In the workplace, goals are crucial for success. Goals keep you on the course during rough times and help you stay focused on issues that matter. Goals provide employers the benefits of helping employees stay on course, aligning employee goals with organizational goals, etc. The very process of goal-setting can be further enhanced by using goal-setting software for your business needs.
Category: Performance Management
Find tons of enriching performance management resources in this blog category. It is a real-time people strategy platform that helps all aspects of business insights!
How Innovative Offices Improve Employee Collaboration
The level of creativity and innovation among employees is often proportional to the size of your workspace. Your workspace affects engagement, innovation, and productivity. Employees need to build connections in the workspace, a factor that can drive or dash their motivation to work. When employees collaborate in a workspace, employers get a good return on their financial investment. This hints that employers should invest in providing a good workspace that supports collaboration. Employees who engage each other within their workspace tend to achieve better results than others who have a disconnect in their work environment. As an entrepreneur, you can build innovative offices to improve employee collaboration using the steps discussed below.
1. Build openness and transparency within your team
You need to lead with your vision when you want your team to be committed to collaboration in your organization. Do not give out confidential information, but giving a vision will help your teammates develop loyalty and productivity. Talk to them about the challenges and possible issues, and share your team incentives to brainstorm possible solutions. If your staff is familiar with the company’s strategic objectives, then your team can work together to achieve a yearly profit. One option is running innovation challenges and asking your team for their best ideas to solve the company’s issues in the game plan.
2. Enjoy collaboration across different departments
Judgment-free workplace culture will encourage ideas, discussions, and solutions. Fear of rejection or judgment will discourage participation among your team members and deprive the organization of unique solutions in the minds of your talented team members. Be informed. Commit to having management not use intimidation as a tool in running their departments. It will clog the idea funnel. Avoid too many guides so that you do not stifle innovation and creativity. Be about creative freedom; this gets your team laughing, having fun, and creating solutions. This makes every day different and fun.
Also Read: Create a Positive Workplace Culture For Your Employees
3. Rent a convenient office space
Offices in Los Angeles provide the proper infrastructure to guarantee that your teammates get the best places to collaborate and improve team bonding. Organizing monthly outings for your departments and staff will also help staff members become better team players and improve productivity. Office spaces in Los Angeles are marked by affordability for outright purchase or rent and are designed to be suitable for business. Some come with game rooms, free snacks, and weekly happy hours. The fantastic architecture will do wonders for morale. What better way to build up collaboration between team members!
4. Get appropriate leadership
Proper leadership is the crux of building a team of employees collaborating for growth. Having an open-door policy and maintaining communication between management is fluid and is a game-changer. Teach your team to practice synergy and let everyone know that collaboration is a priority. To do this, you have to show, not tell. Work directly with them. Create a system in which everyone has to complete their tasks for any project due for completion. As much as they follow a chain of command, ensure that your office is also open for anyone who wants to discuss. Work on consistent visibility between directors, managers, and employees. This will skyrocket creativity and productivity in your organization. The best leaders use every resource available to help achieve their organization’s goals.
5. Use the right technology, engender positivity, and be free with benefits
To have an interconnected workplace, you must procure the right technology. This helps the employees do their jobs. This is a good investment in teamwork and innovation. Give appropriate results when teams are creating excellent results. If your team hits a goal, reward them with something valuable to them. Reward individuals to encourage continuous collaboration and get feedback from your team. Use constructive criticism; this will help your team improve. Encourage peer-to-peer conversations so that you are not bogged down responding to everyone. This also encourages more collaboration.
Conclusion
It is not surprising that the new generation of workers loves collaborative spaces. Collaborative spaces create a creative culture – an essential tool many companies miss. Productivity is a bar that can be raised when you make intentional efforts to increase employee collaboration. The steps in this article will help you restructure your office and create a healthy environment for your workers to collaborate.
Want to know how Engagedly can help you improve employee collaboration? Book a live demo with us.
This article is written by Daisy Benson.
Daisy is an industrial and organizational psychologist who researches to identify solutions to problems that improve the well-being and performance of organizations and their employees. Daisy is also a freelance writer and often writes articles for credible blogs.
Performance Management Tricks for Successful Partner Management
The success of your business partners has a great impact on the success of your own business. And contrary to what you may think, their performance is well within your control. Learn what performance management can do and then apply the knowledge to your own business through these tricks for successful partner management.
The importance of successful performance management
There’s a reason performance management has become an integral part of business. It involves setting goals, gathering data and analyzing that data to improve future performance. And with that kind of effort, the potential for success is much greater than it is otherwise.
In fact, businesses with successful performance management systems routinely outperform their competitors. According to Betterworks, companies that have implemented changes in the way they provide performance feedback have a 24 percent higher success rate than those that stick to traditional models.
But of course, not every performance management system is either cost-effective or viable. A study conducted by Gartner shows us exactly how easy it can be to make the wrong moves. For example, the average time managers spend on work related to performance management is 210 hours a year.
So how do you develop a performance management system that will help you make the most out of your partnerships?
There are a few tricks you can employ to make sure your performance management system is the one that will bring you the best possible results.
Also read: What is performance management system?
Choosing potential partners
Performance management can start even before you partner with another business. After all, one of the major elements of success, in any field of work, is being able to plan ahead. So instead of focusing on your existing partners, why not increase your chances of success by making sure you only choose the partners that are a great fit for your business?
How do you do that? You gather all the necessary information on the prospective partner and you ask yourself a few questions regarding your potential partnership. A business that would be a great fit for you will:
- Share your business’ target audience
- Be okay with your terms and processes
- Boast a stable business model
- Be technically equipped to deliver results
- Share your business’ values
Maybe it’s not necessary for the potential partner to check all the boxes, but it’s a great thing to strive for. And the more boxes they check, the more successful your collaboration will be and the less work you’ll have managing their performance.
Offering incentives & training programs
When you think about performance management, the first thing that comes to mind are yearly reviews. The employee or the partner has already done the work and now it’s time for you to evaluate it. But you don’t need to limit yourself to a purely reactionary way of doing things when there are plenty of actions you can take as well.
Of course, here we’re talking about incentive programs. These make for an excellent way to steer your partners into the right direction even before they’ve done anything. Instead of waiting a year to tell them they should be achieving better results, incentivize them to excel right from the start.
But a quality incentive program will do you no good if your partners aren’t trained to meet your requirements. Luckily, there are partner training programs that allow you to onboard and train all your partners in a way that’s highly efficient and even lowers your operational costs. Using this type of software is yet another way to be proactive about your performance management.
Constantly checking the progress
To make the most out of your performance management system, you need to come to terms with the fact that conducting yearly reviews simply doesn’t work. It’s an outdated system that many Forbes 500 companies have stopped using.
What should you do instead? When developing your performance management system, you should aim for implementing continuous performance evaluation. The exact process will, of course, depend on your business. But to give a few examples, this could mean anything from evaluating performance whenever necessary or possible, to measure it at the end of every individual project or campaign.
Why does this make for a better approach? It’s in line with the latest advances in the way project management, in general, is done. We’re talking about the so-called agile methodology, which has proven itself a lot more efficient than traditional project management. It’s been argued that this is simply because this methodology is aimed at breaking processes up into shorter phases and getting feedback as soon as they’re complete. As a result, there are fewer deviations from the end goal.
Also read: Performance Review Phrases And Wordings 2022
Setting expectations
Of course, checking the progress your partners are making can only result in true success if you keep them in the loop. So if you want your performance management system to work, you need to be able to explain it to your partners, and informing them about it should be part of your process.
To be able to explain your evaluation process, it needs to be structured. You need to know what events trigger evaluation, how the process is done and which members of your team are responsible for it. But what’s more important than anything, you need to be able to explain to your partners exactly what they need to do to pass the process with flying colors.
This is where the concept of SMART goals can prove extremely helpful. SMART goals is an acronym that stands for goals that are:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Timely
And if the expectations you set for your partners check all the above boxes, there will be no uncertainties as to what they need to do to achieve a successful collaboration with you.
Consistent feedback and rewards
If you want your partners to perform as you need them to, it’s important to keep them engaged. One aspect of this is providing regular and consistent feedback. The other aspect is to reward them whenever they do something right. After all, a partner that doesn’t feel like they’re out of the loop and one that feels appreciated will almost surely become a valuable asset to your company.
Conclusion
There’s a lot of good that a quality performance management can do for your business. From choosing your partners wisely to keeping them constantly engaged, a smart, structured, and transparent system brings you closer to making the most out of your partnerships.
Want to know how Engagedly can help enhance your organization’s performance management? Fix a quick demo with our experts.
About the Author:
Lianna Arakelyan is a content writer at Kademi.co, with a knack for B2B programs, such as channel incentive programs, partner training and onboarding programs and not only. She is extreme in her work, with a deep goal of always being updated on online and offline marketing and technology news of the world.
How To Use Talent Analytics To Inform Your Business Strategy
Although talent analytics has existed for several years and top management realizes its potential, only a few firms have completely adopted the approach. According to a study by Deloitte, only 4% of businesses have predictive talent analytics capabilities, 14% have some type of talent analytics program in place, and 60% of businesses intend to develop a talent analytics strategy.
To implement a talent analytics strategy, what is required for an organization is a complete understanding of talent analytics and the means through which the data can be put to productive use.
To help you get started, we will explain what Talent Analytics is, what sorth2 of data you should gather, and the advantages of using talent analytics data.
Also Read: Why companies should invest in People Analytics
What Exactly is Meant by Talent Analytics?
Talent analytics provide insight into both the prospective applicant pool and your existing employees. With a talent analytics platform, you can form credentialed strategies concerning the recruitment process; identify prospective candidates whose skills can boost your company’s productivity, and conduct assessments of existing team members to ascertain their skill gaps.
Historically, talent analytics has been around for quite some time and goes by a few different names, including:
- Human resource analytics
- Workforce analytics
- Human capital analytics
- People analytics
Why is Talent Analytics Important?
By using talent analytics data analysis, you will get insights into employee-related issues like performance assessment, hiring, teamwork, and leadership.
Based on the data obtained, you can build a plan for identifying top performers at your company; get an understanding of employees’ work satisfaction levels, and develop employee retention strategies. These insights can help to understand the capabilities of current and prospective employees, as well as their shortcomings and how to improve them.
What Type of Data do You Require for Talent Analytics?
