussions and meetings.

The recognition and acknowledgement of the good work is one of the best way to increase employee engagement. A positive constructive feedback can significantly boost the employee morale and encourage them to perform well. The managers should focus more on meaningful feedbacks, such as if an employee showed a great performance at some task, the managers will appreciate them. But it is also important to explain them the impact of their good performance/achievement on the high-level organizational goals, team objectives, and their personal development. Furthermore the employee engagement can be increased by gaining their trust. The managers should communicate the high-level organizational goals and objectives with the employees, they should explain them why these goals and objectives are important, and they should allow the employees to come up with their own goals and objectives that they think will produce some value aligned with the company goals and objectives. Such activities and discussions can significantly boost the employee engagements.

Performance Management Trends: 4. Digitalization & Automation

The traditional performance management is a manual process, it requires a lot of time, efforts and resources. That is the reason the conventional performance management is done only once or twice a year. However, the modern performance management heavily rely on digitalization and automation which makes it quick, low-cost, and an easy task. The modern performance management system is based on a software. The performance management software is an AI (Artificial Intelligence) based application with smart analytical algorithms which makes it more effective and convenient. The modern IT infrastructure is usually based on a centralized information system which is linked with almost all other digital systems. The performance management system can integrate with other systems and get valuable performance data automatically. This digitalization and automation simplify the performance management and make is easier for both the managers and the employees.

It also provide a structured framework for communication, reviews, rewards and development programs which further enhance the effectiveness of the performance management program. A well-organized performance management system not only boost the outcome but it also help dealing with several inherent performance management problems and obstacles. For example, a structured communication framework facilitate one-to-one discussions and review processes. The digital data inputs enhance the accuracy and transparency of the system. The performance management software provides dedicated dashboards for different user groups. The senior managers can conveniently view the performance data at their dashboard, similarly the line managers, and even the individual employees can view their progress in real-time on their dedicated dashboards. Moreover some businesses also enable visibility for peers, other teams and even departments, to encourage competitiveness. The digitalization and automation make performance management more convenient and effective.

Performance Management Trends: 5. Project-Based & Contextual Performance

The project based performance management and evaluation is a relatively new concept. The project based performance management is s two-step process, the first step is to monitor and measure the performance in real-time which is done after the completion of a project or after achieving a milestone. The second step is almost similar to as the traditional performance management, the annual review. Thus the project based performance management includes both micro view and macro view. Most of the time when the annual reviews are conducted it is very hard for the managers and the reviewers to remember the performance for a project that was completed a few months ago. That is why the project based feedbacks and reviews are recorded. With the modern performance management system the project-based performance management has become simpler and convenient. The project based performance is rapidly gaining popularity among all business sectors.

The modern performance management leverage the technology. Which makes the performance management very convenient and less expensive and it also provides businesses a chance to adopt continuous or agile performance management. The modern performance management is transforming into a more context based evaluation process. Because there are several factors that can impact the performance of the employees, especially the external factors that are not visible to the managers. For example, if someone is having some problem at home, or if someone is having some other personal matter which is not letting them focus on their work and so on. These factors can have huge impact on the employee performance. But as soon as those problems are solved the performance resumed gradually. That is why the project based performance management include the employee performance at every milestone, project completion and also at the end of the year to improve the accuracy.

See More: 5 Challenges in implementing Performance Management System

Conclusion

The performance management is one of the most crucial business process. Businesses need to build a strong workforce in order to gain competitive advantages. The skilled and high-performing workforce is not only about recruitment, but it take continuous nurturing and gradual improvements which results in the brilliant and efficient workforce. The performance management is a tool that help businesses improve the employee performance. The modern day performance management system utilize technology and make the process simpler, easier, less expensive, semi-autonomous and very convenient. The digital system is very capable and it can automatically collect valuable performance data from various other systems and central information center. In this blog we have covered top 5 trends that are most likely to shape the future of the performance management. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to implement a very cost-efficient 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 someone will get in touch with you soon.

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November 14, 2022December 21, 2022

5 Challenges in implementing Performance Management System

The performance management process have become very complex and sophisticated over the time. Often the HR and the employees both got confused with the performance management processes. Businesses use a lot of methods and tools to monitor and improve the performance. The performance management is one of the most crucial business function, it help businesses understand their strengths and weaknesses. Businesses can highlight flaws and weak points which help them grow. A successful performance management can provide a greater competitive advantage. However, we have noticed that even some of the very large companies and businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are not effectively utilizing the performance management. Hence, they are unable to work at the full potential which slows their growth and it also have financial repercussions too.

It is not that the HR or the management doesn’t have the knowledge of the performance management, but most of the time they are not doing it right, sometimes just few minor mistakes could have larger and long term impact on the performance of the business.Here in Dubai and all around the UAE businesses usually prefer a digital performance management system/software which is far better than the traditional manual performance management and appraisal processes. There are two major reasons of moving away from the traditional methods and adopting to technology based modern performance management practices. First is that the manual performance management is a very time and effort consuming process, the second is that the traditional annual reviews are losing their impact, as the more rapid changes in the markets, trends, customer demands and competition demands a more frequent and continuous performance management.

However, adopting to modern solutions is also not an easy task and that is the reason why most of the businesses made mistakes in implementing a modernized performance management system. In this blog we will discuss what most common challenges a business face when they implement a modern technology based performance management system and software solutions.

What is a Performance Management System?

The performance management system is basically a very powerful AI based software application that help businesses implement the modern performance management strategies to make the individual employees and the entire business more effective in achieving the high-level company goals and objectives. The performance management system help providing a complete framework which facilitates the performance management activities and processes. The performance management is a process that enables gradual and consistent improvement and make businesses more efficiency and capable. It help management lift up employees, groom them into leaders, train them to acquire better knowledge and skills, and help improving the entire workforce. This gradual improvement lead businesses to achieve their long-term and short-term high-level organizational goals, objectives and vision.

Challenges in Implementing Performance Management System: Customized Software

One of the biggest challenge in implementing a performance management framework is the selection of the software. Usually there are two types of software implementation, one is commercial off-the-shelf software also known as COTS, and the second is customized software development. The customized software development is the best approach for the performance management software implementation. The COTS are designed for masses, hence are general purpose, and usually follow the industry standards. Whereas the customized performance management software is a tailor-made solution that is exclusively designed for the business keeping in mind their needs. The customized performance management system not only fulfill all business needs but it have very low impact on the organization. It integrates seamlessly within the existing environment.

