Sara is a web developer at a software company. She is overwhelmed with her daily business tasks and the burden of house chores at the same time. The new distance-working situation is making her losing the track of time and not being able to maintain a work-life balance. The situation has deteriorated when she complains about her feeling of being treated unfairly and even forgotten by her managers.
From Sara’s point of view, she is doing her best at home, but cannot turn his concerns off whether this would satisfy her managers or not. On the other hand, managers of this company rate her performance satisfying and she has always been considered as a qualified team member, they hesitate why is she losing motivation! There is something wrong with this picture that is, unfortunately, happening frequently in most organizations in the COVID-19 era. The pandemic has shifted the business environment to a dark phase in which it seems impossible to implement performance management based on traditional approaches.
Performance management is almost mistaken by once in a year annual performance appraisal. The key difference is that performance management is a continuous process of identifying, measuring and developing performance in organizations by setting individual and team goals which are aligned to the overall strategic goals and mission of the organization.
In today’s face-paced world which the competition among businesses seems to be extremely tough and customers have a plethora of options to choose their favorite services or products, people are considered as the most critical organizational entities that can create a competitive advantage for businesses. Talented people who are motivated and managed through effective organizational processes would be able to make difference. Thus, the importance of performance management to measure and improve employee capabilities cannot be underestimated.
However, achieving to performance management targets during the Corona virus Pandemic that made working remotely a normal policy in many organizations, seems complicated in some aspects.
Distance working brings along a reduction of time-consuming distractions that are associated with coming into the office like long commutes and motivates employees by letting them know that they are trusted by the company. However, it does not come without drawbacks. Working outside the office environment for a long period of time may cause employees to lose work-life focus. Employees should be led regardless of where they are based and basic performance management pillars should still continue to make sure that employee activities are linked with the organization’s mission and vision.
There are a few ways based on Performance Management Process in which you can support your employees to stay productive while they are working remotely:
1. Define Expectations and Set Clear Objectives
The first step of the Performance Management Cycle is to develop a performance plan which defines SMART goals. You need to be transparent with employees about the vision of the company and help them truly understand how their job matters. While working remotely, you should be more attentive to define meaningful and clear targets to alleviate the process and improve the productivity of staff. In this case, the sense of achievement by employees would drastically increase when definite deliverables are accomplished one by one.
2. Define Key Performance Indicators
Performance Indicators are normally used to appraise the success of business processes through achieving organizational goals. When employees are working from home, they may feel unsure about their performance and doubt whether they are doing enough. This is the reason why it is essential to share regular feedback with your team and try to lead them toward being their best self. In addition, it is now more important than ever to document measures and constant changes of results to help employees track their performance.
3. Keep in Touch
Employees are willing to communicate with their managers and build healthy relationships with their colleagues. Periodic team meetings and in-person performance evaluation discussions used to be common methods to be open and authentic at all times. Otherwise, employees may stay in the dark and hesitate how their ratings are generated in isolation. Even in times of a crisis such an ongoing pandemic, it should not be forgotten that people still want to know that their engagement, long-term growth and success haven’t been forgotten. So, leaders need to continue open communications through online devices and make sure that a two-way street of communication is provided that makes it easy to discuss needs and challenges for all team members.
4. Review and Develop Performance
Advancement and development are indispensable prospects in every career regardless of any type of uncertainty. Besides, companies stand to benefit when their staffs are more motivated and deliver effective performance.So, you need to prepare useful performing reports that inspire every member to action and guide to recognizing the gaps between as-is and should-be performance. It is even more significant to highlight every tip to move performance toward should-be during the pandemic and make sure that every single action plan is effectively understood by employees. At the time being, it is more critical for team leaders to focus on presenting inspiring reviews and define individual tasks, and have meaningful conversations about tasks.
5. Revise incentives
Last but not least, offering employees incentives based on their individual performance or profit-related achievements is a common approach in performance management. However, some of these incentives may do not make any sense in the current business environment. Motivation drivers in this challenging marketplace should rely on achieving tasks that are more specifically defined and do not be tempted to share the financial burden of losing profit as a result of the pandemic fairly.
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