For analytics to be useful and assist recruiters in making smarter recruiting choices, talent acquisition teams must know what kind of talent data they should gather. Below are the four types of data you need for talent analytics:
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Data from job portals
Tracking data from job websites will provide you with more insight into the performance of your advertisements. You will get a deeper understanding of how many people are applying for a job; which positions attract the most applications, and what types of devices do candidates use to apply for jobs?
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Data from social media
Social media is an excellent tool to engage with younger prospects, but you must monitor data to see whether your recruiting plan is successful. For instance: Which social media outlets have the most impact? Which social networking platform produces the most qualified candidates? How many candidates are generated by each channel? What is your cost per acquisition?
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Data related to CRM (Candidate Relationship Management)
CRM data may assist you to monitor different forms of data associated with candidate applications, such as application abandonment rate and the number of prospects in your pipeline and talent pools. It would also offer information on how long candidates spend on each step of the application process; the time to hire; hiring cost; the referral rate, etc.
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Recruitment analytics data
Recruitment analytics will assist you to gather data that offers you knowledge of:
- Hiring insights: Why prospects drop off, and which aspects of the process need adjustments.
- Operational insights: Determine the efficiency of your recruiting process and pinpoint any bottlenecks.
- Personality insights: What sorts of applicants apply for your available positions, and how do they stand when compared to your top performers?
- Candidate experience insights: Are candidates with higher experience willing to apply for the job?
Examining the advantages of talent acquisition analytics
Utilizing data analytics in your talent acquisition approach has a multitude of significant advantages. Here are the four most important advantages of talent acquisition analytics:
1. Target job seekers
Once you have targeted the exact talents and traits you are looking for in a candidate, you can utilize data to determine where would you get in touch with such applicants (certain social media sites may assist you with this). You can then publish your job advertising according to the requirements. You may even tailor the wording of the ad or job description to match the personality of the applicants you’re seeking.
2. Eliminate prejudice
Data does not care about an applicant’s age, gender, or color; but, on the other hand, humans may make some biased decisions, based on these characteristics.
Based on the existing knowledge associated with social events, attitudes, cultures, stereotypes, and emotional responses, our brains may develop unconscious biases. Using facts and statistics as a basis for your judgment can prevent prejudice in recruiting.
3. Predict applicant success
Organizations may utilize analytics to forecast the future performance of job applicants.
Using talent analytics, businesses may determine the characteristics of a competent employee and create a candidate profile to match it. Thus, while making hiring decisions, they might seek comparable qualities, education, and experience.
4. Customize employee benefits
Talent analytics helps you to make smart decisions based on a candidate’s personality and preferences.
The overall aim would be to turn employees productive and efficient. For instance, you may encourage outstanding prospects to join your team by aligning perks to their specific beliefs, personality, and habits.
Another instance would be that a job applicant with an introverted personality who may prefer a calm place to work may welcome the possibility to work from home once a week. Not only will this appeal to the prospect, but it will also help optimize their potential as an employee and boost employee happiness.
Also Read: Why You Need to Align Talent With Your Business
Conclusion
While managing the recruiting process, talent analytics goes beyond ordinary data by providing information on various sources, such as hires, onboarding, retention, cost, and even candidate relationship management (CRM).
For a speedy, effective, and fair recruiting process, you must give equal significance to the types of data you should gather. Different types of data from a wide variety of sources are crucial to a recruiting team because it allows them to begin crafting a recruitment plan that delves further into when, where, and how they should invest their efforts in filling vacancies with the finest available individuals.
Want to know how you can recruit and retain top talent in an era of The Great Resignation? Book a live demo with us.
Social Performance Management Is The New Norm
There’s a new kind of performance management on the block: “social performance management.”
Successful performance management requires effective goal-setting, team collaboration, recognition, engagement, and frequent feedback. Traditional performance management systems miss out on these drivers, which can lead to low morale among employees, and thereby poor organizational performance.
Most companies have realized that their performance management (PM) systems don’t really work anymore. And they are increasingly looking at new ways of measuring an employee’s performance. One of those ways is social performance management.
The challenges of the recent shift to a hybrid work setup have aggravated the need to adopt a modern and more collaborative social performance management system (SPM). Such a system can fulfill the needs of advanced performance tracking as well as the social commerce needs of employees.
Seeing the numerous benefits, many organizations are now switching from traditional annual performance review systems to continuous and social performance management tools.
In this article, we will explore the intricacies of a social performance management system and some of its important features.
What is Social Performance Management?
Social performance management or SPM is a spin on traditional social media. On traditional social media, you are able to convey information quickly and also receive a response quickly. You can talk to literally anybody, create interest groups and also state opinions.
A system which is geared towards or created with SPM in mind allows employees to do the same thing. The only thing that changes is the context in which they do it. In SPM systems, employees can share opinions, thoughts, ideas with everyone in an organization. There’s no hierarchy that separates employees and managers and leaders. They can request for feedback and also receive feedback, in real-time. Managers or employees do not need to wait till the year ends before asking for or giving feedback.
And here is the best part of an SPM system. Its users can be anywhere and still communicate with one and other successfully. Employees in different corners of the world can interact with each other as if they were facing each across a desk.
Organizations are slowly but surely adopting SPM systems because they have realized that the very concept of PM is outdated. Some of the organizations which have adopted SPM systems are HubSpot, Mozilla, Hootsuite, etc.
Engagedly – Performance Management Redefined
Engagedly’s main goal is to drive employee engagement. And you cannot drive employee engagement if your PM system gives neither employees nor managers any say in the process. Here’s how Engagedly’s SPM system can help with feedback, peer recognition, and communication.
Feedback – Continuous and Two-Way
In order for feedback to be effective, it needs to be a continuous process. Traditional PM systems have a convoluted feedback process that is of usually no help. They can be frustrating, delayed and insufficient. Not the kind of process that improves employee engagement. Moreover, it does not provide any channel of communication to discuss important issues.
Engagedly’s feedback process is easy. With a few button clicks, you can either give or ask for feedback. It is immediate and therefore, more helpful than feedback which arrives long after the task has been completed. Any team member can ask for feedback from their colleagues and manager. The feature helps in getting quick feedback on the performance and other aspects of work.
Also Read: Dealing With Negative Feedback In The Workplace
Communication Without Barriers
Communication among all the employees of an organization is vital. Not just among peers. Leaders cannot be closed off from employees, and employees should not have to think of leaders as mysterious, inscrutable figures.
Good communication can drive engagement and increase productivity. Engagedly’s communication feature is simple and easy to use. Similar to Facebook, you can post a status which team members can comment upon and like. Another striking use of this feature is that you can ask your fellow colleagues for help, share ideas, or even share knowledge!
The feature can also be used to impart knowledge to the whole organizaton or share an organization-wide post regarding important updates or changes. This way, you can always keep communicating with your workforce.
Peer Recognition
One of the most important aspects of employee engagement is recognizing employees who have done good work and commending them for it. Our peer recognition feature makes recognizing an employee or a colleague a breeze. You can share a public social post and tag your team members or colleagues there and thank them for their support, or give a shout out for their exemplary support or skills. The feature also helps other teams to recognize the skills by liking and commenting on the post.
Looking forward to redefine your performance management system? Talk to our experts for a free demo.
10 HR Events (Virtual And In-Person) Not To Be Missed This Year
COVID-19 has created a tough and complicated environment for Human Resource Management (HRM) professionals. After Covid-19, HRM was placed in an uncertain position where they needed to devise inventive methods to simplify their organization’s operations and assist their people in coping with this unusual crisis. This is where attending HR events would prove helpful for the HR department of a company.
HR events provide a platform for inventive HR leaders, HR professionals, business experts, and workforce analytics to collaborate and develop a great business strategy to address the many complicated difficulties that affect companies at all levels. HRM can meet experts and other HR professionals, and discuss how to deal with a large-scale shift in the way people work in hybrid or remote working environments.
Benefits of Attending HR Events
Some benefits that HR leaders and business leaders would reap by attending HR events are :
- Opportunities and learning: HR conferences provide opportunities for professional development and understanding of the top HR trends of the year. The participants will also receive an insight into recruiting practices, and emerging HR strategies and technologies.
- Challenges: Participants will have a better understanding of how to deal with the challenges of working in a multicultural environment.
- A chance to meet field experts: These events allow professionals to meet field experts. In addition, thought leaders and experts will share their experiences and advice to the trainees and Human Resources professionals; especially, regarding essential aspects of HRM such as talent acquisition and employee engagement.
- Develop a professional network: HR events enable professionals to interact with peers and develop a professional network.
- Build your CV: Many HR conferences award certificates to participants on completion of the conference. These new skills and accreditations can boost your CV.
Also Read: 6 Trends That Will Shape HR Strategies In 2022
10 HR Events Not To Be Missed This Year
Some of the major HR events you cannot afford to miss are discussed below. They would provide you with an opportunity to meet with high-profile business experts and HR leaders. Importantly, they would render an in-depth understanding of the latest HR technologies to streamline HR-based processes.
1. The State of Employee Well-being 2022
Date: 1 June to 2 June
Price: Free
Why should you attend:
This event will focus on employees’ well-being and how employers can keep employees motivated and engaged post-COVID. Experts will talk about the effects of the pandemic and how these can be overcome, especially in terms of workplace security and the mental health of employees. Essential areas pertaining to HRM such as the development of high-potential employees and the culture of transparency will also be covered.
You can register for the event here.
2. SHRM Annual Conference & Expo 2022
Date: 12 June to 15 June
Price: The price for a pass to an in-person conference is $1,950 for members and $2,450 for non-members. The price for a virtual pass is $1,295 for members and $1,550 for non-members.
Why should you attend:
This is one of the world’s largest HR conferences, with more than 200 sessions; 500+ exhibiting companies, and thousands of successful, smart, and ambitious HR professionals to network with. This is a four-day conference with peer-to-peer connections, customized learning, corporate and HR leader lectures, productivity HR courses, and hands-on learning workshops. You will also be exposed to ideas related to crucial HR topics, such as strategic HR practices, leadership, inclusion and diversity, workplace culture, and recruitment and retention.
SHRM Annual Conference event registration can be done here.