The performance management system tend to integrate with existing internal systems, tools, databases and central information center. This allow the performance management system to collect data automatically from the relevant sources. The automation reduce the human effort and make the performance management process simpler and convenient. Furthermore the customization also allow businesses to make the user interfaces more intuitive and customized which make system more user-friendly. Furthermore for different businesses the performance management process is different, their needs and priorities are different, hence the customization allow them to focus more on their important things and maximize the usability of the performance management system. The customized performance management system is also cost-effective and tend to have longer lifecycle than the COTS.

Challenges in Implementing Performance Management System: Goals & Objectives

After deploying a customized performance management system or even a COTS app, the first and most important step in performance management is setting up the goals and objectives. The most common problems in setting up goals and objectives is the over-ambitious goals and unrealistic or extremely difficult to achieve objectives. Another common problem with the smaller and mid-size organizations is having too many goals which unfortunately distract the employees from high value goals. Too many or too difficult goals will disconnect the employees form the goals and most of the times result in stress, lack of interest, hopelessness and frustration among the employees. The best approach is to have fewer and realistic goals. The individual goals should be aligned with the team’s goals, department’s goals and the high-level organizational goals and the high-level company goals are always aligned with the company vision, mission and values which also known as VMVs.

The performance management system provides a complete framework for the goals management. It enables businesses to implement SMART framework to set goals and KPIs. The SMART stands for:

Specific: Should be simple, logical and of high value
Measurable: Should be quantifiable, easy-to-understand and motivational
Achievable: Should be attainable given the availability of the resources and circumstances
Relevant: The goal should be relevant to the employee, his/her job role, capabilities and skills
Time bound: So the employee knows the timeframe to accomplish a goal

The goals and objectives both can be set using the SMART framework. The employee will understand what they have to accomplish, this will clear their mind and let them focus on the most vital goals and increase the value of their contribution. The fundamental of performance tracking is to define a goal in a way that it can be translated to a measurable and quantifiable matric. The goals and objectives should be realistic and achievable in the given environment and circumstances. The employees’ skills, experience and knowledge should align with the goals and objectives. The employee should know when their progress will be evaluated so the goals should be time-bound.

Challenges in Implementing Performance Management System: Evaluation & Feedback

The biggest problem with the traditional performance management systems is that the employee evaluation is based on manual feedback. Traditionally the employee evaluation and feedback is done once in a year which reduce the quality of the outcome. Most of the time the reviewer tend to consider only the most recent performances and some prominent events within the year. It is because we as a human can’t remember everything, if a managers is reviewing a team then it is nearly impossible to remember everyone’s full year’s performance by the end of the year. This results in lack of trust on the system and also on the managers. Furthermore the human emotions are also a huge factor, which results in favoritism and bias. Which further crumble the trust of the employees on the system. That are some of the main reasons the employees and most of the managers also not trust the traditional methods.

However the employee performance management system provides a complete framework to collect feedback and schedule one to one meetings between the employees and the managers. This also help increasing employee engagement and fill the communication gap. Furthermore the performance management system provides dedicated dashboards which help collecting more untraditional performance data and also improve the communication. The well-organized performance management process also eliminates several other problems. It also allow managers to easily conduct the reviews, which makes it possible to evaluate employee via this performance management system. Furthermore the performance management system also provide real-time performance data, which help managers to get instant updates and take actions if needed without any delay. These features help businesses significantly improve the effectiveness of the performance management system.

Challenges in Implementing Performance Management System: Rewards & Development

Reward and employees’ personal development is one of the most important part of the performance management system. These two are the major contributor of the employee turnover. Employees who don’t find reasonable personal development program and adequate acknowledgment they tend to lose interest in their job and are most likely to leave. It is very frustrating for the employees to not to achieve something and keep working on. No or very less appreciation will detach employees form the business, which have very bad effects on the employee performance. No employee development plan will give them an impression of getting stuck at a job which doesn’t add value to their career or personal skills and knowledge. The traditional performance management methods lacks transparency and accuracy, which reduce the impact of such efforts made by the management and demoralize employees.

A digital performance management system can effectively eliminate the poor accuracy and increase employees trust. However, it is not easier to achieve, that is why the performance management system provides a full framework to appreciate the employees in form of rewards, acknowledgments, bonuses, incentives and other perks. Due to autonomy and a better employee review and evaluation process, the employee start trusting it and get more engaged and attached with the business. Employee happiness and engagement can boost the performance. The performance data also help management in planning different training and employee development programs. The semi-autonomous mechanisms for reward and compensations also help increasing employee trust over the management and the system. That is why it is important to setup employee development and reward programs in the system.

Challenges in Implementing Performance Management System: System Integration

Most of the time a business implements a modern performance management system and thinks that is it and it will somehow dramatically boost their performance and progress. However, that is not the case at all. A performance management system is a software tool, from the technical prospective it require a server environment to host its all AI based algorithms and source code. That is it. However, from the users’ point of view, the general trend among the world is that people tend to oppose any new major change in their routines. That mindset could cause a lot of problems. That is why it is crucial to implement a modern performance management system with a comprehensive user training program. Furthermore the performance management system should be fully integrated within your performance management practices and the workflows as well.

The performance management system offer a ton of customization facilities. Which can be very helpful, it is ideal that the business follow another popular tool as a reference for the UI (user interface) and UX (user experience). When the performance dashboard looks familiar it is much easier to train the employees and the managers to use it. The managers also require a lot of training before they become able to utilize the performance management system at its full potential. The performance management system must be integrated with the HR system/department. Only then the HR can ensure the business have a decent talent pool all the time. The technology itself will not going to improve the performance, in fact it is how you utilize the technology can make a bigger difference. That is why it is important that the business integrate the system within existing IT environment as well as it trains its managers and employees to be able to use it. This will increase the effectiveness of the performance management system and will help you reach your high-level organization goals and objectives.

Conclusion

A modern day performance management system is basically a very powerful software tool which help business in improving their performance management process and enable them to utilize it at its full potential. There is no doubt that the performance management system have become a necessity after the traditional performance management and review methods have failed the businesses and the employees too. The business can have a customized performance management system which could eliminate several implementation challenges. The integration and adequate employee training could also be very helpful in eliminating the issues normally associated with the implementation of a digital performance management system/software. RSI Concepts is a leading performance management system provider in Dubai, UAE. We are expert in offering very cost-effective tailor-made and customized performance management systems/software. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want us to help you implementing your next 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.

Check out this: Why customized CRM Software is better than Off-the-shelf Solution?

October 28, 2022October 28, 2022

How to Leverage Automation to Improve Employee Performance Appraisal Process?

