Article: How to manage performance remotely

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How to manage performance remotely

Make remote work more productive and engaging for employees with these empathetic but practical actions– as discussed during the webcast by People Matters and Synergita on “How to manage performance remotely: Making remote work more productive and engaging with Technology.”
How to manage performance remotely

You may have conducted hundreds of performance reviews over the course of your career, but in the era of COVID-19, everything is different. You and your team have been working remotely for months now in an extremely difficult situation. While work from home had existed but working out of the office and employees and managers being separated from each other for a prolonged period is being witnessed  for the first time. How do you begin to evaluate your employees’ performance at such a challenging time? How much should you consider the impact of COVID-19 on your assessment? And how do you make sure you’re fair-minded given everyone’s different circumstances?

The recent webcast by People Matters and Synergita on the topic “How to manage performance remotely: Making remote work more productive and engaging with Technology,” answered some of these questions that managers and HR professionals are trying to solve. What made the session more informative and impactful were the speakers Venkattesh R, President & Head Operations,Technology & Human Resources at DCB Bank Ltd. and Shankar Krishnamoorthy, Co-Founder and CEO of Synergita Software Private Limited.

Here are some key takeaways from the session:

Shift in performance management practices due to the pandemic

With Pandemic around, already, all the companies are hit by revenues, loss of productivity, etc.  Several of us are learning to adopt the work from home and for some people, it is completely new. For example, in our product management, we are used to working in a conference room with the product manager, UI designer and doing a lot of sketches on pen and paper to come up with new designs. Now, we have to do all of these through email and collaboration tools.  It took sometime for us to get used to this model.

Having said this, every company is now focussed on how they get new customers, how they execute and meet customer deliveries, coming up with newer service lines or products, etc.  So, productivity and performance are extremely important at this moment.  People are measured on how fast they are able to do their job, how effectively they do their job to reach the target/results.  There has been an accelerated focus on performance, driving goal setting process, employee engagement, among the organizations. A lot of organizations have started to adopt OKRs as it is agile and helps in bringing better alignment. 

Remote workforce and goal setting

With the current crisis, enterprises are acknowledging the importance of survival. So, naturally, daily and weekly achievements and closely monitoring what is happening, how to close the gaps, how to finetune the activities and processes, etc. are getting a lot of importance. We are also observing internal mobility where people are shifting or taking up different roles within the organization. This requires adjustment on both ends – both from the manager’s end and employee’s end.  Managers have to accommodate and help the employee to come up to speed.  There may be some learning curve for the employee to learn the ropes of the new role. Similarly, employees will have to adjust to the new requirements, put in their best to come up to speed.  With the pandemic around, people should be more open to take risks, change career paths, etc.

Addressing performance management today

Performance management is extremely important in current situations. You need to set targets and goals for the company, departments, individuals and make sure that you have good alignment on them.

  • Clear definition of goals/OKRs and continuous management
  • Employee engagement
  • Employee development – It is easier now to identify who are able to raise to the occasion in this tough environment, who cares more for your business, your customers, etc. You can identify your next level of leaders in this organization more easily based on their performance and behaviour.

Watch the entire video to get more insights!

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Topics: Performance Management

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