3. Gartner Data & Analytics Summit
Date: 25 July to 26 July
Price: AU$ 2,975 + GST for early-bird tickets, AU$ 3,475 + GST for standard tickets, and AU$2,850 + GST for the public sector
Why should you attend:
At this event, leading reporting and analytics subject matter experts and corporate leaders will share their insights about the biggest challenges that data analytics leaders confront as they build robust, innovative, and agile organizations of the future. You will have the opportunity to interact with thought leaders and learn to simplify business processes with advanced data analytics capabilities in a dynamic and complex world. From the perspective of data analytics, this HR conference focuses primarily on corporate strategy, the most recent innovations, and entrepreneurship.
Event registration can be done here.
4. HR Connect 2022
Schedule: Preconference- 12 October
Main Conference: 13 to 14 October
Price: $1,199
Why should you attend:
At the HR Connect 2022 event, you’ll learn how to adapt and tackle the most pressing HR challenges, explore compliance, recruiting, corporate culture, and learn how to update your personnel management methods to engage and retain remote and hybrid employees. At this engaging live conference, you will also learn:
- Keeping up with evolving employment regulations.
- The key to maintaining diverse employees of various skill levels and developing professional skills for optimal company performance.
- Accepting setbacks, and learning and improving from failures.
- The biggest cause of employee burnout and effective stress management techniques.
- How to effectively help employees, who are also the providers for their families.
- Ways to improve the productivity and creativity of your employees.
HR Connect 2022 event registration can be done here.
5. The State of Human Experience in the Workplace 2022
Date: 17 August
Price: Free
Why should you attend:
At this event, you’ll discover how to establish metrics such as KPIs for the contemporary employee experience. The event will also focus on presentations on a range of challenges pertaining to human interactions, particularly the experiences that employees and other stakeholders have in today’s workplace and how these impact employee performance, retention, and engagement. You’ll also learn how to improve your recruiting process and what HR strategies you can use, such as employee engagement, compensation and benefits, and business culture.
The State of Human Experience in the Workplace event registration can be done here.
6. Creating a Culture of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Conference
Date: 21 September
Price: $195
Why should you attend:
During this virtual conference, you will learn about the latest best practices for building a common language and understanding of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and how to develop a clear DEI strategy in which your entire workforce can participate. You may earn credits from HRCI, SHRM, and HCI by attending this session.
You can register for the event here.
7. Western Cities HR Conference
Date: 5 October to 7 October
Price: $103.95 – $2,625 (varying from tickets to tickets and accommodation prices)
Why should you attend:
This conference specifically targets human resource professionals working in the public sector from all around Western Canada so that they can explore the unique challenges that HR faces in this industry. You may attend both keynotes and active breakout sessions to acquire insight and inspiration for your career. Erik van Vulpen, founder of Analytics in HR, will also give a virtual presentation on this occasion.
You can register for the Western Cities HR Conference here.
8. Supporting Workplace Wellness & Wellbeing
Date: 19 October
Price:
A 1-day virtual conference pass costs $195;
Engage Your People Virtual Series costs $495; and
2022 All Access Virtual Conference Pass costs $1,895
Why should you attend:
As a result of virtual and flexible work arrangements, organizations must go beyond surface-level health initiatives. Attend this session to discover how to effectively help your employees in times of unrest, stress, financial, and other difficulties. You will also discover the most up-to-date information on how to develop a working culture that places the emotional and physical wellness of workers at the forefront.
At this event, you would also learn how to provide adaptable resources for mental and physical health concerns, develop a culture in which employees are encouraged at times of personal difficulty, and maintain a proactive stance in the face of workforce difficulties that might affect your company. Other benefits include:
- You’ll have the opportunity to network virtually with your colleagues and speakers.
- Accessibility to a digital resource center for thirty days after the conference, including recordings of keynote speeches and slides from presentations.
- Acquire 4 HRCI General credits, 4 SHRM Professional Development Credits, 4 HCI credits, and 3 ATD recertification credits.
Register for the event here.
9. IFEBP 68th Annual Employee Benefits Conference
Date: 23 October to 26 October
Price: Early bird tickets are $1,695 and regular tickets are $1,995 (exclusively for members of the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans).
Why should you attend:
At this event, you can connect with over 5,000 HR professionals and have access to the views of 150 industry leaders on employee pay. Also, you will get practical knowledge about tried-and-true methods that you may adopt in your organization. You will get to learn the latest developments in the industry so that when it comes to investing, you are fully conversant with the pros and cons of it. The main focus of the HR conference will be on administration, fiduciary responsibility, health and welfare, a comprehensive overview of employee benefits and challenges, investments, and pensions, public plans, apprenticeship, training, and education, fund professionals—accountants, and fund advisors—attorneys.
10. Agile Leadership Development Conference
Date: 16 November
Price: $195 for a one-day virtual conference
Why should you attend:
At this event, you can learn how to deal with the shortage of skilled professionals while minimizing the risks to your company. Understand how to create successful leadership development programs by attending this virtual HR conference hosted by the Human Capital Institute. You will also get to learn to identify the relevant metrics, develop a culture of openness, and make sure that your leadership development activities are consistent with your succession objectives.
Registration for the Agile Leadership Development Conference can be done here.
Also Read: How Can HR Contribute to Improving Employee Experience
Final Thoughts
Participating in these virtual or in-person HR conferences might be the smartest move you could make this year, as the emphasis of these conferences will fall on the problems encountered by HR professionals in the context of the new normal and other persistent workforce concerns.
In addition, you will get first-hand experience of the most recent HR technology, such as Engagedly, which acts as a platform for connecting with employees and understanding the many challenges they face. This type of technology can also expedite the resolution of their difficulties, boost productivity, and ensure employee retention.
Do you want to know how Engagedly can be the right performance management software for remote workplaces? Book a live demo with us.
How To Shift To A Web Based Performance Appraisal System?
Moving from traditional paper-based performance reviews to web based performance appraisal system can feel like a stressful experience. It is mainly because you are moving away from something that you know about to something that is new to you.
Continue reading “How To Shift To A Web Based Performance Appraisal System?”
How To Improve Your Team’s Performance: Top 6 Tips
Your business is full of talented, hard-working employees. But it’s not enough that they can perform well as individuals.
They have to be able to work in efficient, productive teams.
And in some ways, that’s getting harder. Your team might have remote or hybrid members — you could even be in completely different time zones.
With the right tools and techniques, any team can be high-performing. This article gives you the tips you need to improve team performance.
Why is Team Performance Important?
Team performance is related to job performance. Research shows that team members who are highly engaged in their work and motivated by the mission of their organization tend to produce higher quality, more innovative products than those who are disengaged or uninvolved.
Types Of Teams In The Workplace
Hybrid and Remote Teams
The days of everyone coming to the office every day are over for most teams. While many employees only started working from home in 2020 as a safety measure, most don’t want to go back full-time.
- 75.6% of employees want to work from home at least one day per week. 33.3% want to work from home five days per week. And employers are allowing it.
Source: hbr.org
- Only 4% of employers have communicated that they expect employees to return full-time. 19.7% have no clear plans,
- Another 64.5% will allow some degree of remote work.
- Over 77% of remote workers are more productive when working from home.
That creates a new challenge: teams have to work smoothly and efficiently despite not being in the same room.
Cross-Functional Teams
Cross-functional teams are made up of people with different skill sets and expertise.
They’re often set up temporarily to work on a specific project. For example, a cross-functional team working on a product launch could include employees from product development, marketing, sales, and finance.
They bring a range of perspectives together, which fosters innovation and creativity, and they allow organizations to tackle more complex projects. But there are downsides.
Ineffective communication and misaligned goals in cross-functional teams can lead to issues in coordination, project management, and project delivery. Implementing team management best practices can help cross-functional teams perform better.
Qualities Of An Effective Team
How do you evaluate your team’s performance? We’ll talk about choosing specific metrics of success in a bit, but in general, a high-performing team will have these qualities:
Clear Goals
The best teams can meet or exceed the goals that are set for them. They know exactly what’s expected, and they get it done.
Efficiency
High-performing teams don’t waste time. They get a lot done by operating as efficiently as possible.
If a team is inefficient, it doesn’t necessarily mean the team members aren’t working hard enough. Sometimes, a team’s performance is hampered by outdated tools or processes that need to be reevaluated.
Motivation
The team members of an efficient team are motivated to do their best.
This usually comes from a sense of ownership in the team’s work. Team members feel positive about being a part of the team and are driven to achieve team goals.
6 Tips for Improving Team Performance
Team performance improvements often come from working smarter, not harder. These six strategies can be applied to any team to improve performance.
1. Set Clear Expectations
Teams can’t succeed if they don’t know what success looks like. Your team members should understand their goals and roles, as well as how they’ll be evaluated. Use the below suggestions to set clear expectations in the team.
Use KPIs for measuring the team’s performance
Key performance indicators, or KPIs, are quantifiable measures of performance. They’re the numbers that tell you how you’re doing on your goals.
Your team’s KPIs should include a combination of individual goals and team objectives. For example, a customer service team could track the total number of tickets the team resolved and measure the customer satisfaction ratings of each team member.
Reports and dashboards make KPIs much more useful. Team members should know how to check in on their progress and see how the team is doing.
Roles Within Teams
Each member of the team must have an understanding of their role. Unclear communication about who’s responsible for a task can lead to duplicated or unfinished work.
Work management software that can ensure that there’s no confusion about who’s supposed to do what.
Performance Review Process
In addition to knowing what they’re supposed to do, team members should understand how their achievements will be evaluated. Are there incentives for doing well? What metrics affect the likelihood that they’ll get a raise?
If employees don’t understand how their KPI numbers translate into real-life rewards, they’ll be less motivated to perform well.
2. Automate and Streamline Team Processes
Even the best team will fail if it has inefficient processes. So assign the processes according to the team’s calibre to improve the productivity of the entire team.
No one wants to do things the slow way, but it’s really easy for inefficiencies to become standard if you don’t regularly evaluate and optimize the way you do things.
Sometimes, an inefficient process is just how things have always been done. A team member has painstakingly created the same excel report every Monday for years, and no one has taken the time to find a better method.
Sometimes it’s because you have tools that don’t work together. For example, did you know that the average organization uses ten different sales technology tools? Switching between them for different tasks is a big waste of time.
A sales CRM solution can bring all of your customer relationship processes together and automate the repetitive parts of the job.
Talk to your team members about which manual processes are taking up the most time. Are there modifications that could save the invaluable time of the team? Better yet, could the process be automated?
3. Respect your Team’s Time
Have you ever had to attend an unproductive meeting that could have been an email?
Of course you have. We all have.
