Getting Your Performance Management Framework Right In The New Mode Of Work

Historically, one has seen multiple examples of societal crises which induced harsh and far-ranging changes, even fundamental shifts on professional, social, financial and cultural fronts forever. And this goes all the way back to the 14th century: The Black Death that killed 25-30 million people in Europe, which was considered the major reason by a number of contemporary historians for the demolition of feudalism. The plague is what really paved the path for all of European history that followed. The 1940s was another game-changing point in the lives of millions of women labourers who were forced to join work, leading many to credit World War II for this permanent social and economic change. Because it followed female workforce participation to become a norm. So after witnessing to all this evidence in the past, the next question that triggers the mind is -

Is COVID-19 also going to shift beliefs, behaviors, and the way we work forever?

It’s hard to predict how it will shape our perspectives but we could certainly see a greater focus on crisis preparedness, social distancing, system resilience, cleanliness, and public hygiene. Very soon masks are going to become the symbol of civilized society. The experiences from the pandemic are already changing how we work, including a greater emphasis on remote working, digital collaboration, employee engagement, mental health & workplace hygiene, and protections for temporary workers. Hence, we should quickly widen our thoughts and pull our socks to build a culture and a framework that can cater to the new normal.

Studies indicate that teams that work together in the same place report higher productivity, effectiveness, and better decision making. So, what happens when a storm like COVID-19 makes collocation impossible? Can teams working remotely still be agile and productive? How do HRs ensure a performance-driven culture when everyone is working remotely?

Building a performance management framework catering to the new normal:

In order to ensure that the right talent is retained and engaged, the most relevant performance management framework is vital. And especially when everyone is working remotely it becomes even more crucial. Here are the top 4 things you need to consider while drafting a performance framework for your remote employees.

• Set Up Clear Goals:

When employees know what to expect, they can perform accordingly. One of the biggest problems remote workers have is understanding what their parameters are. Managers should clearly communicate expectations, job responsibilities, skills, and competencies required for the job. Communicating how individual goals align with department and organization goals is crucial. Setting up clear, measurable performance goals also acts as a tracker for one’s own career development and progression. Without direction, they will have a much steeper learning curve to know what’s expected of them.

• Create a Rhythm of Continuous Feedback:

In successful agile organisations, feedback is the heartbeat in a culture of taking risks, failing fast, recovering even faster, and pursuing continuous personal development at all levels. Regular sync ups keep both the manager and the reportee updated on progress and expectations. While managing remote workers, checking in regularly helps capture employee feedback in real-time, making room for smoother communication, minimising risk of misalignment, and loss of time later. It also helps in building a rapport among the team by promoting conversational feedback.

• Build an Excellent Rewards Strategy:

If you’re aiming to become an agile organisation that values participation and connection but also promotes worker independence and autonomy then you should definitely have a strong reward strategy in place for your remote workforce. It can be as simple as recognising them with a badge on the company’s leaderboard or as personal as sending them a flower bouquet with a handwritten note. This helps in keeping employees engaged and motivated to pursue greater heights and achieve substantial growth within the organisation.

• Leverage Technology:

Technology plays a crucial role in getting the best outcomes from your remote teams. During the remote work mode, it is imperative for the managers to implement a daily/weekly status check so that productivity remains uncompromised. HRs need to go deeper and wider in their talent management game and have a personalised solution for every single team in the organisation. HRMS platforms like Darwinbox cater to every performance philosophy and enable organisations to track daily planned activities, ensuring nothing is missed out and employees continue to remain productive by enabling business continuity.

If there was ever a watershed moment that has shined a spotlight on the importance of investing in technology to boost and manage performance, the massive spread of COVID-19 is it. In every aspect of the response to the crisis, technology has played a pivotal role to help with business continuity—from enabling remote working to updating HR policies, dissemination of COVID communications to tighter workforce collaboration. To even ramping up productivity and eventually performance. Technology has been at the center of it all. And those that have been able to accelerate digitisation and leverage technology for collaboration, analytics, predictions and performance management are going to come out far stronger than others.

As we all know, with global recession indicators glaring at the world of work, and the timing, unfortunately, coinciding with Performance Appraisals for most, businesses are having to reevaluate their compensation & benefit decisions in the wake of the crisis. Here’s an interesting read on the impact of COVID on performance appraisal that could be helpful to you in realigning your strategies.

Also, to know more about how Darwinbox can help you build a performance framework for your remote workforce talk to our experts today.

“If you are someone who is in the middle of altering attitudes around performance as a philosophy and maybe considering introducing OKRs, then you are on the right track! And we want to give your efforts a leg up. Here's your OKR Starter Kit with best examples for different functions and a ready-to-use template to design your own OKRs.”