Why is my employee not working effectively?
There are several factors that determine how effective your employees perform. One of the common mistakes that company make is not having a correct performance management process. Engaging managers and employees in your performance management process is key to build a substantial performance management process.
A lot of managers and employees disengage from the performance management because:
They find the process is too long and time consuming
The process is not clear
They feel uncomfortable giving feedback and/or setting goals.
Employees feel they are spectators rather than participants
Don’t think the feedback is fair and not reflective of their performance
Process tends to be subjective
How do we tackle this problem and actually align your workforce correctly?
There are some actions that you can implement to improve engagement and employee’s participation in your performance management process.
1) Streamline process and forms to make them effective
Long process is the number one reason why people do not want to participate in appraisals. Every employee already have enough tasks to do and many see this as an extra task. It is common for managers to complain of having to spend hours on appraisals which redirect them from their primary duties. Your process might be complex and hard to use. User experience is crucial and that is why Synergo created a very easy and intuitive performance review process.
2) Train employees to give effective feedback, be honest
Do you know that 28 percent of employees are completely disengaged? People especially in Indonesian culture hate giving feedback for many reasons including: They think their voice is not being heard, politics in workforce, culture of sungkan (“hesitant” or “shy”). As managers we have to train them to be honest about their situation and how we can help them to achieve their full potential. 360 feedback is a helpful tool to get a sense of what is going on in the workforce.
3) Self appraisals
Employees often complain that performance appraisals are only a one way action where they are being “judged”. They have no voice or influence in the process and they are just recipients of feedback and goals. Synergo tackles that problem by providing a self review process before every manager review. This exercise has been proven to drive much higher employee engagement in the performance management in addition of making this process a two way action where both participants participate.
4) Performance is not just numbers
Most of the times performance appraisals focus too much on ratings. This caused the employees and managers care only the “numbers” rather than the actual performance because those numbers are used as the primary factor in making decisions which leads to compensation and promotion. Try to shift the focus from numbers and ratings to alignment and development. Use the performance appraisal to align employee goals and company goals. This will give the employee sense of ownership of their goals where they can see how they actually contribute to the company. Employees will perform much better when they are motivated to do their work which will lead to higher number and rating.
5) Performance appraisal is everytime
Some companies do appraisals only once a year. This is fine for the actual report; however, to be effective, performance management needs to be an ongoing activity. Schedule and conduct a one on one meeting weekly to talk about challenges and goals. These “appraisals” do not have to be formal, it could be as informal as lunch where managers and employees can share their position and vision. As a manager, check on the progress of your employee on a daily basis.
Conclusion
Good performance management system is not a “good to have” rather critical. The most important asset for any organization that wants to be successful is its people. Productive and effective people will drive the company. So it is important to design an effective performance management system and engage the employees