Pointless meetings are one of the biggest time sucks in the workplace. 44% of professionals say that poorly organized meetings are keeping them from doing their real work.
By using a meeting scheduler, you can manage your time and meetings in an effective manner. The tool enables your customers to view available time-slots in your calendar and book meetings accordingly, to avoid any conflicts.
And all that wasted time means wasted money. In fact, 34% of professionals consider unnecessary meetings to be the biggest cost to their organization.
Source: Zippia.com
Team leaders have a responsibility to communicate information efficiently. A meeting isn’t always the best way to go. That meeting could be an email, but we have an even better idea — that meeting could be a conversation on your work management platform.
4. Foster Transparency
In a successful team, every team member trusts every other team member to do their part. There’s a group dynamic of openness and honesty.
You can improve transparency at the team level by doing the following:
Provide Visibility Into What the Team Is Doing
Anyone working on a project should have complete information about it. When a team member can only see their own piece of the puzzle, decision-making and problem-solving are impacted.
Project management software can ensure that everyone on the team knows what other team members are doing.
That level of visibility also holds team members accountable. Knowing that your coworkers can see how much you’re contributing to the project is motivational.
Offer Insights Through Reports and Dashboards
Ideally, team members should have visibility of each other’s tasks.
Using a solution with sophisticated reporting and dashboard software gives the whole team insights into progress and performance.
Encourage Feedback
Encourage everyone on the team to speak their mind. If they have feedback about the way the team is managed or how a process is done, be open to hearing it.
Team leaders should also give constructive feedback to direct reports. That improves team performance while letting team members know that you’ll be honest with them.
5. Reward Success
Everyone loves to be rewarded for their hard work. Whether it’s a monetary bonus or simple recognition, team members are motivated by incentives.
Most businesses only reward individual achievements.
No matter how many talented individuals you have on a work team, the team will only be successful if those individuals work well together. As per Deloitte, only 28% of organizations give performance rewards based on team metrics. 39% use individual metrics, and 55% use individual performance reviews.
Choose a team goal that everyone can work on together and let the team know that there’ll be a reward if they meet it.
6. Choose the Right Tools
It’s easy to talk about things like improving accountability or streamlining processes.
But if you don’t have the right team software solutions, it’s impossible to actually do it.
For example, you might feel strongly about the importance of team communication, but some of that communication is going to get lost in disorganized email inboxes if you don’t have a better tool to manage your emails.
Communication
Have a question about a task’s status?
Don’t send an email or use a separate messaging app. That’s how you end up with five different disjointed conversations around the same issue.
Communication happens where the work happens. A good communication platform is especially important if you have hybrid or virtual teams or if team members come from a variety of departments. Moreover, good communication during meetings is equally as important. To facilitate this, you could use a meeting note app
Transparency
A good project management platform provides visibility into what everyone on the team is doing. Project information, deadlines, files, and conversations are all easy to find.
Reports and dashboards let team members visualize the group’s progress and achievements. This kind of visibility also makes reporting to stakeholders on project statuses simpler.
Process Automation
You don’t have to be a tech wiz to automate workflows.Save time by automating mundane tasks like status updates and email notifications. Or get fancy with multi-step automation recipes that streamline entire workflows.
Conclusion
By following the six tips above, any team can improve performance without adding extra work.
Remember that team development is an ongoing process. Meet with your team regularly to openly discuss any frustrations they have or inefficiencies they’ve discovered.
One of the biggest things you can do to improve team performance is to use the right tools. Discuss with your team the tools that can add more value to their work and help solve challenges. However, you may want the assistance of a third party with such a new pair of eyes to understand what more you may add to your team, so be sure to look out for staff augmentation services that can help you boost your overall productivity.
Do you want to know how Engagedly can help you with Real-Time Performance Management? Book a live demo with us.
The Complete Overview Of Performance Management In The Modern Workplace
Performance management is evolving. From the traditional approach of annual performance reviews that caused disengagement and loss of productivity to a strategic and systematic process of continuous planning and monitoring, performance management has come a long way.
Earlier, it was viewed as a system where managers would assess the performance of their employees annually based on some specific parameters. The system had a series of flaws that would lead to inaccurate measurement of performance and eventual disengagement and dissatisfaction among employees.
As per the Gartner Performance Management Benchmarking Survey, 81% of HR leaders are planning to make changes to their performance management system.
On the flip side, the modern approach to performance management is highly focused on the development and growth of employees. It is a continuous and ongoing set of processes that helps to identify, examine, measure, and improve the performance of employees. Other than focusing on employees’ personal and professional development, it provides great insights into the untapped potential of employees and identifies the blindspots that are a hurdle to organizational development.
There are a multitude of reasons why companies like Accenture, Adobe, Google, Microsoft, and GE have ditched their traditional command-and-control management systems for people-focused and growth-oriented performance management. Organizations that are highly invested in the performance of their workforce have higher ROI, lower employee turnover, are more innovative, and are better at problem-solving. They are able to sail through turbulent times without compromising on their work quality.
This article will talk at length about the intricacies of performance management and will unpack details about the following:
- What Is Performance Management?
- Why Is Performance Management Important?
- What Are The Key Components of Performance Management?
- What Are The Benefits Of Effective Performance Management?
- Principles Of Performance Management
- Performance Management Best Practices
- Problems With Performance Management
- What Is A Performance Management System?
- Types Of Performance Management Systems
- How To Get Started With Performance Management?
- Technology And Performance Management
What Is Performance Management?
Performance management is crucial for the success of any business. It helps align the resources in the right direction and ensures higher growth potential. It encompasses a set of processes that continuously measure employees’ performance and build a communication channel between managers and employees to accomplish the strategic objectives of the organization.
Performance management plays an important role in every industry. It helps create an environment where employees are motivated to be better at their jobs by offering them regular feedback and resources to improve their skills.
Furthermore, it is a periodic and systematic process that helps align individual goals to organizational goals, and therefore key decisions like appraisals, promotions, and bonuses are linked to it.
All the major parameters of organizational and individual success are linked to performance management in the following ways:
- Helps in setting goals that are inclined to organizational objectives
- Provides regular feedback to team members
- Acts as a medium of communication to discuss issues, opportunities, threats, and progress of projects
- Offers learning and development opportunities, and reward and recognition based on individual performance
- Creates performance standards for employees
It is critically important to note that performance management is not a one-size-fits-all approach for every organization.
Even though it is a corporate tool that helps solve challenges related to productivity, performance, retention, and engagement, every organization needs to redesign or customize performance management as per their business requirements to get optimum results.
Another common misconception about performance management is relating it to traditional performance appraisals that were limited in scope, as they did not include clear goal setting and frequent feedback mechanisms.
Why Is Performance Management Important?
The changing global business environment, the rapidly evolving technical landscape, changing customer preferences, challenges with global supply chain management, and employees’ expectations from employers are the chief factors that will define the success of an organization in the coming years.
The below image provides a clear understanding of changing employees’ expectations and values at work in the post-pandemic world.
Source: Economic Times
The recent developments in the market, The Great Resignation, and IT automation are adding to the predicaments of human resource managers. Finding the right talent and retaining potential employees is getting tougher every day. On top of that, organizations are still reeling under the economic stress of the pandemic.
The following image highlights some of the challenges that HR leaders need to be prepared for.
Source: home.KPMG (New challenges perceived by HR leaders, 2021)
The situation does not seem to get easier anytime soon. So, how do organizations manage their most valuable resources in turbulent times? This is where performance management becomes indispensable to an organization’s sustainability and growth.
By leveraging different components of performance management, organizations can not only retain their employees but also be prepared for unprecedented changes in their business. Furthermore, they can create a differentiated brand position for themselves and attract new talent easily.
To remain competitive in the current business environment, it is imperative to focus on building a systematic, goal-centered, and employee-centric performance management system.
What Are The Key Components of Performance Management?
Performance management is responsible for the creation of a growth-driven, engaging, and productive environment. A well-thought-out, innovative, and strategically laid-out performance management system can boost performance and lead to the development of a dynamic and highly skilled workforce. In order for performance management to bring effective results, organizations need to incorporate its components into every process and ensure compliance.
The different components of performance management goal setting, ongoing communication through frequent feedback, performance reviews, rewarding good performance, creating improvement plans, and learning and development help to make it a vital tool for organizational development.
What Are The Benefits Of Effective Performance Management?
Performance management is a multi-faceted tool that helps in the overall development of employees and, thereby, achieves organizational objectives. By working at the individual and team level, performance management helps in identifying blindspots in employee productivity and development that are a barrier to the achievement of company goals. Furthermore, it supports management in reducing employee turnover, getting higher ROI, enhancing employee engagement and productivity, and building a more diverse and inclusive culture.
Source: Profit.co
The benefits of performance management are not just limited to the organization, but spread across all the stakeholders. It plays a crucial role in increasing the organizational efficiency by:
- Creating an open channel of communication between managers and employees
- Building trust, integrity, and loyalty in employees
- Aligning individual goals with organizational objectives
- Providing the right resources to employees for growth and development
- Helping in goal setting and making employees accountable for their progress in the organization
- Offering visibility to employees for their efforts and ensuring that employees understand the impact of their efforts on organizational success
- Reducing conflicts between team members
- Offering a platform for self-assessment, learning, performance review, and discussions
- Providing open feedback to employees on their skills, competencies, progress, and future development
- Checking the readiness of employees to undertake more responsible positions
- Creating personalized development plans for employees
- Motivating low-performing employees through coaching and mentoring
Principles Of Performance Management
Performance management is a vast process. It requires collaboration from multiple levels to be successful. It is an integrated approach that touches both vertical and horizontal segments of the organization. To ensure the success of performance management, human resource leaders must adhere to some fundamental principles that serve as supporting pillars to the overall process.
The process is founded on the following principles of performance management:
- Transparency
- Clear and open communication
- Feedback
- Goal clarity
- Interdepartmental cooperation
- Focus on learning
Without incorporating its basic tenets, performance management will not be fruitful in the long run.
Performance Management Best Practices
Following the disruptions caused by the pandemic, many HR processes, including performance management, have started to gravitate toward becoming strategic business contributors to the organization. The concept of performance management has been redefined by the leaders, and it now encompasses the series of changes brought in by the radical developments in the business environment.
Performance management has metamorphosed into a real-time goal setting and employee development tool that overlooks different aspects of employee and organizational performance. As organizations are now juggling between remote and hybrid work setups, it is important for them to keep a tab on the overall performance of their employees.
