Companies with performance management issues Archives - RSI Concepts - Top IT Solution Provider Company in Dubai, UAE

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 3, 2023

5 Challenges to face if Performance Appraisal is not customized as per Organization’s Policies

The performance appraisal is a very important part of performance management system. Traditionally the performance appraisal is an annual process managed by the HR department. The HR team creates the employee performance appraisal forms which are provided to all the managers they fill them and return them to the HR then the HR evaluate employee’s performance on the bases of the data they collected from these forms. Usually these are very long forms with tons of questions and other details which require a lot of time and the managers will have to fill it for each individual employee. Studies have shown that most of the leader think about traditional performance appraisal as a waste of resources and time, however, every business and organization conduct a performance appraisals and that is because of its importance. The performance appraisal process is not to award employee with increments and bonuses, in fact the performance appraisal process help businesses align their resources to their organizational goals and objectives. The performance appraisal system provides a complete framework to help management monitor and track employee performance.

The traditional performance appraisal methods have started failing businesses as both managers and employees lost faith on these methods. So the businesses and organizations started adopting more advanced, technology-based digital performance management systems and software to fulfill their performance appraisal needs. The modern performance management system is basically an intuitive software which not only help businesses reduce the resources required for the performance appraisal process but also make the process more efficient and effective and enable businesses to conduct performance appraisal more frequently such as after each quarter. The performance management systems also give rise to the agile and continuous performance management which was a great leap in performance appraisal methods. These practices have helped organizations to support their fast-paced and rapid growth as well as help them maintain a steady growth rate over the years. The modern performance management systems were also welcomed by the employees and the managers as they offer more flexibility, agility, transparency and convenience.

5 Challenges Businesses face if their Performance Appraisal is not customized as Per Organization’s Polices and Strategy

Businesses and organizations all around the world are utilizing digital performance management systems for their performance appraisal processes. When it comes to acquire a performance management system software the HR managers could easily overwhelmed by sheer volume of companies and service provider offering all sorts and types of performance management systems. Generally we can categorize all different types of performance management systems in two main categories, the COTS or commercial off-the-shelf solutions and the customized or bespoke solutions. Furthermore there could be more sub-categories and classes of different performance management system. However, it is important to understand the difference between these two major categories. The COTS are the software solutions that are offered by a service provider and businesses acquire them as subscription plan or rental bases. They have to pay monthly or annually whatever method they prefer and the actual performance management software remains the property of the developer/vendor or the service provider, it means the business who uses the COTS software doesn’t have ownership rights over it.

The customized performance management system software are exclusively designed for the business. Usually either in-house team develop them or business outsource it to a contractor who develop the software. This also means that the business have full ownership rights of the software hence they don’t have to pay any monthly or annual fee or subscription charges. Furthermore the customized software are much better in terms of user experience, as they are designed exclusively for a particular user group hence they are tailor-made for their needs and requirements. This can have huge impact on the efficiency and efficacy of the system. Another thing which make customized software superior is that they are exclusive and no other business will be using them hence they can offer a great competitive advantage. Whereas the COTS are designed for a mass audience and somewhere from hundreds to several thousand businesses could be using the same software application, which minimize the competitive advantage of the technology. The customized software also integrate very well with the business environment and culture, they are specifically designed to support and improve the internal processes and workflows.

However the COTS on the other hand might require businesses to make changes to their internal processes and to align with the system’s processes and workflows. This could significantly undermine the efficiency of the system. That is why the customized software are considered to be superior then the COTS. Here are key disadvantages of using a performance management system which doesn’t resonate with the organization’s policies and internal processes.

1. The Performance Appraisal System will Not Resonate with the Internal Performance Management Processes

If the performance appraisal system is not customized as per organization’s policies then it will never resonate with the existing internal processes. Every business is unique, over the time each business develop a unique culture and environment. It is that culture and environment that is a major distinguishing factor between the business and its competitors. Not only the customers but the employees are also attracted to this uniqueness. If a business wants to implement a new technological solution which doesn’t align with the internal processes, then they can never achieve the desired performance, efficiency or results they are expecting from that technology. Similarly if the employee performance appraisal system is not aligned with the internal processes and policies of the business, then the business can never achieve the targeted goals of deploying a digital performance appraisal system. Instead it will create more problems. Employees, management and the HR everyone will have to make changes to adjust with the new system, they will have to change their internal processes, work flows and they will have to adopt new methods and processes which in itself undermine the performance and efficiency.

2. The Performance Appraisal System will Not Integrate with Other Internal Tools and Systems Properly

The core strength of digital solutions is their ability to drive automation and efficiency by simplifying the processes and reducing the efforts of the employees or users who are using those systems. Whenever a new system is deployed in an enterprise environment it have impact on other systems which will reflect on day-to-day tasks, work flows and other internal and external processes. That is why it is important that the new system that a business is acquiring should be able to integrate properly with other systems. Now when it comes to performance management and performance appraisal system, every business already have an established IT infrastructure and digital ecosystem which formed the organizational culture and help businesses implement their strategies. Hence the performance management and performance appraisal system that a business is implementing should also be able to synchronize and integrate within the existing digital ecosystem. This is crucial because the performance appraisal policy a business has is already formed on the bases of their existing digital resources and ecosystem. If the new performance appraisal or performance management system is not compatible with the performance appraisal policy then the perfect synchronization with other systems can never be achieved, which results in several changes in internal system, workflows and processes and will come with a hefty price tag.

