Author: Srikant Chellappa

Srikant Chellappa is the Co-Founder and CEO at Engagedly and is a passionate entrepreneur and people leader. He is an author, producer/director of 6 feature films, a music album with his band Manchester Underground, and is the host of The People Strategy Leaders Podcast.

Performance Management Software For Employee Motivation

If you are in the field of HR, you are aware of how our domain is constantly evolving. The nature of flexibility in our work allows us to try a lot of things, but in the process, we tend to lose focus or lax out on our basic responsibilities, like seamlessly tackling performance management.

Alan Colquitt, author of Next Generation Performance Management says,

I differentiate between Performance Management 1.0 (PM 1.0) and Performance Management 2.0 (PM 2.0). PM 1.0 is shorthand for last generation (traditional) performance management… involves (annual)goal-setting, evaluating performance, and distributing rewards at the end of the year… Contrast that with PM 2.0, which focuses on providing continuous direction, alignment, meaning, and purpose to employees. It’s focused on making progress towards goals and connecting work to a larger purpose.

Be it in the world of telecommunication or otherwise, performance management is not just about reviewing employees on the basis of work output or measuring the compensation, or how much of the last quarter’s goals were achieved. It can really help your organisation thrive and for that, you need to have an easy and effective performance management software in place.

Here are the main features you are looking for, if you wish to keep employees motivated through a good performance management software:

Also Read: 5 Essential Managerial Tips to Create Employee Engagement

Create SMART goals:

As an HR, you need to initiate the performance management process by urging all managers to set SMART goals for their employees based on past goals and objectives. List out the main outcomes required and let them know. Then ask them to align their SMART goals accordingly. It might require certain amount of hand-holding in the initial stages.

The acronym SMART stands for:

  • Specific – Goals should not be vague, or else they are bound to fail soon
  • Measurable – An ideal goal should be measurable so that the progress and completion can be tracked
  • Achievable – Any goal should be achievable; they shouldn’t be too difficult or easy
  • Relevant – Goals should be relevant
  • Timely – Goals should specify the time during which it is to be completed

In the telecommunication industry, you might want to focus on the following pointers:

  • Who – to communicate with
  • What – to communicate
  • Where and How – to communicate
  • When and why to communicate
  • Who are the stakeholders involved
  • What channels to utilise
  • Timeframe of the whole communication process

When you have answers to all of these above points, your SMART goals will be in place. An example of such a goal is,

Send the client a weekly update through email about all completed and upcoming tasks. (Ron Ause, workamajig.com)

One-on-one check ins:

Big giants like IBM, Adobe, Google, HarperCollins, and others, have all inculcated frequent one-on-one performance check-ins, in place of annual performance reviews and annual feedbacks. Adobe has reduced 30% of their voluntary turnover in the process.

When managers conduct appraisals once a year and share feedback with employees, they fall short of engaging the employees in the right way. Employees feel that their managers don’t value their presence enough. Frequent one-on-ones, on the other hand, makes an employee feel engaged and valued. They know on a regular basis whether they are working towards achieving the right objective.

Also Read: 7 Tips To Make Your Goal Setting Effective

Prompt feedback:

Valuable and accurate feedback can enhance great performance by a whopping 39%. But it needs another factor. Promptness! When you share annual feedback with your employees, they fall short of motivating employees and keeping them engaged for a whole year. Instead, when managers share feedback on a frequent basis, through a performance management software, employees receive immediate guidance from their leaders, and can course-correct in time. On top of that, the feedback and the communication remains stored for future reference and tracking.

Employee recognition possibilities

80% of the employees work better when they feel better appreciated. Pay check is not the only factor that draws them. They seek acknowledgement for their great work, and when your company fails to do so, they go where they can get it. In order for your employees to feel recognised and valued, you need to put an efficient feedback process in place. Most good performance management software have real-time rewards and recognition modules as well.

Encourage managers to praise performing employees on the employee forum, give them a day off or few days of flexi-timings. These are just some examples but, it’s best to customise rewards as per individual employees. The module can be gamified where each praise can fetch a few points, and by reaching certain levels, employees can win rewards.

Also read: Employee Recognition & Rewards During COVID 19

If you are presently in the annual performance management cycle, you need to first figure out how much work is needed in order to make the transition. First and foremost, you need to change your payment strategy for all roles, turning them into market-based, so that you can unlink performance management from salary. Then you train the leaders and employees to practice frequent check-ins, quarterly goal setting and regular feedback.