Human resource managers must incorporate certain best practices to enhance the performance of their remote and hybrid teams. These include:
- Using OKR methodology (Objectives And Key Results) for goal setting, tracking, analyzing, and improving performance
- Redesigning employee KPIs and goals as per the work setup
- Setting SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based) goals for employees
- Offering continuous feedback to improve performance
- Weekly and monthly check-ins to keep track of progress made on goals
- Understanding employee concerns and offering them support
- Using performance management tools to simplify the processes
What Are The Problems With Performance Management?
A survey by Deloitte highlights that only 8% of organizations derive high value from their performance management processes, while 58% find it ineffective in delivering results.
Despite numerous developments in the field of HR management and strategies, there are certain problems that are a huge barrier to implementing effective performance management in organizations. If left unchecked, these problems can cascade into the system and result in conflicts among employees and leaders, low performance, underachievement of organizational goals, and low customer retention and acquisition. On the employee front, ineffective performance management can lead to demotivation, disengagement, lack of trust, and high turnover.
Some of the major problems with performance management:
- Unclear vision and goals
- Disengagement between employees and leadership
- Lack of trust between employees and employers
- Undefined performance management processes
- Lack of metrics and tools to measure performance
- Irrelevant job descriptions
- Lack of commitment in leadership
What Is A Performance Management System?
A performance management system is a collaborative approach between employees and management to frequently review the performance of employees and provide them with constructive feedback.
It entails planning, monitoring, and reviewing the performance to achieve short and long-term organizational goals and also provide a growth trajectory to employees for their overall development.
To ensure higher performance and achievement of objectives, organizations develop a series of activities that help employees understand their strengths and weaknesses and offer them learning opportunities to nurture their skills.
But what’s the purpose?
It’s multifold and it touches upon individual, team, and organizational productivity, goal goal-setting methodologies. Further, it helps in creating frequent check-ins and feedback processes, learning and development, and rewarding employees for exemplary performance.
Types Of Performance Management Systems
A performance management system acts as a guiding light that helps organizations stay committed to their mission and vision by constantly monitoring the performance of employees and offering support wherever required so as to not stray from the optimal path.
There are different types of performance management systems available at the disposal of organizations. Some of the most commonly used ones are:
- Balanced scorecard
- Management by objectives
- Objectives and key results
- 360-degree assessment
- The graphic rating scales
Based on the business requirements, organizational culture, and goals, organizations can select the ones that help them achieve better results. However, many organizations are now making a shift to OKRs and 360 degrees because of the numerous benefits they offer.
How To Get Started With Performance Management?
Whether you are running a startup with a handful of employees or a multinational organization, it is always difficult to align everyone’s vision to achieve overarching goals. Every organization wants to achieve more through continuous improvement, but without a proper framework to support it, it can be extremely challenging to make a mark.
Having a performance management framework to create alignment between organizational and employee goals is the starting point of mastering the art of performance management. When done right, performance management harbingers great results for an organization.
The following points should be taken into consideration while getting started with performance management.
- Meticulously analyze the industry and business environment
- List your most important organizational goals
- Ruminate over the problems you would like to resolve with the help of performance management
- Take management’s support in understanding the intricacies of performance management
- Analyze the previously available data, if any, to understand what processes did not work well and what improvements can be made
- If required, seek external support from leading performance management experts
Technology And Performance Management?
The growing need for innovation, creativity, problem solving, and adaptability is transforming workplaces. Employees’ expectations have changed over the years, and so has the way organizations operate.
The current demands of digitization and agility have led to a fast adaptation of automated performance management systems that can reduce the manual workload of HR managers and optimize the processes.
Real-time performance management systems are taking over from the traditional ones. They help HR managers:
- formulate strategies,
- provide more visibility,
- innovate,
- customize,
- streamline processes, and
- provide a framework for collaboration between employees and management.
The below image provides an overview of real-time dashboards visible to leaders and managers. With their help, managers are able to keep track of the progress of organizational goals.
By doing away with redundant tasks, HR leaders can focus on important issues and help create a better learning environment for employees.
The Deloitte Global Human Capital Report provides great insights about companies that have redesigned their performance management systems:
- 96% of organizations found improvements in employee engagement levels
- 83% say that the quality of conversations has improved between managers and employees
- 96% found the process to be simpler than before
Google, Kelly Services, IBM, Cargill, and Juniper are some of the companies that have redefined their performance management systems. They are leveraging technology to create a continuous performance management system. It helps support processes such as feedback management, check-ins, creating better job descriptions, performance reviews, and even learning and development. These companies are now more focused on employee development and engagement rather than annual performance reviews that would give inaccurate results.
Key Takeaways
Performance management is at the heart of every organization. It helps in creating a formidable performance-driven culture that supports higher productivity, engagement, and optimal utilization of resources. Effective performance management systems are one of the key distinguishing parameters of high-performing organizations. By utilizing the various components of performance management effectively, organizations can create a skilled workforce that is ready to take challenges head-on.
What Can Companies Offer to Boost Their Employees’ Potential?
Did you know your employees could do a lot more for your business than they actually do? Well, if you didn’t know, the answer is yes. However, you have an important part to play as an employer. Maximizing employee ability doesn’t just happen. You need to motivate your employees to give their best at work. When you fail to do this, employees can easily feel unvalued, which decreases their engagement and ultimately their performance. What’s worse, this can have a detrimental effect on the company’s bottom line.
So, how can you ensure that your employees’ potential is maximized for improved performance? Here, we tip you on 5 things that you can offer your team.
Training and development opportunities
Providing training and development opportunities for employees boosts their potential in several ways. For starters, it bridges the skills gaps. This means that employees gain additional skills to perform their work better and even take on other roles effectively. In addition, it increases motivation and engagement. Employees are more likely to invest in an organization that invests in their career development. Moreover, employees give their best at work when they are highly engaged.
Think of ways to help your employees improve their skills. Assigning projects for experiential learning and offering mentorship programs go a long way. In addition, you can sponsor employees to take up various courses such as PMP certification training, CIPM certification, financial analyst training, sales certification, and SHRM certification, among others.
Also read: Managing Millennials Is Not Hard
Recognition and rewards
You may have a highly skilled workforce in place, but if you are not acknowledging their good work, you are impeding their ability to work at full potential. For employees to see that their capabilities matter in the organization, they need to feel and see that it matters to you as well. And, the best way to show them is by recognizing their efforts.
You may be shying away from this, thinking that it is expensive. However, most employees aren’t after glamorous and expensive rewards. A shout-out during the morning meeting, a pat on the back, or a genuine thank-you letter can go a long way. If the budget allows occasional gifts such as lunch vouchers, travel tickets, and things like these, can be a good potential booster.
Flexible working hours
Not everyone is wired to work an 8 to 5 job. Some people are highly productive early in the morning, others in the afternoon, and others late at night. Insisting on having such individuals at their desks the whole day isn’t only demoralizing, but also inhibits their potential. You can consider offering flexible hours for roles that don’t need the employee to be present full time.
Flexible working hours give employees an opportunity to improve their work-life balance. This results in happy and satisfied employees who are willing to work at their best. In addition, employees’ productivity and quality of work go up when they work during the hours that they feel most productive.
Constructive feedback
Giving feedback to your employees is one of the most effective tools for managing employee performance. It helps employees see areas of strength and motivates them to do better. Giving balanced feedback, which means including areas of weaknesses, helps employees improve on those areas.
However, for employee feedback to be effective in increasing potential, it has to be balanced as mentioned. In addition, make it two-way. Have the employees gauge their performance before offering your feedback. Also, ensure that it is objective and timely.
Also read: Drive Employee Engagement In 5 Simple Steps
Positive company culture
The work environment has a lot to do with how employees perform. Individuals work better in a positive culture that promotes psychological safety, wellbeing, teamwork, mutual respect, compassion, and healthy work relationships. Such an environment boosts morale and increases engagement, which inspires employees to work at their best. To create a positive culture, start encouraging social connections, show empathy and compassion, and be an approachable leader among other steps that make a happy and satisfying work environment.
Conclusion
Unlocking your employees’ full potential is paramount in increasing profits and achieving company growth. In addition, it increases engagement, which is important in reducing employee turnover and building a positive brand. You can enhance employee potential by nurturing your team’s skills, capabilities, and efforts as well as offering incentives that communicate to them that they are a valuable part of the organization. The above tips give you ways that you can do exactly that.
Do you want to know how Engagedly can help you enhance your employees’ potential? Book a live demo with us.
This article is written by Daisy Benson
Daisy is an industrial and organizational psychologist who researches to identify solutions to problems that improve the well-being and performance of organizations and their employees. Daisy is also a freelance writer and often writes articles for credible blogs.
The Ultimate Guide to Agile Performance Management Process
The performance management system is a process that many companies have been using over some decades now. It has undergone many changes so that managers can get a better understanding of the employees’ productivity and achievements. However, recently, forward-thinking companies have redirected their perspectives and have adopted the Agile Performance Management process. It is reliable and is considered as a best practice for grading the performance of employees and gaining an insight into their contribution toward a company’s progress.
Why did the need for Agile Performance Management arise?
The need for Agile Performance Management arose as workplaces no longer wanted to follow a hierarchical top-down structure and wanted to adopt an open and collaborative work environment wherein employees, managers, and higher management can join forces to achieve the set objectives.
Another reason for the adoption of this process being, employees preferred to develop their own individual objectives, aligned with the company’s objectives. They didn’t prefer the idea of working as per the objective checklist handed over to them.
If you’re one of those companies looking out for gaining an understanding of the Agile Performance Management process, and it’s working and benefits, then this blog post would help you.
Read Also: What is Continuous Performance Management (CPM)?
Understanding the workings of Agile Performance Management
Agile Performance Management was created for a new era that is more communicative, efficient, and social. It focuses more on frequent employee performance discussions throughout the year as compared to conventional reviews, which are conducted annually or bi-annually.
The unique feature of this is that it incorporates the concept of frequent performance discussions–on a quarterly or mid-yearly basis. This helps in addressing various problems faced by the employees and how they can be guided to overcome the challenges and be aligned with a company objectives.
Another great aspect of Agile Performance Management is that it is based on the process of achieving an objective rather than solely focusing on annual performance ratings and outcomes.
This approach of frequent discussions with the employees and helping them to overcome their barriers helps to cultivate a robust and meaningful relationship among employees and managers.