The UAE is among the world’s most developed nations. The government is always encouraging ministries, departments, public offices, and even private sector to adopt to modern technologies. The government also facilitates the technology industry and IT sector with very supportive policies. The economy of the country has proven to be very strong even during the global outbreak, and now that phase is over already, the economy is booming. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the rate of new startups per month is higher than any other neighboring nation. This is raising the competition and making the markets more diverse, dynamic and customer-friendly. As the simplest way to beat the competition is to delight your customers and make them loyal. The customer’ dominance is evident by the rapid adaptation to customer-centric strategies and business models. The tough competition, high customer demands, and ever changing market trends demand businesses to be more proactive with their strategies and policies. This led businesses to start implementing modern technologies and digital solutions to add value and efficiency to internal business processes. The performance management is one of those core processes that need an upgrade.

A well-crafted performance management strategy help businesses maximize their productivity and efficiency and enable them to grow gradually over the time. However, in this modern age of IT and digital the traditional performance management processes have become ineffective, and now a days the modern performance management is heavily relying on performance data. The annual appraisal practice have lost its effectiveness since a long time ago, however, there are still some businesses who rely on that method but most are now implementing modern and continuous performance monitoring methods. It is important to continuously monitor the performance of the employees and keep a track of their progress throughout the entire year. Whether you follow a traditional method or implement a modern digital performance management system, the performance management was never easy. Employees and managers always dread it due to time-consuming processes, unreliable evaluations and appraisals and high cost.

However, all these problems can be solved by implementing the modern technologies. In this blog we will discuss how businesses can leverage modern technologies to drive automation which can significantly improve the employee performance appraisal process.

What is Employee Performance Appraisal Process?

By definition an employee performance appraisal process is a systematic and periodic approach to measure the performance of the employee against their job roles, pre-set goals, the value they add to the company goals and strategic objectives, their worth for the business, their strengths and weaknesses and the future potential. The businesses use performance appraisal processes to acquire valuable information which they can use to make decisions such as employee promotion, bonuses, transfer, and termination, etc. The employee development programs and training programs are also set on the bases of that data. Furthermore the employee appraisal process also help improving communication between the employees and the managers. This is necessary to provide employees with a better understanding of the company goals and objectives and let employee understand how their individual goals and objectives will help business achieving its high-level goals and objectives. The employee performance appraisal data is also helpful in identifying future leaders and help businesses and organizations to gradually improve their talent pool and workforce which is a key to long term success and sustainable growth.

How Automation can improve the Employee Performance Appraisal Process?

There are two major problems that traditional employee performance appraisal process have, first is the bias or favoritism and the second is once or twice a year evaluation. However, in the present day the psyche of a common employee have completely changed, the deep integration of technology, fast-paced lifestyle and evolving markets demand businesses to act swiftly and be more vigilant. The yearly appraisals have become very ineffective. It is not just the employees, the managers, the HR and even the higher management is also unhappy with this yearly or biyearly chore. It is because the time, efforts and cost it takes and in return add very less value to employees’ or organization’s performance. Another major aspect of the modern performance management is that it not just focus on the past performance, but it help identifying the strength and weaknesses of the employees, various internal processes and other factors that are impacting the performance. The modern digital employee performance appraisal process depends on a software application, which automates several performance appraisal tasks, and it also improve the data collection capabilities and the data quality.

Businesses also want to align their employees and all resources with the company goals and strategic objectives. Which is not possible with the traditional employee performance appraisal processes. So the modern employee performance appraisal process is focused on the past performance, current performance and learn the ways to improve the performance in future. A digital employee performance appraisal system/software can help automating several processes of the performance management. Here is how businesses can leverage the automation to improve employee performance appraisal process:

Quicker and More Frequent Feedbacks

The employees don’t like waiting for one year to know how they are performing, in fact they need instant feedback. The yearly performance reviews take a lot of time, employees don’t have much trust on them and the reviews are also not capable of evaluating the entire year’s performance. In fact most of the time the annual reviews are based on just the most recent performances, and they might include some significant incidents where the employee either performed well or poorly. That is why the employee wants more frequent feedbacks from their managers as they know this feedback will help them stay on the course, and will keep them from deviating or losing the focus from the primary objectives. The digital employee performance appraisal system provides an automated and structured communication framework, which includes more frequent interactions with the managers. It help facilitating the one on one discussions/interviews, and more frequent performance reviews. Hence the employee can get more guidance from the managers and tend to perform well.

Streamline Employee Performance Appraisal Processes

The digital employee performance appraisal system is capable of automating several internal performance appraisal processes and performance management tasks. For example, the managers can easily utilize dynamic and customized feedback forms and questionnaires for each job role. The system can understand the workflow and it can automatically take the participants and managers from one stage to the next. Furthermore the system also have in-built features to control the access to the system and various processes and it is also capable of passing the employees or the feedback process to the next level without any human interventions. Thus it saves a lot of manual work. The digital review forms are also a great help, they keep the managers from doing hours and hours of manual work. The digital employee performance appraisal system also help processing the data and offer a variety of in-built analytical tools. It can share the data with all relevant managers, senior management, and even with the employees if needed. All this can be done automatically which save a lot time and effort.

Real-time Monitoring and Visibility to Performance

Processing manual reviews and generating reports is a time consuming task. The managers will have to wait a lot to get the report. This is because the traditional employee performance appraisal system was designed to generate such reports once a year or maximum twice. However, the modern employee performance appraisal system can completely automates the process. As the employee reviews and questionnaires can be digitalized, the system can collect the feedback automatically and instantly generate report in the system. The managers and senior management can easily access those reports from their administrative dashboards. Furthermore the automation enables the digital employee performance appraisal system to provide up-to-date performance data in real-time which can be very handy in decision making and strategy building processes and provide senior management greater visibility and monitoring capabilities. These features also help businesses to quickly adopt to continuous performance management which is tend to be a great and most effective employee performance management and employee performance appraisal strategy.

Save Time, Efforts and Cost on Employee Performance Appraisal Process

The traditional employee performance appraisal process includes a lots of administrative tasks that kept HR and Managers very busy during the evaluation process. AS different job roles have different forms, each employee might have to fill-in more than one form, the businesses tend to evaluate employees, managers, and also collect feedback from teammates and peers, the creation and distribution of all these forms could be very time consuming. Then the HR or the managers will also have to follow up with the employees to get them the form done within the time. Even then it is very less common for the HR to complete the employee performance appraisal process within the due time. It usually gets late and that is due to these time consuming administrative tasks. However, with the help of a digital employee performance appraisal system all these tasks can be fully or partially automated, which means the system will do the work and it can significantly reduce the time and efforts required to complete the process. Furthermore the system doesn’t only save time and efforts but a lot of cost too. The employee performance appraisal system is mostly a web-based application which is very cost efficient.