The performance management tool can help you bring all of these things under one umbrella and track them. Life becomes a lot easier when all of these things are in place, don’t you think?

If you are wondering how Engagedly can help you with performance management, request for a free demo.

Engagedly is offering a suite of products part of its Remote Work Toolkit free to any organisation, until Sept 30th, 2020. 

The Coronavirus has affected the way we work today and for months to come. Unprecedented events require unprecedented measures. We at Engagedly believe it is our responsibility as socially conscious corporate citizens to help equip organisations with additional tools and resources during this time of crisis.

Want to know how Engagedly can improve your performance review process? Request for a live demo.

Request A Demo

How Stay Interviews Can Help You Retain Top Employees

Financially and in terms of saving time, employee retention is any day easier than recruiting. If you are a manager in a financial service, you will know what we are talking about. To impact employee attrition and lower employee turnover, managers need to measure employee satisfaction and engagement on a frequent basis. And a great technique for this is the Stay Interview.

While the exit interview asks employees why they are leaving, stay interview asks them why they remain with you. There are multiple benefits of conducting them.

Richard Finnegan, author of the book, The Stay Interview says,

“Hard data proves the top reason employees quit is they don’t trust their managers. Stay Interviews are the absolute best trust-building activity… and therefore the best retention tool.”

The basic themes of employee turnover projects mostly include teamwork, benefits, and organizational purpose. But that does not work all the time. Every employee is unique. As a manager you need to know that each employee has goals, anticipations and anxieties, potencies and limitations. And it will do you good to know and harness the power of this knowledge.

It is up to the managers how they wish to grow in relationship with employees. Stay interviews can help you enhance employee engagement, employee motivation and retention. So let’s dive into more details about

Also read: The Downsides Of 360 Degree Feedback And How To Fix It

Conducting Stay Interviews:

HR manager for Geocent, a Louisiana based technology company, Susan Seip says,

“It’s a relationship review. What’s your relationship to the company, the project team, and your manager, and what is within your purview to make those better?”

So, it’s important to know how you can conduct stay interviews well. They are conducted one-on-one, wherein you ask deep questions and your employees share valuable and meaningful answers. When a company takes time out to conduct these one-on-one stay interviews, employees feel that the higher management is open to feedback and cares about employee concerns.

Start off the interview by letting your employees know that their feedback is valued, and you hope to get honest answers from them. If you are looking to ask the right stay interview questions, here are some questions you might want to consider.

Questions to ask in a stay interview

  • Can you walk us through a recent good day at work?
  • What keeps you working here?
  • How would you rate your happiness here on a scale of 1 to 10? What would it take to get you to a 10?
  • What do you enjoy about your job and what you don’t?
  • What can drive you to leave the company?
  • What would you like to change about your job, team or department?
  • What changes do you wish to see in the company culture?
  • What motivates you at work and what demotivates you?
  • How would you like to get recognized for your work?
  • Where do you see yourself in five years?

Also read: Want To Know Why Your Employees Leave? Here’s Why

Don’t forget to close the interview with a prime question, “Is there anything else you wish to talk about?” When you are training to conduct stay interviews, you might come up with more specific questions to ask your employees. The main motive is to recognize problems way before they become deal-breakers that can lead your employees to leave the organization. There are chances you might feel defensive when there is criticism from the opposite side, but it’s better not to react and instead, try and see things from the employees’ perspective.

What can you expect in stay interviews?

All managers worry about receiving questions from employees, asking for raises that are beyond the budget. If your employee does ask about a raise, or a promotion, or something beyond your control, answer truthfully. If an employee asks you for a role they are not yet equipped to handle, guide them through employee training prospects that can be arranged during the next budget cycle. Tell them that you wish to find issues that are under your control, so that you can provide them with whatever they need. You might not be able to give all, 3 out of 5 things you will be able to.

Whether you use stay interviews or something else, the most important intention here is getting managers to talk to employees in a way that leads to improved employee engagement and retention.

Engagedly is offering a suite of products part of its Remote Work Toolkit free to any organisation, until Sept 30th, 2020. 

The Coronavirus has affected the way we work today and for months to come. Unprecedented events require unprecedented measures. We at Engagedly believe it is our responsibility as socially conscious corporate citizens to help equip organisations with additional tools and resources during this time of crisis.