What factors differentiate Agile Performance Management from a traditional system?
Given below are some factors that differentiate an Agile Performance Management system from a traditional performance management process.
Improves the existing process: Agile Performance Management system scores over a traditional system because of its ability to improve the existing process and help employees to overcome the challenges related to their work.
Frequent discussion to solve problems: Unlike a conventional system that focuses on annual appraisal and midyear review, Agile Performance Management happens quarterly or bi-yearly. As a result, it immediately helps to identify different employees’ issues in a short span and fix them. It saves time and employees can focus on the work, rather than sulking and getting bogged down by existing problems.
Employees usually use the review processes to express their opinions and concerns. Using a traditional performance management system, addressing the concerns of the employees may or may not be only possible during an annual performance review. Till then, employees will have to wait to share their problems with their managers or higher management.
Systematic and meaningful: Another concerning area of a traditional performance management system is that a lot has to be understood in a few sessions that happen once a year. To elaborate, managers have to identify employees’ capability to meet the company’s objectives; employees’ effectiveness in aligning themselves with the company’s goals; their behavior or competencies; their personal development, and their career aspiration – everything in one to two conversations. To achieve these agendas in a single meeting or a string of meetings in two days may not be possible, rendering pressure on the employees and turning the whole activity to be a ‘tick-box’ exercise.
Agile performance management allows the discussions to take place periodically and eliminates rushed discussions that are meaningless.
Flexibility: Since the traditional performance management process is based on fixed outcomes or rigid grading systems, without in-depth analysis, conducted annually, the management may not get a proper understanding of employees’ performance; challenges, and their efforts to meet the objectives.
Compared to this, the Agile Performance Management system focuses on near-term goals, most commonly, monthly or quarterly goals, which ensure that all potential hindrances are eliminated during the manager-employee conversation and employees stay abreast with the shifting priorities of the business.
Interestingly, employees derive larger benefits because of this system as it focuses on employees’ development, and quicker feedback implementation. A completely opposite process takes place in the case of a traditional performance management system, as there is a time gap between the performance review and feedback process.
Also Read: How Continuous Feedback Improves Performance Reviews
Success stats of Agile Performance Management
Almost every employee in the current era does not favor annual performance reviews. Because of the annual performance review, employees’ stress level may increase substantially and companies may witness employee turnover. In fact, companies observed a high percentage of voluntary attrition after annual reviews. Reversely, once they adopted agile performance management, they witnessed a 30 percent decrease in voluntary turnover.
95 percent of managers are discontented with their conventional performance management systems, citing their inaccuracy for performance evaluations.
IBM’s Smarter Workforce Institute (SMW) research shows that most workers “react favorably” to the adaptability and openness of Agile Performance Management.
Deloitte’s research indicates that organizations that maintain a collaborative atmosphere are profitable and twice as likely to outperform their competitors.
Implementing the process in a smart way
We advocate the following strategies to set off your Agile Performance Management process to a successful start:
Getting employees to trust the new performance review system: The management should build trust among employees regarding the new performance management process, before replacing the traditional performance management process. For the same, the management should discuss the large scope of the Agile Performance Management System and the wide range of benefits it offers.
Besides, the employees should be made to understand the need for the company to make a transition from the conventional performance management process to Agile Performance Management System. Transparency and frequent discussion to solve the problems of the employees should be emphasized while discussing the benefits of this Process.
Training: Employees cannot be expected to understand the Agile Performance Management system in a day or two, as it requires a total change in the thinking and behavior of the employees. It would be preposterous if a company expects the employees to shift to the new system without any form of training. This is one of the reasons why adequate training should be provided to the managers and the employees while shifting from a traditional performance management system to their Agile performance management process. The training should be comprehensive and should answer all the queries and concerns of the participants.
Setting Goals:
A company’s primary goals should be communicated to the workforce in a detailed and non-hurried manner, an essential step not to be overlooked.
The managers and employees should set quarterly goals and how they would achieve those goals as per the Agile Performance Management system. The goal should be set in such a way that every required step is well defined. The discussion should involve the elaborate techniques to measure the outcomes. Thus, aligned with the goals, employees will have to meet a set target every month.
Managers will play an important role in helping the employees to meet the set target every month. Managers will provide feedback to the employees as when they feel it is necessary. All these action plans ensure the goals set out are relevant, realistic, attainable, and thoroughly understood by employees. If required, the managers can suggest ways such as upgrading existing skills in order to enhance employees’ knowledge and skill set.
Explaining opportunities and career development: Employees will happily accept the Agile Performance Management system if it is going to be beneficial for them and provide new opportunities for career development.
Assessing adoption of this system: Conduct a regular assessment of the new system to understand how well this system has been accepted by the employees. In case there is low adoption, find out the reasons behind it and address the concerns of the employees so that they will embrace it at the earliest.
Why most companies are opting for the Agile Performance Management system?
An Agile Performance Management strategy involves employees in a continuous, year-round process of personal growth. Employees actively take part in developing their abilities in ways that positively affect themselves and the organization.
Meanwhile, a company preserves or enhances its employee capabilities as business requirements evolve. By using the Agile workforce management system, businesses may have employees working toward common goals and boosting productivity. The Agile Performance Management System results in less turnover, increased employee engagement, and higher earnings.
How this system benefits an organization?
Transitioning to an Agile Performance Management system yields substantial advantages on several fronts.
Benefits at the individual level:
At the one-on-one level, Agile Performance Management enhances everyday performance and enables managers to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the employees in real-time. Developing a routine of regular check-ins enables employees to communicate problems and work impediments to their managers, who serve as coaches to assist them in overcoming obstacles. The managers can also provide team members with feedback and instructions aimed at achieving continual improvement.
Reevaluating organizational goals: This system focuses on a frequent reporting and feedback loop process to promote organizational goal awareness. As a result, executives and employees are made aware of OKRs regularly and, over time, everyone knows their goals, resulting in greater employee engagement and productivity.
Benefits at the team level:
At the team level, Agile Performance Management provides team leaders with a more accurate perspective of the team’s capabilities. This makes it possible for the team to shift gears when business objectives change.
Facilitates enhanced team collaboration: With the Agile system in place, managers may concentrate on guiding and instructing employees to complete work on schedule and within budget. Team members become more dependable contributors, which strengthens the team as a whole.
Performance data:
Agile performance management generates significant amounts of performance data at the enterprise level, enabling Human Resources to monitor organizational capabilities. These data help to identify a benchmark of the workforce’s strengths and shortcomings. In fact, they serve as a crucial starting point for building talent strategies and advancing company objectives.
Agile Performance Management takes a company’s productivity to an altogether different level, as employees become self-aware of the required commitments and witness personal development.
Also Read: 13 Ways to Use HR Data to Improve Decision-Making
Agile Performance Management tools to implement Agile process correctly and easily
Implementing this process necessitates a shift from the old annual reporting approach to a more comprehensive, engaging, and quicker Agile culture. Employing this process incorrectly might pour cold water on the entire effort.
Thus, it makes sense to make use of digitized HR software such as Engagedly solution to ensure the Agile Performance Management process is implemented properly, with no hassles.
Engagedly solution helps managers to track their employees’ progress and milestone achievements and facilitates the exchange of real-time feedback, in line with this process. Also, incorporating Agile training for transitioning to a more dynamic performance management process is pivotal. To guarantee its seamless execution and leverage its benefits effectively, integrating digitized HR software like Engagedly is imperative. This solution empowers managers to navigate the evolving landscape, ensuring streamlined progress tracking, milestone accomplishments, and real-time feedback exchange, thus amplifying the success of Agile Performance Management.
Want to know how Engagedly can help you mange your hybrid employees better? Request us for a demo.
Top Companies That Adopted Objectives And Key Results (OKRs)
There are many companies which have successfully adopted OKRs and modified them based on their organizational needs and industry trends. Here’s a list of few companies that adopted OKRs successfully.
Continue reading “Top Companies That Adopted Objectives And Key Results (OKRs)”
OKR vs. KPI: Differences And Importance
Goals are necessary for any business that wishes to thrive or succeed. And while most organizations do this already, measuring and tracking the progress of these goals is as important as setting them. Considering this truth, companies have come up with ways to measure performance, namely KPIs and OKRs. They are the two most widely used and misunderstood frameworks in the business world. This article will explore the following:
- What is a KPI
- KPI Examples
- What is an OKR
- OKR Examples
- OKR vs KPI: What is the Difference?
- How OKRs and KPIs Work Together? [Analogy]
- KPI and OKR Best Practices
What is a KPI?
KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator, which helps measure the health of a company. They are measurable numbers that show or point to how effective your strategy is as it moves towards a set target. KPIs can also highlight problems in a business strategy. They help steer management to decide to continue at their current pace, quicken the pace or, if not meeting targets, improve.
Companies can set a KPI daily, weekly, quarterly, or yearly, depending on what indicators the organization wants to measure and how often they choose to measure it. We can set KPIs for individuals, teams, departments, or the entire organization.
KPI Examples
KPI talks about business-as-usual metrics. In simple terms, it means what employees should be doing as per their job descriptions to achieve organizational targets. The below KPI examples will make it more clear.
Sales KPIs
- Monthly sales growth is 30%
- Average profit margin is 15%
- Lead response time is 1 day
- Quote-to-close ratio is 30%
- Monthly calls per sales representative is 2000
- Average new deal size is $5000
Marketing KPIs
- Traffic to MQL ratio is 20%
- Monthly MQL attribution is 100
- Monthly published blog marketing content is 100
- Average email click-through-rate is 15%
- Monthly video impressions are 1 million
Customer Success KPIs
- Customer churn rate is 5%
- Monthly recurring revenue is $10,000
- The average revenue-per-user is $1000
- Customer satisfaction score- CSAT is 80
- Customer lifetime value is $100,000
Product Team KPIs
- Session duration is 2 minutes
- Bounce rate is 35%
- The count of weekly-active-users is 5000
- Average product update delivery is 60 days
What is an OKR?
OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results. It’s a strategic framework that helps companies improve their performance. The process entails setting objectives in any area of your business you want to improve, then writing key results to reach those objectives.
It is a collaborative methodology that provides a match between the objectives that organizations want to achieve and the key results that help measure their progress. By tying objectives to small and measurable key results, the framework enhances visibility and provides actionable insights into every employee’s contribution and performance.