Align Employees with Company Goals and Objectives

Employees need to be more engaged in their work, they should be happy and satisfied and the communication should be excellent. This will help achieving businesses better performance. A digital employee performance appraisal system not only automates the appraisal and performance management processes but it also provide a structured framework which eliminates a lots of traditional problems and obstacles that can hinder the performance. When the employees are constantly provided with valuable feedback, guidance and mentorship from the managers, they inspired to perform better. The digital employee performance appraisal system also provide businesses with highly accurate performance data that help them understand the strengths and weaknesses of the employees and help them plan better employee development and training programs which itself is a great tool to maximize the employee performance. Furthermore the transparency and proper acknowledgement of all of their efforts help employees to get more emotionally connected with the business and its goals, which also inspire better performance and employee produce more outcome with less inputs.

Well-organized Historical Performance Data

It is difficult to remember the previous performances, milestones or achievements. Especially with manual data management and traditional performance management strategy it is extremely hard to pull out historical data and perform comparative analysis. However, with the digital employee performance appraisal system all the historical data and previous achievements are well-organized and stored in a data repository. It just requires a few clicks in the administrative dashboard to pull up the previous historical performance data. Especially in case of disputes, the historical data help managers and employees to resolve disagreements very quickly and save time. This also help managers pass a fair judgment and increase the transparency of the reviews. Employees are feel more confident and trust when they know the evaluation is fair and on bases of their actual performance. This also eliminates the chances of typical bias and favoritism that is common in traditional employee appraisal methods. The managers can also get the historical data to compare the weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly performance of the employees, teams, departments and even the entire business.

Compatible with Multiple Employee Performance Appraisal Methods

The employee performance appraisal is not a simple method, in fact it have a lot of sub-methods or multiple different approaches to evaluate the performance on the bases of different reference points. A digital employee performance appraisal system can support almost all modern and traditional performance appraisal methods including:

360^ODegree Reviews and Feedback
720^ODegree Reviews and Feedback
Checklist Method
Critical Incident Method
General Performance Appraisals
Field Reviews
Forced Choice Method
Management By Objectives (MBO)
Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS)
Assessment Center Method
HR Accounting Method
Customer/Client Feedback & Reviews
Performance Tests and Observations
Performance Rating Scale
Project based Performance Evaluation Method

Businesses can utilize any or all of the above mentioned employee performance appraisal methods using a digital employee performance appraisal system. The modern day digital performance management systems also provide in-built templates and tools to quickly create performance monitoring mechanisms such as KPIs, OKRs, and other measuring matrices. The HR or the managers can also build customized performance appraisal methods using the in-built tools and features of a digital employee performance appraisal system/software.

See More: 6 Performance Management Problems and How to Solve Them?

Conclusion

For any business or organization monitoring and measuring the performance of their employees and assessing the value they are adding to achieve the company goals and objectives is crucial. It helps them understand the strengths and weaknesses of the employees, let them plan better training and personal development programs for them and help them achieve better productivity and performance which translates to higher profitability and steady growth. However, in this modern fast-paced world, the annual employee performance appraisals are not enough to meet those needs. The ever changing trend, skyrocketing customer demands, and evolving markets demand more proactive strategy from the businesses. The modern digital employee performance appraisal system/software is equipped with tools and features that help automating the appraisal processes and facilitate communication which enable businesses to get higher visibility and align the employees and resources with the high-level business goals and objectives. When the managers clearly communicate the company goals and objectives and provide understanding of how the individual goals, objectives, tasks and performance will impact them, the employee tend to perform better.

When the employees are more emotionally connected with the company goals, their voice is heard, they have trust on the appraisal process and the communication between the managers and the employees is convenient, frequent and clear, the business can easily achieve higher performance. RSI Concepts is a leading performance management system provider in Dubai, UAE we provide tailor-made employee performance appraisal system/software. If you want to learn more about the subject of if you want us to help you deploying a digital employee performance appraisal 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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October 27, 2022

6 Performance Management Problems and How to Solve Them?

The performance management success can be closely related to the business’s success as higher performance results in higher productivity and higher customer satisfaction. No matter how modern or advanced IT infrastructure you have, or how efficiency your production facility is, if your workforce is not performing at their best then you can never achieve your goals. That is why the performance management have become so important in present day workplace. Having a great talent and high performing workforce doesn’t only mean good hiring methods and HR practices, but a business will have to nurture its workforce, it must have to increase their engagement and satisfaction to achieve the higher performance. That is why the performance management is becoming very difficult day by day. The products and services you deliver to your customers will determine your success and failure. And that heavily depends on the employee performance. That is why the performance management is crucial for business success.

What is Performance Management?

In the modern business landscape the performance management is a method, approach, process, technology and tools a business used to monitor, track, enhance and improve the employee productivity, efficiency and value they are adding to the high-level organization’s goals and objectives. The traditional performance management methods and approaches are not effective anymore. The modern performance management rely on a software tool referred to as enterprise performance management system/software. Here are some of the most common goals of a modern performance management system:

Increase employee efficiency, engagement and enhance their individual skills
Maximize the operational efficiency and productivity of the entire organization
Maximize the profits by reducing the input and generating more revenue
Improve employee experience, increase their satisfaction and reduce employee turnover
Provide a better reliable framework to track and monitor the performance

The enterprise performance management software have completely transformed the traditional performance management. Businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are also adopting to the modern technological solutions and tools to make their performance management more impactful. However, I still feel that the performance management software is at the place where the internet was in the late 90s. The internet technology have completely revolutionized everything today but at that time it faced skepticisms and a lot of uncertainty was around.The performance management software is also at the same stage. Sooner it will become an absolute necessary for all modern businesses and enterprises.

In this blog we will discuss 6 most common performance management problems and their solution with the help of a modern performance management software.

Performance Management Problems: 1. Unclear Goals and Objectives

The lack of clarity in goals and objectives is the most common and most impactful problem with performance management. Vaguely defined goals and objectives lead to confusion among the employees. Employees can’t understand what exactly is expected from them to achieve, and how their goals and objectives will contribute to the high-level organizational goals and objectives. In fact in such situation most of the time the managers also failed to develop a right mechanism to measure the performance. Ambiguity and confusion can kill the performance, it not only lead to a failure in achieving your performance goals but it will eventually cause a lot more problems. When the goals and objectives are not clear the managers and employees fail to develop right business processes to achieve those goals. The lack of clarity and uncertainty led to frustration and stress, which itself is very bad for productivity. This also have long term consequences such as increased employee turnover.

How to clarify the Goals and Objectives?

The businesses should clearly define their vision and mission. In the modern fast paced world, it is absolutely fine having dynamic vision and goals. Usually the vision and mission statements also keep changing with the time, hence the goals and objectives too. But it is very important that a business should have a clear and understandable vision and long term goals. The short term goals and objectives should be aligned with the long term goals and objectives and this relation should be logical and understandable. For that the business need to define clear and specific goals and objectives. In today’s fast paced markets, the business should clearly define the role of each individual employee, team, department and business functions so every employee know what is expected from them and how they should do it. Hence the managers should guide the teams and employees on how to move forward by setting up internal benchmarks and milestones.

