In a typical and conventional organization, the need to conduct employee performance review is by far, one of the most challenging processes. This rings true especially if you have a big pool of employees. Some HR Managers (and even other departmental managers) dread this long and tiring process, but yet, still needed to do it, out of responsibility and requirement imposed by the management.

For this reason alone, you may find that along the way, the primary objectives of this important process may be overlooked for an easy way to conduct the exercise, in a rush to complete it at the very last moment, just before the deadline. Sounds familiar?

Quality is often compromised or the lack of it: and where employees expectations are not met with the true value of its’ pure objective, challenges in the organization lies ahead, begging for mishaps to happen probably one after another, leading to unsolicited staff turnover, or probably more untoward incidences at the price of company profitability.

Needless to mention, there are vast advantages of a well-designed employee performance review system may well serve and contribute significantly to both the organization and employees’ growth. The dynamics are crucial to foster individual growth, development needs and employees’ overall engagement are factors that must be instilled in each departmental managers, with the CEO taking the lead, assisted by the HR Manager.

The lack of planning and designing an effective performance review system may be the light of frustration that many good employees will fail to endure and continue to stay motivated.

KEY SUCCESS FACTORS

• What is the objective?
  • Defining company goals and objectives is of paramount importance. Ensure these are clear and communicable to all levels of employee. Establish performance metrics for each role that ties with the Job Description (JD) to allow both the manager and incumbent to be on the same page.
    
    The set objective(s) shall be the driving force in the entire process:- providing guidelines and constructive measures to engage employees while driving them to continue growing and contributing effectively and efficiently within your organization.

• Methodology
  • It is crucial to determine the method and way of assessment. The last thing you want to do is to leave it vague and let each department manager determine the way of handling the entire process. As you are aware, each manager tends to do things differently, if guidelines and protocols are not ironed out.  Do not worry if it is done once or twice a year. Never mind if it does not have the 360-degree element. Doing it right (according to objectives set is more important) to achieve the desired results does.
    
    Be sure though, to ensure the method applied is standardized across the board. If it is a two-way assessment, for example, ensure all managers sit down and spent some time with each subordinate. Discuss the strengths, weaknesses, improvement opportunities, the way forward and engage them the whole year round. Ensure individual performance ties back with OKR, KRA, KPI or whatever measurement standards established and agreed upon, ultimately ensuring all key results are aligned to organizational goals. The last thing you need is measurement methods that are dependable on each individual manager and not clearly determine from the beginning.

• Feedback
  • Allow employees to provide regular feedback and communication has proven to be one of the key factors in regulating an engaged work environment. The tradition of speaking to employees once a year during performance review does not work any longer.
    
    Managers who check-in regularly with their subordinates for follow-up, addressing challenges promptly, recognizing areas for improvement both for the individual or organization swiftly will foster a work culture of mutual support and collaboration;  will go far.

• Skills and Knowledge Development
  • It is imperative that through the review, identified performance gap(s) must be addressed by simply providing employees with learning and development opportunities. Depending on the scale and magnitude of such gap, the development opportunities may be narrowed down by either internal or external sources.
    
    This is to ensure and to indicate that meagre performance within the organization is not tolerable and the company will initiate corresponding actions to address such deficiency.

• Performance Metrics
  • In most organizations, all levels of performance reviewed and assessed are usually scored accordingly and later, determining if it falls within an established range of score for each level or band.
    
    It is important that such scoring is well-thought and workable (means ‘make sense’). Do note that this is an important factor to ensure it is fair and able to compare those performing ones (drivers), the average performer (soldiers) and the poor ones (passengers).

• Rewards and Recognition
  • The ultimate objective after a well-designed employee performance review system must be the finale: the rewards and recognition based on the achieved performance metrics established. This is perceived by many, if not all employees, as the sole purpose of carrying out this yearly exercise. If your organization does not believe in rewarding by way of annual increment, bonuses or what have you, why bother to review performance, right?

The Way Forward – Digital HR Tech

By and large, many organizations are still conducting the assessment manually. Tons of papers are printed (some are designed between 6 to 8 pages, or more). The process is tedious, monotonous, and spending crazy hours to fill up the forms, often left it done haphazardly without much quality.

Now, do not be disheartened.

In a digitalized environment, the employee performance review system can be easily designed to suit your requirements including, but not limited to:-

• Believe and culture
• Personalized workflow
• Customizable processes
• Ability to include KPIs/KRAs
• Competency checklist may be included
• Definable scoring platform
• Automated reminders and escalations
• And much more.

A cloud-based digitalized employee performance review process could render the exercise to be done in a breeze. With automation, HR and departmental managers could freely utilize more time to focus on other important aspects of the process, ie. the human side of things. With better time spent on planning, designing, spending quality time to conduct the assessment, determining phycological, developmental and emotional needs of the subordinates would be a better way to make this process more effective and valued.

By embracing technology, the employee performance review system act beyond a mere assessment tool but will also propel as a catalyst for organizational growth. In the end, it will get employees fully engaged, satisfied, and excited at the same time. Employees will be impressed especially companies that allow self-assessment features in the process. That’s one way to skin the cat! Again, with HR Technology, one can find many ways to do things differently and better than before. And before we forget, you will also save time administratively, the cost of printing out the forms, and confidentially management is at the highest form.

If you ever need consultation on how to get yours digitalized and incorporating the above, pick up the phone and contact our consultants at Rymnet Solutions for further enquiries.