Unlike other goal-setting frameworks, OKRs are clearly defined, making it easier for managers and employees to track progress. By breaking down objectives into small key results, managers can create milestones that help accomplish challenging goals.
Sales OKRS
Objective:
Attract 50 B2B new customers
Key Results:
- Increase funds by 30% for advertising through influencers
- Employ two social media managers to increase presence on the social media platform
- Reach out to 50 current customers for references
Marketing OKRs
Objective:
Increase Community Engagement
Key Results:
- Create a customer community
- Reach out to 30 industry experts/ influencers in Q1
- Get 20% of customers to participate in the community in Q1
- Interview and launch 10 podcasts from key industry influencers
Customer Success OKRs
Objective:
Improve Customer Satisfaction Index in Q4 by 30%
Key Results:
- Conduct 50 customer satisfaction surveys every month
- Conduct monthly interviews with 10 recently churned customers
- Achieve a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 10.0
The whole concept of OKR is to identify an area that needs improvement, create a goal, which is the Objective, and then state how you should meet that goal, which is the Key Result. The goal is to get from point A (where you are now) to point B (where you want to be) by the end of the quarter or year. It’s strategic in its approach because it’s holistic compared to the KPI.
Also read: 10 Actionable Tips To Boost Workplace Satisfaction
OKR vs KPI: What is the Difference?
Let’s understand the differences between OKRs and KPIs through an analogy.
A parent wishing to know their child’s performance at school can do that by checking the child’s grades. Grades on individual subjects can act as a KPI. We can assume the target for each subject is to get a pass.
Imagine now that the student failed one or more of these subjects or didn’t meet the expected target set by their parents. A parent can use OKR by taking the subject of math as an example and then creating an objective to get good at mathematics and subsequently working on creating strategic key results.
The aim is to improve the student’s performance in math. The parent can then set different KPIs for various tests to measure the effectiveness of the OKR strategy.
Check out the below differences between OKRs and KPIs to get an even clearer understanding.
| KPI | OKR |
| Key Performance Indicator | Objective and Key Results |
| Business-as-usual metrics to highlight performance | Goal-setting methodology that drives higher employee performance |
| Used for performance measurement | Used for performance improvements, enhancement, and engagement |
| Top-down approach only | Mix of top-down and bottom-up approaches |
| A certain level of performance | Strategic improvements in performance through specific initiatives |
| Ongoing process, usually revised quarterly or yearly | Periodically, as and when objectives and key results need adjustment |
OKR vs KPI: How They Complement One Another
Understanding OKR and KPI framework allows you to appreciate them for what they do individually and how they can work together if implemented well. It’s possible to use both together instead of pitting OKR vs. KPI, missing out on both. This section will show examples of how both can work together.
KPIs bring management attention to underperforming areas. The reason companies have KPIs in the first place is to make sure activities are going on smoothly, so when a company misses its targets twice or twice in a row, it needs management intervention. OKRs are perfect for such a case. Identify a clear objective to aim for before brainstorming on the key results you need to achieve the goal.
How OKRs and KPIs Work Together? [Analogy]
OKR and KPI complement each other. We will use the grades analogy from earlier to showcase the relationship.
In our example, a parent wants to know how well their child is doing at school and uses their grades to measure them. We assume the target is a pass in all their subjects. This example was to demonstrate an example of a KPI.
We then said if the student failed math, we needed to do something about it. So, the parent would use the OKR framework in this situation. In our example, the objective was for the student to improve in math, and then we drew up key results to achieve this goal.
The key results are to enable the child to be better at math. While the KPI brought our attention to the problem of not getting a pass mark, the objective is to make sure the child doesn’t have a problem with math again. The parent can set a new KPI for the child based on the new objective. The KPI for the next test can be 70%, and the one after that can be 80%, and the one after that can be 90%.
A well-implemented OKR can give birth to new KPIs, and these KPIs will ensure that the key results are effective and produce the desired result.
If the child doesn’t meet the first target of 70% in the first test, let’s say a 67% or so, then the parent can look into it to see if it is a process issue or if they should readjust the next test KPI, which was an 80%, to a 75%.
The example above is a simple illustration of viewing the interrelationship between KPIs and OKRs. Failing any target will lead to the business looking at that area to improve on it. The OKR framework is a suitable tool to use to achieve this goal.
Another scenario where both can work together is if a company wants to step up their current performance because they believe they can do more, and then using the OKR framework can be helpful. After this, KPIs can be derived from the framework to monitor performance. On rare occasions, some companies’ key results are also their KPIs. Although it’s not always the best practice, it’s still possible and unusual.
Also read: The four stages of a performance management cycle
KPI and OKR Best Practices
While setting up your KPI or OKR frameworks, there are some do’s and don’t you should know, and in this section, we will look at some of them.
Best Practices for KPI
-
Be Clear and Specific
KPIs need to be clear to prevent personal interpretations. KPIs should also be specific; for example, increase customers by 25% in Q4.
-
Keep your KPI to the Minimum
This tip is in its name key, meaning that the indicators your company tracks are critical for the sustainability and profitability of your business. Work on creating between 12 and 25 KPIs for the entire company. The idea is the smaller you track, the better.
-
Attainable but Challenging
When targets are unreasonable, it discourages your employees, and if they are too easy, there is little sense of achievement. The secret is to make them challenging as well as reasonable.
-
Frequently Review and Update
You should set KPIs and reset them because they are subject to yearly review and not set and forget them. It’s important that the KPIs stay updated with changing business objectives to reflect the organizational performance.
-
Use Software to Track
Technology has made it easier for us to monitor and track KPIs. Using good software like Engagedly can help you easily keep tabs on the KPIs set for departments and the company.
Best Practices for OKR
-
Be ambitious with it
The objectives of OKR are aspirational. There are objectives that one can look forward to accomplishing in the long run.
-
Don’t have too many objectives.
It’s advisable to have a maximum of three objectives and three key results in order to focus on them and maximize your results. Paying attention to many objectives at once can be counterproductive for the company, and it may also point to the objective not being broad enough.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the OKR vs. KPI war is one that will continue to rage well into the future as different companies and their managements will have varying opinions. The crucial point to note is that both are adequate tools when properly implemented, and if used together, they will make the management job a lot easier.
The Dos and Don’ts of Giving Negative Performance Reviews
“Caroline, you have failed to meet the deadlines way too many times this quarter, We expect more dedication from you this quarter.” How many of us are ready to face negative reviews about our work like this? Not all employees are usually open to negative performance review. Sometimes, it is demotivating to listen to negative performance reviews and employees also tend to get defensive at times.
Continue reading “The Dos and Don’ts of Giving Negative Performance Reviews”
A Complete Guide to Performance Management Cycle
Unlike the modern organizational culture, we consider performance management to be a forward-looking solution that is based on retrospection. With an evolving work culture, the need for continuous feedback is now felt across offices and technology has brought forward such tools which are highly advanced and need based. Now managers can anticipate problems based on the performance cycle, and initiate course corrections to bring the action plan back on track.
A performance management cycle is a round the year phenomenon and includes planning, monitoring and evaluating employee’s performance. It works in such a way that meets the overall goal of an organization. Here, the success of an employee is aligned with the success of an organization.
The performance management cycle helps employees improve skills and achieve goals. An effective cycle focuses on employee performance and tries to make necessary changes for his growth in a workplace.
The performance management cycle encompasses four stages:
The management expert, Peter Drucker, designed one of the earliest performance management models. As per his sayings, whatever you can measure, can be managed and whatever you can manage, can be accomplished. Individual and organizational goals should be aligned together. The continuous process includes the following parameters to achieve the targets smoothly.
1. Planning
Planning is the first step of the performance management cycle and includes three elements:
Defining stage
Here, the management and HR team have to define jobs, include description and determine targets. Besides, it needs to list objectives, and have clear metrics on how to access and achieve the goals. The point is to make sure goals are lucid and are followed by clear performance standards.
Giving feedbacks
Once management completes the defining stage, employees should get the opportunity to give input for the materials. As they are the ones to perform the job, they should have in-depth insight of skills, goals and competencies to help the company achieve milestones easily.
Approval stage
In this, both management and employees should agree on roles, goals, and achieving objectives. This is how it is possible to make the first step in the process of collaboration, making the employees understand their engagement in goal setting.
Also read: A Guide to Choosing the Best OKR Software for Your Business
2. Monitoring
Plan meetings
Try to plan for it in a timely and regular manner, wherein the next step for the management cycle would start. Monitoring and training are important and here, routine meetings can help employees assess their position.
Provide training and coaching
Meetings should focus on training and give solutions through mentoring, rather than measures that result in uninspiring performance.
Accountability should be positive and engage employees to be honest to speak on what they are struggling with and what changes can be beneficial. This is where management training plans can help employees effectively.
Revisit objectives
As the process continues, management needs to revisit objectives to check on improvement and adjustments required. Management should focus on opportunities for employees.
The step reviews overall performance, and how the employees are rewarded in a meaningful manner.
3. Reviewing
Performance review
At the end of the annual performance cycle, this review is an integral part which is known as appraisal. Typically, these are once a year thing where an employee’s performance is evaluated over a span of a year.
Management checks records to evaluate the progress of an individual from the previous performance year. However, the monthly check-ins will help employees with problem solving, adjust goals and focus on future tasks. This step is included in the cycle that looks back to assess one’s behavior and potency for coming years.
Review management process
Here, both employees and management should look at how the management cycle is working and identify the areas of improvement. Asking some questions constructs an effective review mechanism:
- Try to know whether organizational objectives are met
- Challenges employees face and need for training
- Help from management feedback and how to work on the process
Review goal completion
Of course, one important question to ask is whether employees can reach their goals. How well did the team perform to achieve the targets throughout the year? Consider all types of achievements as it helps identify areas where improvement is required.
Give effective feedback
A key part of reviewing is to provide effective feedback and receive the same. Management should focus on actionable feedback so that employees know where to improve their performance in future.
Employees should be encouraged to give feedback on the process and how it can be better.
4. Action
Plan rewards and recognition
It is a key step to keep employees motivated. This doesn’t have to be monetary, although this is a better incentive in most cases. Other rewards could be company recognition, responsibility for new projects, time off, and assigning leadership opportunities.
Set stage for upcoming performance management cycle
The last step gives one last chance to employees and management to review the feedback on the entire year’s process. As feedback is the key to the organization to plan for the next year’s cycle and make it effective.
So, with this, you can have a clear conception on what is performance management process and how it impacts business’s success.