The managers should involve employees in goal setting and strategy making processes, this will motivate them and give them a sense of connection with their goals and objectives. Employee engagement is one of the best advantage of using a performance management software. The performance management software facilitates flow of information and help managers and employees in understanding the high-level organizational goals and objectives. When the employee have clear and understandable vision, organizational goals and objectives, they have a vantage point to set their individual goals and objectives aligned to high-level goals and objectives. This usually tend to yield excellent performance. When the employees knows what the scale of measuring the success is and what success will look like, they get motivated and work harder to achieve their goals and objectives. That is why the clarity in company vision, high-level organizational goals and objectives is important to set valuable individual goals and objectives and to derive the internal processes and mechanisms to achieve those goals and objectives.

Performance Management Problems: 2. Poor Communication

The communication is the lifeblood of any business. Without effective communication a business can never achieve its goals. In fact poor communication led to several problems and have long term repercussions. The poor communication can deteriorate the performance as the employees can’t fully understand what the business is expecting from them to do. The communication is an essential component of each performance management process. Whether it is the goal setting and strategy making process, if everything is not communicated effectively the employees will remain confused about several things, which led them to work without a clear purpose or motive. When employee don’t have a clear objective or motive and they are not communicated how valuable their contribution is they tend to work aimlessly and perform poorly. There are several reasons of poor communication, such as:

Unclear and ambiguous language of written communication, such as emails or any other format
Poor communication practices failed to deliver right information to the right person at the right time which results in incorrect actions or no action taken at all
Unproductive discussions and meetings, due to personal relationship and behavior of managers and employees, which usually distract them from the topic and the result in very little progress
Managers failed to communicate the goals, objectives and plans, and employee failed to express their problems which cause delayed/incorrect action or no action at all

The poor communication also lead to deteriorate the relationship between the managers and the employees which could have serious consequences in the long term. That is why the poor communication is a huge problem within the modern business environments.

How to Improve Communication?

A modern performance management software provides a complete communication framework to maximize the communication, information flow and employee engagements. A multi-channel communication framework enable flow of information via multiple channels and it also help facilitating personal conversation and one on one meetings. Whether you are a small company or a large enterprise, whether your employee works at a single location or at multiple locations, whether you are following traditional work practices or hybrid work environment, an effective communication is a key to success. Here are some of the benefits of a multi-channel communication framework offered by the performance management software/system:

Ensure employee receive the right information at right time, prevent delays
Offer features to make sure the message has been delivered, read and understood
Facilitate one to one meetings and create more opportunities for frequent dialogues
Provide multiple remote communication channels to enable employee reach even if they are off-campus or working at remote sites
Facilitate personalized communications which build relationship between managers and employees and help them align with company goals and objectives
Automate information sharing processes, and set priorities and alerts for urgent communications

The performance management software also keep record of all previous interactions and can also capture the communication details from supported channels which help managers and employees to access the information on later stages if needed. The effective communication is a key to success.

Performance Management Problems: 3. Lack of Trust

The employee performance and their trust on the managers and at the business is mandatory for the performance. If employee don’t trust their managers or the enterprise they will eventually end up performing poor, it will also increase employee turnover rate. There are several factor that could hurt the trust of the employees, the most important is the lack of transparency. Usually without a performance management software the performance management processes are done manually. The human factor alone can harm the quality of the data. Furthermore when the managers do the employee evaluation they might only focus on certain things, without considering their other performances, this cause distrust and reduce the transparency of the system. The poor communication and lack of understanding of the evaluation matrices also ruin the employee trust on the managers and the enterprise also. Unfair reward and recognition, biased in feedback and managers’ personal liking and disliking also impact the process very badly and it can completely kill the trust. When the employee don’t trust on the managers and the enterprise or corporates, they tend to perform poorly and have no motivation with low morale.

How to Enhance Employee Trust?

The performance management system/software offers a variety of features that can help managers to set up several processes to enhance the employee trust. On top of everything the employee performance management software help improving communication between employees and the managers and it also help employee to participate and contribute in decision making processes which gives them confidence and help building the trust. The employee performance management software also help businesses bring transparency and fair accountability practices to their performance management processes. When the employee start feeling that the system is completely fair and there is no room for personal bias or favoritism they feel more comfortable with the performance management process and this help managers gaining more trust of the employees. Here are a few key features of the performance management software which help building employee trust:

The performance management software add transparency and data driven processes which add value to employees’ daily work flow and enhance their trust
The managers can have better communication with the employees which ensures they can easily understand the employee’s point of view and their problems
The performance management software also offer a dedicated employee feedback collection module which let them express themselves freely and openly and increase their confidence on the system
The employee performance management software streamline reward and recognitions processes and bring transparency and accuracy to the processes which help gaining employee trust
Managers can use employee performance management software data to develop employee development and training program which can meet their needs and help them build the trust
The performance management software offers real-time feedback monitoring which enables managers to proactively guide employees and make them more successful in achieving their goals

The employee performance management software help managers develop a culture and environment of understanding the importance of trust and employee satisfaction which can significantly raise the productivity and performance.

Performance Management Problems: 4. Micromanagement

The micromanagement is one of the most common problem businesses face. The micromanagers might think they are doing right thing by excessively controlling the employees and their daily tasks, however, in reality the micromanagement is very counter-productive. When a manager or supervisor manages your each and every move in a day, you will definitely feel powerless, incompetent and demotivated towards your daily tasks. As the micromanagement unknowingly gives employee an impression that they are incompetent and a supervisor or manager has to control their each and every move in order to get the work done. Eventually the employee start thinking they are incompetent or they are doing something wrong, this develop a sense of reliance and dependency. The employee become more dependent on the managers and they can’t work autonomously as they require constant monitoring and instructions from the supervisor or manager.

The micromanagement also kills innovation and creativity, it also hinder the ability of employee to work in a team as they neither have their own opinion or nor they can take their teammates opinion, as everything is managed by the manager. When employees are not given any control or their opinion is not valued, they feel distant form their goals and objectives. This can have a great toll on the performance, on top of that the micromanagers also don’t trust on the abilities and competencies of their sub-ordinates which is why they are always unhappy and unsatisfied with the employee’s work and keep forcing them to do better while not giving them any room to grow or evolve. As the manager or supervisor is deeply involved in each and everything which makes employee think that the manager might not trust them, and eventually they will also loose trust on the managers. The micromanagement can account for up to 70% of employee turnover in some industries. That is why micromanagement is very bad for the performance and poses a great threat to the overall organization’s performance.

