2020 has been a year of complex experiences, revelations and learnings. As a result, we have understood that the way the world works can change drastically without warning. Most working people today are facing uncertainties coupled with family needs and probable financial tensity, presenting unprecedented challenges. Our functions and ways of life need to change in tandem.
A recent research by SHRM shows that ‘work-related concerns have left more than 40 percent of employees feeling burned out.’ In fact, many organizations have even taken the decision to skip performance reviews this year.
Keeping a tab on these ongoing transitions, we sought to understand how the recent shift in the way we work has affected performance management and people development processes. We curiously asked ourselves the question, “What has changed in performance management and people development during the COVID era?” To have a closer look at the changes and how it affects us, we conducted surveys on performance management and people development processes.
Want to know what we found? We will get there in a moment. But before that, allow us to give you some details about the survey.
The survey covered about 20 different industries. However, our results clustered into 5 key industries:
These 5 key industries accounted for 50% of responses to the survey. (View survey)
As we have mentioned before in this article, we wanted to gauge how the pandemic has affected performance management. So we asked the leaders to report the degree of change for different performance management processes by reporting whether or not each of the performance management processes was occurring more or less frequently during COVID-19. They responded on a five point scale (1= significantly less frequent and 5 = significantly more frequent).
We focused the questions on these key areas performance management processes:
Wait! The survey does not end there. We wanted to be slightly more thorough. So after they reported on the degree of change they experienced during COVID, we asked the leaders two additional questions.
Here is what we found!
So now that we have a better understanding about the changes in performance management and their impact, we come to the next important step.
Read: Performance Management and Employee Development in the Covid Era
Then the key question becomes, do these changes stick or is this only a temporal effect?
Among the other questions, we pondered regarding use of ratings in performance reviews and changes in pay-for-performance models. It appears there was some shift in doing more Ratings-based Reviews and increased Pay for Performance, but the data did not suggest that it was significant enough to make a claim that that shift was more than temporary, possibly due to cost containment efforts. We will need to run another study in a few months to test our hypothesis. So keep a look out for the follow ups on this piece!
Want to view the detailed report? Click here.
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