How to Improve the Management cycle?
Do you wish to improve the management cycle of your workplace? Here are some vital questions to bring things back on track.
What workforce looks forward to in the management cycle?
A performance management process can hinder or help the workforce. Before you include a new performance management software, try to analyze what’s working and what’s not. Besides, try to find what employees want from the performance management program. As you discuss with employees, be ready to be surprised when you discover how many were looking forward to an improved process. Subsequently, bring in changes in the organization and improvements as per researched based findings.
Do you follow contentious performance management?
Even when employers want employees to be happy, the latter may seek motivation and recognition of work. A management cycle should deliver value to your employees, and companies can flourish in an increasingly motivated workforce.
However, to boost motivation, performance management should be frequent along with ongoing conversation on how to achieve goals, how it impacts progress, and how it affects employee’s personal development. Motivation is related to a future focused approach, creating developmental scopes. So, managers must engage with employees on career growth that should be the focus of the organization for its success.
Also read: 5 Powerful CEO Engagement Activities That Are Impactful
Are managers using tools to handle performance management cycles?
Managers are crucial in the management program with engagement, motivation, and development plans. This should ensure that they have proper training to motivate employees and get useful feedback. They should coach employees appropriately in the continuous process.
Before introducing talent management, managers should have adequate training so that employees are comfortable being part of one such program. Use correct technology to support the performance management. It should help managers and HR to introduce and get effective results from continuous processes.
Why develop a performance management cycle in business?
The reasons behind an effective performance cycle are many, but more often, it focuses on employee productivity as its primary reason. A valuable cycle would include development, execution, and monitoring of effective performance plans. Focus on setting one’s goal and arrange for continuous coaching and it will help to improve employee’s performance automatically. It helps them reach goals easily that directly contribute to the company’s growth.
Best performance management practices
To ensure success of the management process, and whether it is continuously evolving, try to include the best practices:
Well-planned performance strategy
The strategy should include how frequently employee evaluation is required. Try to find the type of evaluation analysis trackers that suit the company best and how meetings and surveys can help. An effective approach for feedback conversation can help deploy the best evaluation system. Set the workflow right, include actionable inputs for steady improvements.
Inculcate a culture of open communication
Continuous monitoring should have effective communication to help discuss employee issues. If communication is transparent, negative feedback or matters of poor performance can be addressed. A culture of communication is widely accepted among people of all hierarchies. Managers should develop a culture of openness, expect honest feedback, allowing employees to remain honest and managers can use the information for required changes.
Transparent communication strategy should include:
- Share with the employees what the company expects
- Train employees to reach their potential using actionable goals
- Give constructive feedbacks
- Reward and recognition for successful achievement
Continuous monitoring process
Sounds like monitoring every move of an employee? Certainly not! It is real-time tracking of employee’s progress and outcomes. It necessitates keeping an eye on employee’s sentiment through open discussion and how managers can help employees deal with it better.
How can performance management software help?
Having a robust performance management software is beneficial in over one way and employers should be well trained to help teams use it. You can try to use the latest streamlined tool that enhances alignment, engagement and communication with employees. Some other benefits go as below:
Have clear goals
For ease of goal setting and tracking progress, a performance management platform is of great use. The right software elevates the employees and helps them reach the business goals. It helps get real-time results and boost goal alignment and is accountable for overall growth of workforce.
Ease of engagement recognition
As mentioned earlier, rewarding is an integral part of the performance management cycle and recognition motivates an individual. A beneficial platform helps in peer-to-peer recognition, making an employee feel valued.
Use of feedback frameworks
No matter what feedback framework or frequency a business follows, it should be continuous to protect high performing and potential candidates. An effective feedback strategy can drive individual, group, and organizational growth correctly.
Effective talent reviews
Even though reviewing outcomes is tough, try to make it insightful. With constant reviewing, it is easy to identify top performers in the workforce. Uncover the growth perceptions among employees and create performance strategies for the success of both employees and business.
Once leaders are aware of best performing management practices and tools, you should know how to leverage it for the good of employees and organizations. With this, employee productivity and business growth skyrockets. Support individuals and teams with performance strategies that help them reach their potential and to push the business outcomes.
Key Features Of An Ideal Performance Management System
Employee performance management is one of the most important management tools that influence employee growth and organizational development significantly.
Continue reading “Key Features Of An Ideal Performance Management System”
How 8 Top Performance Companies Transformed Their Management Systems
Many organizations are now understanding the importance of shifting from traditional performance reviews to more continuous and flexible performance management processes.
Continue reading ” How 8 Top Performance Companies Transformed Their Management Systems”
One-On-One Questions For Managers and Employees
One on one meeting questions are a great way to encourage frequent and straight-forward conversations between managers and their teams. One-on-ones can be simply defined as a scheduled time for managers to check-in with their direct reports. These meetings can be key in building team relationships and trust.
Continue reading “One-On-One Questions For Managers and Employees”
6 Most Common Reasons Why Performance Management System Fail
A performance management system is one of the most important aspects of an organization. HR managers are usually the ones who carry out the performance management process in an organization.
Most organizations already have a performance management system, but if you are planning to implement a performance management system in your organization or to improve the existing one, here’s a list of common reasons for the failure of the performance management system that you might need to avoid.
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Tips To Create A Culture Of Frequent Employee Check-ins
Employee check ins are a great way for managers to gain a clear understanding about their employees. They provide an opportunity for managers and team members to ruminate over the important issues and discuss any questions, concerns, or ideas they have.
Continue reading “Tips To Create A Culture Of Frequent Employee Check-ins”
Top 5 Employee Goals And Objectives to Advance Your Career
Setting employee goals and objectives is a common practice among organizations worldwide. To get the most out of your employees, you must give them goals they can work towards. This not only keeps them motivated but also maintains high performance levels.
Here are the 5 Examples of Professional Goals For Work 2025.
Goal#1: Bring More Creativity To Work
As the corporate world continues to become more competitive, creativity keeps on gaining more significance among employers. Creativity can impact how well your employees can implement their tasks. Because it contributes to the development of the company, organizations are increasingly showing interest in cultivating employees’ creative thinking. And you don’t want to fall behind. So this year, creativity should top the list of your employees’ goals and objectives.
Though creativity is not something that can be taught, few proven practices can make your employees think out of the box. Interestingly, some of the practices are as simple as walking, learning a new instrument, and even just sitting at a place doing nothing at all.
Here is what employees need to do:
- Go for a 30-minute walk, 3 times a week, after work. Don’t listen to music or be on call while walking. The primary focus would be the surroundings
- Pick up a new hobby or learn to play a new instrument. Dedicate at least half an hour to it in a day
- Every day, spend some time away from technology. Read a book or just do nothing
Make sure your employees develop these habits by the end of this quarter.
Remember, everyone is creative in their own ways. So, putting some effort into nurturing your employees’ creativity will eventually pay off.
Goal#2: Learn People Management
Every organization has employees of different age groups, backgrounds, and ideas. That means every employee’s way of working is different. To ensure everyone in a team is collaborative and a team player, organizations must include people management skills in their employees’ individual goals and objectives.
People management skills include strong communication, the ability to motivate others, patience, problem-solving, positivity, and honesty.
Some examples of practicing people management skills are:
- Provide teammates or peers with feedback at least once a month until the end of Q4
- Recognize one colleague’s work effort weekly by sending them an encouraging email for the next 6 months
- Encourage inclusive work culture by involving everyone in a monthly brainstorming session till the end of this year
- Involve employees in a monthly problem-solving session where every employee will solve one critical problem, given by their team leads or upper management, for the next six months
By improving people management skills in your employees, you build effective future leaders within the workforce.
Also read: Your Guide to Performance Management
Goal#3: Hone Your Negotiation Skills
Negotiation skill is vital for every individual in a business. It helps in reaching common ground in case of any confrontation and improves relationships in the workplace. Negotiation is also important for career growth.
Some of the characteristics of negotiation skills are- knowledge of the subject matter, listening skills, ability to express thought verbally, general intelligence and judgment, and patience.
Developing negotiation skills in employees must be a priority for 2023
To develop this skill, your employees need to:
- A negotiation course
- Find a good negotiation coach and have a monthly or biweekly meeting till Q4
- Every month, keep an hour aside to try out new negotiation skills with a peer, until the end of this year
Coursera provides negotiation skills training “Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills”. In this course, your employees will learn about and practice the 4 steps of negotiation: Prepare (how to plan negotiation strategy), Negotiate (how to use key tactics for success), Close (how to create a contract), and Perform & Evaluate (the end game). Coursera also provides a Course Certificate on the successful completion of the course.
Goal#4: Practice Decision Making
Decision-making is a critical skill for anyone in an authorized position. So having a workforce that can make quick yet good decisions is something that makes an organization stand out. That’s why your employee goals and objectives list for 2025 should have decision-making in it.
Though it is a difficult skill to develop, if your employees actively involve themselves in the process, they can achieve significant long-term results.
What your employees need to do to improve decision-making skills:
- Invest at least an hour every week to learn some basics of probability. It helps in improving one’s decision-making skills
- Do not postpone any difficult decision that you are required to make for the next 3 months
Udemy offers an excellent course named “Decision Making: Mistakes, in Probability and Statistics,” which can improve your employees’ decision-making skills. This course is specially built for leaders and managers.
This course offers learnings on- common mistakes made in probability for everyday judgments and decisions, the psychological biases and fallacies that make us conclude wrongly, and how to use probability effectively during decision-making.
Also read: Here’s Why Your Employee Rewards & Recognition Fails
Goal#5.: Focus On Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is one’s capability to recognize, manage, and use their own emotions in positive ways to empathize with others and overcome challenges. It helps you build stronger relationships at work and achieve your career goals. As a result, emotional intelligence becomes a critical skill for collaboration and working effectively in a team.
The skills involved in emotional intelligence are- self-awareness, motivation, social skills, and empathy.
To improve emotional intelligence, your employees:
- Need to practice self-awareness thrice a week through self-reflection, noting down feelings and experiences, and reflecting on behavior throughout the year
- Must practice active listening and pay attention to non-verbal cues when communicating with others
- Must use an assertive style of communication (communicate opinions and needs without being aggressive) for the next 3 months
Many organizations are now switching to performance management software to automate and enhance setting up of employee goals and objectives. These tools provide real-time data on goals achievement and further help to increase employee accountability and transparency in the system.