How to Avoid Micromanagement?

Well it is obvious the businesses can’t simply replace all micromanagers, however, the performance management software provides a digital framework which can be very effective to reduce the impact of the micromanagement on the employees and on their performance. One of the biggest problem of micromanagers is their need to constantlymonitor the progress on the projects or tasks which cause them to interrupt employees many times in a day which keep them distracted from their work and make it difficult to focus on things they are doing. The performance management software can offer a performance dashboard where the micromanagers can monitor the employee performance in real-time. This let them focus on the employees who are lacking and they don’t bother the employee who are on schedule or progressing in the right direction. Another great feature of the performance management software is that it provide a structured framework for the discussion and meeting schedules which prevent micromanagers to interfering with the employees while they are working. This also restrict the micromanagers to meet or have discussion with the employees as per already planned schedules. Hence the negative impact of the micromanagers can be reduced by 60% to 90%.

Performance Management Problems: 5. Poor Strategy and Lack of Focus

The primary goal of performance management is to support and guide the employees to succeed them in achieving their goals and objectives which add value to the high-level organizational goals and objectives. The biggest problem with performance management strategy is that the businesses often think it will going to solve their all problems, however that is not true. A performance management system can’t just solve every problem in a business environment, at best it can bring autonomy and higher productivity to various processes and empower employees to be able produce quality work with limited supervision. The performance management keeps them motivated and encourage them to give their best. Another big mistake that most businesses made while implementing a new performance management strategy is putting too much burden on the managers. As the managers are majorly responsible for implementing the performance management practices so they will have to work a lot. This requires proper training programs which makes the managers able to understand and implement the performance management system effectively.

How to Improve Performance Management Strategy?

The first and most important thing that a performance management strategy should have is limited goals and objectives, too many goals and objectives keep your employees distracted and often confuse them. But when the employees are properly communicated about the importance of each goal, they tend to perform well. It is important to clearly identify the critical key goals which add most of the value to high-level organizational goals and objectives. The performance management software is very helpful in setting up and communicating goals and objectives to the employees. It help bridging the gap between high-level goals and the individual goals and help businesses align all resources with the most valuable goals and objectives. Setting up goals and objectives is crucial for the success, sometimes focus on wrong things could significantly harm the performance. For example, a branch manager have the goal to keep their employees 100% utilized, this led them to form an environment and a work pace (slower) at which all the employees remain 100% utilized all the time, because they feared that if the employee started working on the fast pace, then they might ran out of the work, which will eventually affect manager’s KPIs.

The goal setting is crucial for the success of the performance management process that is why it is important that the goals and objectives remains flexible and the managers have room to incorporate employee’s feedback. This will give employees more control and will enable a better communication between the employees and the managers. The performance management software can also help making all goals visible to everyone that is important as when an objective is complete or a goal is achieved, everyone know it is done. Furthermore the biggest advantage of the performance management software is that it utilizes the digital components to automate the performance data collection methods. Which provide real-time overview to the employees, managers and higher management. These features help managers understand employees’ problems and help them identify the areas of improvements. The performance management software also brings transparency and fairness to the employee evaluation and appraisal processes. When the employees know they will be praised for their good performance they tend to perform well. And when the employees knows that they will be held accountable for their poor performance and they tend to seek ways to improve their skills, and performance.

The performance management software doesn’t have a switch which you will turn on and the performance will magically goes up. In fact the performance management software helps implementing a long term performance management strategy which gradually improves everything. It help businesses understand the obstacles, limitations, strengths and weaknesses of their employees and internal business processes. The performance data plays a crucial role in building strategies, making plans and taking decisions. Businesses can utilize the performance management data to improve their training and personal development programs. The reward and recognition is also crucial to achieve higher performance. The performance management software help increasing employee engagement and satisfaction which can significantly reduce the employee turnover. Furthermore the performance data portrays a very clear picture of what talent the business have and what they might be needing, hence help HR hire the best talent which can add most value to the organizational goals and objectives and help the business in achieving maximum productivity and performance.

Performance Management Problems: 6. Performance Data Quality

Another big problem with performance management is the quality of the performance data. Traditionally everything was manual, hence the data collection was manual too. In the modern performance management practices the data collection is still manual, the reviews, feedbacks, performance measurements and even KPIs are calculated manually. The manual data entry is a big problem, the human errors at data entry time, human bias, and several other factors deteriorate the quality of the data. The performance management data is utilized in decision making process. The managers make their plans and strategies son the bases of the performance management data, the employee development programs, training and coaching programs all are designed on the bases of data gathered during the performance management. That is why this data is very crucial for the success of the performance management. However, manual data collection and manual data analysis can cause several problems. When a business implement a modern performance management strategy the biggest problem they face is the manual performance data collection.

Verified Data Fetching from other Systems

The performance management software is capable of integrating with other enterprise solutions and systems which let it automatically fetch verified data from other systems. Usually this integration is done via APIs, which enable both systems to share data with each other, the performance management software can fetch highly accurate and verified data which significantly improves the performance data quality. For example, the performance management software can fetch highly accurate stats from the customer data base and it can link it to the KPIs of the individual salesman as well as the overall performance of the sales department or even a particular branch. All the internal systems and databases can be on either centralized information center or keeping data separately. The performance management software have ability to fetch data from both scenarios without any hurdle or problem. The automatic data fetching techniques enables the performance management software to produce the best results. The high-quality performance data help the management make more effective decision based on the data they collected. Hence overall performance can be significantly improved with a digital performance management system.

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Conclusion

The performance management is crucial for a business’s success. It help engaging employees, ensures maximum employee satisfaction, it reduces the input and maximize the outcome, ensuring maximum profitability and growth. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the businesses are rapidly adopting to modern performance management practices and methods, however, sometimes it could be very overwhelming for the management and the employees too. That is why many businesses made many mistakes, in this blog we have discussed 6 most common and most crucial problems that businesses usually face when implementing a performance management strategy. A modern performance management software/system help businesses create effective strategies and implement them to achieve higher results. The performance management software automates various processes, collects data automatically and manually and let the management analyze the data instantly with in-built AI based analytical and data processing tools. This not only simplify the performance management process but also took out the extra workload that a performance management process traditionally puts on the managers.

That is why in present day the performance management software is the best solution to solve all performance management problems. In this blog we have discussed most common problems that businesses face while transitioning from the traditional annual and manual performance management to more effective modern performance management methods or continuous performance management methods. RSI Concepts is a leading performance management software/solution providers in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject of if you want us to implement a performance management 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.