Get in touch with us to know more about the free remote working tool-kit. 

Performance Appraisal Mistakes To Avoid As A Manager

Performance Appraisals are one of the most important processes in an organization, especially for the employees. But often, employees feel unsatisfied and harbor a bitter feeling towards the managers and the organization once the process is over. It happens because of some of the common mistakes which the managers make in conducting the process.

If you are a manager in the software industry this article will help you conduct performance appraisals better.

Surprising Employees

Often managers working in a software company commit the mistake of holding their reviews and feedback until it’s time for annual performance appraisal. They fail to realize what impact an instant and continuous feedback process can have on their employees. As a result, the employees are not sure when they are working in the wrong direction or right. 

The managers believe that performance appraisal is the right time to provide feedback to their employees. But as performance appraisals happen half-yearly or annually in most software companies, it becomes too late to receive feedback for some work which was done at the beginning of the year. Using a real time performance management software would solve the problem easily as employees can be continuously monitored and reviewed for their progress, and it will not be a surprise for them at the time of appraisal.

Recency Effect

When a real time performance management software is not in place to conduct continuous performance evaluations, managers tend to have a clouded judgement due to recency bias. They tend to forget past work and achievements of employees and conduct the performance appraisal based on just their recent work.

A manager should do their background work on knowing about the tasks and achievements of the employee, or have a real time performance management system in place to keep a track of it.

Also Read: Be A Better Manager and Avoid These Five Mistakes

Stress On Performance Appraisal 

Managers often lay undue importance on the performance appraisal instead of giving importance to the processes before and after it. One who communicates well with their employees throughout and after the performance appraisal makes the performance appraisal process easy for both. Managers set the expectations, and employees work on it. 

Performance Appraisals should not be the platform to discuss only the compensation, incentives, or what has already happened. It should also be used to discuss plans to improve performance.

Comparing Employees

Often managers at software companies commit the grave mistake of comparing employees of the same or different levels with each other during their performance appraisals. This not only demoralizes the employee and creates friction within the team, but also makes the employee hostile towards their managers.

Also Read: Wondering How To Give Constructive Feedback? Here’s How

Holding Up Performance Appraisal

Many organizations tend to postpone or altogether cancel the performance appraisal process. They are not the only yardstick to measure employee performance, but employee promotions and salaries surely depend on it. To delay or postpone them creates a bad impression of the manager or organization on the employees. Employees might feel that they are not given enough importance, and all the organization cares about is work. If managers are not getting ample amount of time to conduct a yearly performance review, they can opt for continuous feedback or quarterly reviews.

Not Discussing Future Plans

Often managers and employees leave out one key component from the performance appraisal… discussion about future plans. A manager’s job involves not only assessing the employee at present but also guiding them in achieving personal and career goals of the future. This helps in an easy career transition of an employee in the software industry. They can easily switch roles, and also change projects as per their plans.

Also Read: Everything Depends On The Right kind Of Goal Setting. Here’s Why

Ignore Achievements

If your organization is not practicing a continuous feedback approach to recognize your employees, then performance appraisals are just the perfect time to do so. Instead of focusing too much on negatives and criticisms, employees can be appreciated for their accomplishments and strengths. This type of constructive feedback will not only improve their productivity at work but will also improve their engagement.

Using Engagedly’s Real Time Performance Management Software you can publicly praise your employees and also award points for accomplishments. The praises and rewards will be visible to everyone in the organization.

Not Setting SMART Goals

As a manager, performance appraisal is the correct time to set SMART goals for your employees based on past goals and objectives. Give them an outline of what is expected from them in the next performance cycle. The acronym SMART stands for:

  • Specific – Goals should not be vague, or else they are bound to fail soon. 
  • Measurable – An ideal goal should be measurable so that the progress and completion can be tracked. Measurable goals help us define its success.
  • Achievable – Any goal should be achievable; they shouldn’t be too difficult or easy.
  • Relevant – Goals should be relevant.
  • Timely – Goals should specify the time during which it is to be completed.

An ideal example of a SMART goal for an IT project would be: completing the 60 % UI/UX(Specific, Measurable, and Achievable) designing of the website by two months (Relevant and Timely).  The goal should not be rigid and should be flexible to changes.