3. The Performance Appraisal System will Fail to Execute the Performance Appraisal Strategy

The performance appraisal system is not meant to only determine the incentives, bonuses, increments and perks for the employees. It is designed to boost the performance of the entire organization. This requires a strong performance management strategy which is derived from performance management goals and objectives. On the bases of these goals and objectives a performance management strategy and plan of action is designed which help executing the strategy effectively and ensure the business will achieve its performance goals by the end of the performance appraisal cycle. Each business is different form the other, regardless of the industry, even if two businesses are working in same market and same sector they could have entirely different goals and objectives. These goals and objectives have huge influence over the organizational culture, their methodologies, processes and operations. This means that each business have different performance goals and objectives too. If we take an example of a construction business, some businesses might focus on annual performance and doesn’t focus much on certain competencies. Another construction business with a slightly different business model might focus more on the project-based performance rather than annual performance and so on. The performance appraisal system should be aligned with the business model and their goals and objectives, if it is not aligned with that the business will never be able to achieve their performance goal and they will fail to effectively execute their performance appraisal strategy.

4. The Performance Appraisal System will Fail to Collect the Desired Metrics and Performance Data

It the performance appraisal system is not customized as per the organization’s policies and performance management strategy then it could cause huge problems in collection of performance data. For any performance appraisal and performance management system the performance data is the backbone of the system. The entire performance appraisal process depends on the quality of the performance data. Every business is different form the other, some businesses could have entirely different objectives for a particular job role than the others. This difference is due to the dynamic organizational culture and the growth path they take over the time. And these difference will eventually form the policies, strategies and methodologies a business or organization adopt. That is why it is crucial for a performance appraisal system to perfectly align with these policies and internal organizational culture. Otherwise it is impossible to achieve the desired performance objectives. For example there are two businesses both are in same industry, let say, manufacturing. Both business manufacture auto spare parts, one is utilizing entirely different production line than the other. Thus the requirements from a particular job role would be entirely different form the other, obviously there would be a lot of similarities but mostly the differences would dominate. Same is applicable when it comes to performance appraisal, due to different job roles the performance metric would be different and along with that difference the weight assigned to a particular KPI could be different in both organizations. That is why the performance appraisal system should be customized as per the organization’s policies.

5. The Performance Appraisal System will Cause Mistrust and Require Additional Training

The HR and the management knows very well that people are very complex, this complexity make management even more complex and require a very sophisticated framework to manage the performance within the organization. Managing performance and executing performance appraisal campaign is inherently a very complex task. When a business deploy a performance appraisal and performance management system which is not customized as per the organization’s policies it can become this task even more complex and difficult. Furthermore a new performance appraisal system that doesn’t resonate with the organization’s policies it could cause mistrust and confusion among both the managers and the employees. As the managers and the employees are already used to of the organization’s policies it become harder for them to immediately adopt to the new changes that are required by new appraisal system. This they lose trust on the system and start questioning the transparency, capability and accuracy of the appraisal process. In order to prevent this the business must require a highly effective training program which is difficult hence businesses end up conducting multiple training program to finally implement the new appraisal system. And that is only possible if the business too transform their policies and performance management system as per the new appraisal system which is not customized as per their existing policies. That is a very time and resource consuming feat, and it will definitely undermine the impact of their performance management strategy and it could take them several appraisal cycles to finally start getting the benefits of the new system. However, if the business adopt to a performance appraisal system which is fully customized as per the organization’s policies the business can immediately start witnessing the benefits of implementing a performance appraisal system.

Conclusion

The performance appraisal is a crucial part of performance management system. The performance management strategy plays an important role in improving a business’s operational capabilities, efficiency, productivity and outcome. Businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are rapidly adopting modern performance management system and performance appraisal methods in order to be able to respond to the fast-paced market changes, every growing customer demands and competitive challenges. The HR department in any organization is not just responsible for hiring new talent, but it also make sure that all the employees work at their best and remain happy and satisfied of whatever they are doing. This is not a simple task, it requires HR to adopt to highly sophisticated systems and adopt to modern methodologies such as performance appraisal and performance management system. The performance appraisal is essential to boost the productivity of the employees and a strong performance management policy help minimizing the employee turnover. When it comes to acquiring a new performance appraisal system the HR managers could easily overwhelmed with the sheer number of options available in the market. In this blog we have compare two major categories of the performance appraisal and performance management system software and we briefly discuss some challenges that a business could face if the new performance appraisal system is not customized as per organization’s policy.

RSI Concepts is a leading performance appraisal and performance management system developer in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want us to design and develop a fully customized and tailor-made performance appraisal system that perfectly align with your organization’s policies to let you take the full advantage of the modern performance management practices and methodologies. 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 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.

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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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