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October 11, 2022October 11, 2022

Performance Management through OKR System

The technology have integrated far deeper in our daily lives than we can perceive. The businesses are no exception at all. The modern businesses face modern problems which requires modern solutions. For any business having everything in order is critical. When all employees and resources are aligned with the high-level organizational goals and objectives, only then the highest performance can be achieved. Usually businesses have enough resources, but they are either not properly using them or simply there is too much waste in the system. It could be both non-human and human resource which is underutilized or utilized incorrectly. The biggest challenge for the HR department is to ensure all the required skillsets and talent is made available all the time to all departments within the organization. However, that is not just achallenge, in fact that is the prime goal of the HR. In order to achieve this goal, the HR will have to face many challenges and obstacles. Furthermore the HR is also responsible to keep improving the workforce by implementing strategies and plans for training, motivation, and performance management.

The HR is also responsible for hiring new staff to fill in the gaps that may arise down the road. This all can be done only if the HR will have clear visibility of the performance of the existing resource and understand the gaps between the workforce or skillset that are needed to meet the requirements.Businesses and enterprises in Dubai and all around the UAE are using a variety of performance management system to maximize the productivity and performance which ultimately translates into higher profitability and revenue. The biggest advantage of using an agile performance management system or CPM (continuous performance management) is that it provides a very effective framework for goal management. It improves visibility, accountability and help aligning teams and individuals with high-level organization goals.

The OKRs also help businesses achieve autonomy and let teams work autonomously by making them able to understand how their work is contributing to the high-level organizational goals and objectives. Most of the times businesses confuse OKRs with the Performance Management, however, the OKRs are a framework for the goal management and the performance management majorly tend to evaluate employee performance.This doesn’t mean the performance management and the OKRs are rivals or can’t work together, in fact if a business wants to enjoy the maximum of both, they should align and integrate OKRs within their performance management process.

What is the Difference between the Performance Management and OKRs?

The OKRs are Objectives and Key Results. The OKRs are set by teams and managers for the teams and it always have a clear goal and objectives which can be measured clearly by the outcome. For example. We will improve customer service by increasing customer satisfaction. The improvement in customer service is an objective and how much improvement is done, that can be measured by the customer satisfaction survey, or by NPS score or even by reduction in customer churn rate or even by all those factors altogether. To achieve the OKRs several different employees will have to work together. In our example, in order to improve customer service, many teams must have to work together to produce the desired outcome. However, the performance management is entirely a different process with a different scope. It involves, high-level planning, continuous monitoring, reviewing or evaluation and then rewards & acknowledgements for the individual employees instead of teams. Although performance management also measures the teams’ performance but the main focus is at the individual performance.

The OKRs are not the employee evaluation, in fact it is the measure of the employees’ and teams’ contribution to the high-level goals and objectives. The performance management on the other hand is the evaluation of the performance of each employees for a given period of time. Hence the OKRs and the performance reviews should be kept separate and independent. Neither should dictate the other. The performance management system focuses on the outputs and attainments while the OKRs focus on the outcomes. Most of the outcomes for a business are not an individual effort, but a collective and collaborative effort by multiple employees and teams. That is why the OKRs focus on the outcomes instead of individual outputs. The OKRs inspire innovation and are designed to encourage teams to set more bold and stretched goals. Which encourage the entire teams to perform better and motivates them. The performance management doesn’t require collaboration as it is focused on individual goals, however, the OKRs encourage collaborations and demand collective efforts to maximize the outcome that is aligned with the high-level organizational goals and objectives.

How Businesses can Improve Performance Management through OKR System?

Now that we have established a clear understanding of the performance management system and OKR system, we will discuss how both can be used in parallel to maximize the results. The OKRs are also used to aid performance management process but unlike the traditional performance management system the OKRs focus more on broader goals and results. The OKRs have two parts, the objectives and the key results. Usually there are 3 to 5 primary objectives with additional 3 to 5 supportive or relevant objectives. These goals and objectives tend to be measured with quantifiable outcomes which are usually monitored through KPIs (key performance indicators). The biggest advantage of the OKRs is that all the goals are communicated well with the teams they have their say in it, and all goals are aligned with the high-level organizational goals and objectives. The goals set under OKR framework are always achievable but challenging which is a key to maximize the outcome. The OKRs cycle is also more frequent, usually it is 2 to 4 months, unlike the performance management cycle which is usually 12 months. This also provide better visibility and much deeper understanding of the progress and the factors that are impacting the productivity.

Basically the OKRs are used to support faster growth and help businesses in more dynamic and fast changing markets. There are several multinational businesses and enterprises who have performed exceptionally with OKR system, such as:

Google
Intel Corporation
Meta (Facebook)

And many more. All those companies are well-known for their hyper-growth and global expansion. The OKR system helped them and thousands of others to effectively maximize the productivity of their teams and individual employees.

Here are some key benefits of using OKR System to boost the performance:

OKR System Align all Resources with your Vision and High-level Organizational Goals

Every organization have a long term vision, in order to achieve that visions businesses set high-level organization goals and objectives. On the bases of these high-level organizational goals and objectives, the management develop plans and strategies which help them achieve those goals and objectives. Usually these goals and objectives scaled down to lower hierarchies such as different business functions, departments, teams and even individual employees. The prime goal is to achieve the high-level organizational goals and objectives that led the business to achieve its vision down the road. The OKRs are usually set in the same fashion. Start with high-level organizational OKRs, which later divided into departments, teams and even individuals. With a traditional performance management system a time comes when achieving the goals of the individuals, teams or even departments could become very difficult while performing daily tasks or work as per the respective job role or function. However, with OKR System business can assign different goals to the teams and departments and different goals for the individual employees which ultimately aligns with the high-level organizational goals and objectives. This can significantly boost the performance and produce better outcomes.

OKR System Produce Better Outcome and Results

The OKRs can be written in many ways, however the most common method is to define objectives and key results that are the milestones and these milestones outline progress instead of activity. The employees or teams should met those milestones in order to achieve the high-level organizational goals and objectives. The OKRs are great at communicating the goals and required efforts with clear timelines which can help achieving the high-level organizational goals and objectives.

The founder of the OKR framework and former CEO of Intel Corporation, Mr. Andrew Stephen Groveonce said about the OKRs:

“Stressing output is the key to increasing productivity.”

Google is another great example of stressing on the output and stretching the goals to achieve hyper-growth using OKR System. Mr. Larry Page, the co-founder of the Google once said:

“OKRs have helped lead us to 10X growth, many times over.”

When it comes to productivity, the output is what a team or individual does and the outcome is the effect of that output on the overall progress of the business towards their high-level organizational goals and vision. The OKR system can enable super-fast growth and transformation in any business. It support agile performance management and enable businesses to resolve problems and address issues midway. Which significantly reduce the time that is usually required by a traditional performance management system. Hence businesses can rapidly grow and expand while also maximizing their efficiency and performance.