Also Read: 7 Tips To Make Your Goal Setting Effective

Not Following Up

A perfect performance appraisal, SMART goals, timely rewards, and recognition; all of these would be of no use if there is no follow up from your end. Check with your employees from time to time if the project is on track and development plans are met, and milestones achieved. If there is no proper follow-up, employees often fall through the gap and lose their motivation, which ultimately affects productivity.

Implement real time performance management software at your organization to conduct your performance appraisal with ease. It will not only help you to track your employee’s progress and goals easily, but also provide continuous feedback to them which will keep them engaged and motivated at their work. If you are looking for one, request for a demo with us.

Request A Demo

Engagedly is offering a suite of products part of its Remote Work Toolkit free to any organisation, until Sept 30th, 2020. 

The Coronavirus has affected the way we work today and for months to come. Unprecedented events require unprecedented measures. We at Engagedly believe it is our responsibility as socially conscious corporate citizens to help equip organisations with additional tools and resources during this time of crisis.

Get in touch with us to know more about the free remote working tool-kit. 

Know How to Meet the Requirements of Hiring Managers

When you are looking for a job, it is necessary to gauge what the hiring managers are looking for, and what would they would like to avoid. It’s not easy to land the job of your dreams, and it rarely ever fall into the lap without putting in much effort. But, there are a few do’s and dont’s that can help you get one step closer to getting that job.

Continue reading “Know How to Meet the Requirements of Hiring Managers”

Be A Better Manager And Avoid These 5 Mistakes

It’s not an easy job to become a good manager. It takes a lot more than just delegating and telling employees what to do and what not to do. In this article, we are going to focus on manager mistakes and take a look at how they impact employee engagement and employee performance.

Continue reading “Be A Better Manager And Avoid These 5 Mistakes”

Have You Invested In the Correct Performance Management Tool?

Employee Performance Management has always been one of the most important processes in organizations. Managers and organizations are continuously evaluating employee performance in an attempt to improve the overall productivity of the organization. Effective Performance Management helps in aligning individual employee goals with team and organizational goals. A performance management system should essentially include aspects such as performance review, goal-setting, employee feedback, rewards, and recognition.

Continue reading “Have You Invested In the Correct Performance Management Tool?”

Everything Depends on the Right Kind of Goal Setting. Here’s Why

We all agree to this point that goal setting helps us focus and achieve things faster. Good goal setting brings good results, but poor goal setting brings poor results. 

Continue reading “Everything Depends on the Right Kind of Goal Setting. Here’s Why”

Continuous Performance Management: A necessity during COVID-19

Everyone dreads a performance review, not only the employees but the managers as well. If you have recently become a manager, then you would surely know how difficult it is to conduct a performance review. With time, the annual performance review has been replaced with continuous performance management in organizations worldwide. The current COVID-19 situation and multiple employees working from home has made it – necessary to have a continuous performance management system in place. Continue reading “Continuous Performance Management: A necessity during COVID-19”

Awkward Post Review Conversations? We Have Your Back

Post a performance review, conversations can get a little awkward. It is hard to see these conversations as being anything other than stressful. Often times, when you are the initiator of a difficult conversation, it makes you feel like the bad cop, especially when the person on the other side expresses a lot of emotions, either in the form of anger or tears.

Continue reading “Awkward Post Review Conversations? We Have Your Back”

Looking To Be An Effective Leader? Here’s How

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way – John C. Maxwell.

 

Every organization needs a strong and effective leader to drive it to success. Without strong and clear leadership, it is impossible to achieve success for your organization. Hence it becomes imperative for all organizations to have strong leadership at all levels. Continue reading “Looking To Be An Effective Leader? Here’s How”

8 Key Features to Look For in a Performance Management Tool

Performance management can be a comprehensive and time-consuming process. Hence, every organization has a performance management process or tool in place to get the best out of their employees. Efficient performance management of employees helps organizations become successful, while it helps employees grow personally, and professionally. Continue reading “8 Key Features to Look For in a Performance Management Tool”

7 Tips To Make Your Goal Setting Effective

Goal setting is a tedious and daunting process, if one is just starting off. But it should be considered as one of the most important tasks of a manager because of its numerous benefits. Having effective goals increases employee productivity, motivates them, improves decision making and time management skills, and promotes teamwork. That’s why it’s important to  set goals for your employees which are effective. Continue reading “7 Tips To Make Your Goal Setting Effective”