OKR System Increase Employee Engagements

Studies have shown that only 1/3^rd of the employees are truly engaged in their organizations, and improvements in employee engagement could lead to up to 10% to 30% better performance. That is why the employee engagement is very important, it also reduce employee turnover and help businesses retain valuable talent. The OKR system allow employees to actively participate in the planning process of setting up goals and objectives for both the individual employees and the teams. When employees know they are accountable and they also participate in goal setting process, they become more attached and connected to those goals and objectives. When communication is improved and the employees knows their voice will be heard, they feel more connected to the organization, this gives them a sense of purpose and make them more responsible. When the employee know what they are working for and how their efforts will add value, they become more efficient. The OKR System provides a very effective framework which enables managers to easily link the employee performance or their output with the outcomes or high-level organizational goals and objectives. Studies and surveys have revealed that 90% of the employees felt more connected to the organization after implementing OKR System.

OKR System Enables Quick Adjustments and Course Correction

Most of the times managers and employees both feel that they could have done something if they had time. This feeling is common after the traditional performance management cycle. If the performance is evaluated once in a year then only after that you will be able to understand what have gone wrong and where. Mostly smaller things, or easily avoidable problems cause huge damage to the overall performance of the organizations. The OKR system is much more agile and it can make managers more proactive, rather reactive. This is what make it superior from traditional performance management systems. The OKR cycle is usually shorter, the goals and objectives are shot-term but completely aligned with the high-level organizational goals and objectives. Shot-term goals means more frequent performance reviews, the factor that all goals are quantifiable also brings transparency to the system and prevent several other traditional performance management problems. More frequent performance reviews enables managers to quickly take actions and provide guidance to the employees and teams to prevent them from deviating from the original goals. This ensures the high-level goals and objectives remains achievable and all the problems and unexpected situations are addressed with adequate actions and plans.

OKR Systems are Transparent in Nature

Transparency, biased reviews, favoritism and lack of context are some of the most common reasons of failure of a conventional performance management system. The OKR System is far much transparent, as the goals and objectives are set by the employees and teams so they are more accountable and they feel more responsible in achieving their goals. Furthermore the OKRs of everyone are visible to everyone. This means that every team member knows everyone’s tasks and objectives. This helps specifically when it comes to collaborative tasks, the conventional performance management system lacks this ability. When an objective is not achieved the managers and the employees are in a better position to understand the effects and impact of under-performing team members. Another great advantage of the OKR system is that the employees and teams who will be performing the tasks are setting the goals and objectives. The employees who are performing the tasks are more aware of the problems and obstacles they might be facing, that is why the OKR system always yield better outcome. Unlike traditional performance management system there are only a fewer goals and objectives in the OKRs which keep employees and teams focused on the high-priority tasks which led to high performance and better results.

Creating OKRs: Best Practices

The purpose of OKR System is to provide better understanding of high-level organizational goals and to ensure the employees and teams will perform well to achieve those goals. Creating such goals and objectives that not only align with the high-level organizational goals but also individual and team development is a very tricky task. In fact inspiring someone is very difficult in itselfit and requires a lot of skills. Most of the time when businesses and organizations adopt OKR Systems the first problem they face is the lack of understanding of the OKRs. The employee could easily get overwhelmed when they have to create goals and objectives that are not only achievable and challenging at the same time but also perfectly aligned with the high-level organizational goals. Here are a few tips to create highly effective OKRs which can truly add value to the high-level organizational goals and objectives:

Simplicity: Keeping it simple is always good, employees and teams should focus on the objectives they can achieve in the given timeframe and with the current resources they have.
Prioritize Objectives: Employees usually caught up thinking they will have to contribute to every department’s objectives. This could drastically reduce the efficiency and performance. The employees and teams should only focus on what is most needed from them.
Make them Specific: It is important that you brainstorm different possibilities to achieve the objectives, develop a specific plan of action to achieve those objectives. Also write how the performance will be measured.
Create Cascaded Objectives: Cascading objectives from organizational point of view to department, then teams and then individual objectives will eliminate all ambiguities and help employees and teams to see how their objectives will contribute to the higher objectives.
Break Goals into Smaller Goals: Create highly specific smaller goals within your key results. This will clarify what exactly the employees and teams will have to do to achieve their objectives and it also keep them more focused and aligned with their and higher goals.
Make it Measurable: The worst scenario is when the employees or managers are not sure if the goal is achieved or not. That is why each key result needs a unit to measure the performance. It doesn’t matter what unit you use but the result should be quantifiable.
Set Stretched Goals: Stretched and ambitious goals are a good motivation. But make sure the goals are achievable and challenging at the same time. Too easy goals and unrealistic goals will demotivate the employees and teams.
Recognize Achievements: It is important to keep encouraging employees and teams during the time period of the key results. Even if the key results are not achieved yet, if a milestone or a smaller goal is achieved, the teams and employees should be admired and encouraged.

Never Link OKRs to Compensations

When it comes to OKRs it is a well-known fact that the 100% results are never achieved. It is majorly due to the nature of the goals that are set within the OKR System. As the goals are always stretched and made challenging so only 70% to 80% of the objectives can be achieved. That is why it is never beneficial to link the OKRs with compensations and bonuses. Linking OKRs with the compensations led the employees to only do the needful work to make their metrics and KPIs eligible for the bonuses. This could also led to malpractices in the teams and employees just to meet the minimum required KPIs for the bonuses and it could completely kill the innovation from the system. That is why the OKR System is never linked to bonuses, pay increments and compensations like that.

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Conclusion

The OKRs and agile or continuous performance management (CPMS) are the modernized form of performance management. However, it is important to understand that the OKRs and the performance management are two separate frameworks. The performance management and OKRs can be integrated to leverage the additional benefits of the OKR system that a typical performance management system lacks. That is why the OKRs can be utilized as the gap between the typical performance management system and the modern needs of performance management. The OKRs are also not suitable as a mechanisms to design personal development programs. The OKRs are best at bringing the transparency in the performance management process which help businesses motivate their teams and workforce to perform exceptionally well. The OKRs also gives a sense of ownership, responsibility and help connecting employees with the high-level organizational goals and objectives which is a key to success.

Whether you are using a performance management system and implemented OKRs in it or whether you haven’t used them, a dedicated OKR system software could be a great help to boost your organization’s performance. At RSI Concepts we are helping our customers to bridge the gap between the strategy and execution. Our performance management system comes with in-built dedicated OKR System and it can also be acquired as a standalone software. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want us to help you improving your existing performance management methods and processes. 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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