Performance

Performance Management

crucial for employee

development

by Rob Bothma, Exco member of the South African Payroll Association

Over the past year we have had many discussions with organisations as to where they see their performance management processes going in the future, in light of all the new advanced HCM technologies brought about by the various cloud solutions available.

The good news is that many of these organisations are starting to take a serious look at their current processes and how these can be redefined into more value adding processes for both the organisation and the employee.

A clear result of these discussions is that having two performance review sessions over a twelve-month period is just nowhere near sufficient enough to have an effective or positive performance management process.

Organisations are finally starting to both look at what their overall goal is for conducting performance reviews and what benefits this process has actually realised the organisation, as for too many years now all it has ever really been is a salary increase indicator.

And therein lies the problem. Both employees and managers only really looked at the respective objectives and related scores with only one goal in mind – what increase will I give and what increase will I receive- without any real focus on the ongoing improvement of performance, continual employee development or even career and succession planning.

Staff members need a solid career plan to give them stability and confidence in their future in the organisation.

Although some managers can often be threatened by hard headed or stubborn people, strong independent thinkers are required at all levels in life, and an environment and culture need to be created, where these attributes are encouraged and grown, as this helps many people to grow and thrive.

Innovation is the name of the game today. With technology starting to run riot in our lives, people who seek out innovation will become very successful, whether at work or at home.

With cloud based applications now becoming one of the preferred options for HCM solutions, they bring with them a whole host of new and exciting innovations.

One good example is having an integrated social forum as part and parcel of the solution, enabling employees to both request and provide feedback as and when required. Employees and managers are thus able to build up portfolios of evidence on a regular basis, ensuring that the regular performance discussions become more relevant and meaningful.

And of course, having a connected workforce, employees’ performance agreements become a living document.

Objectives are no longer set and measured over a fixed period, normally the financial year, but rather objectives can be loaded and assessed each with their own start and end dates, breaking the traditional link with the meaningless financial period.

In addition, as and when the employees’ work circumstances change so too can their performance agreements be updated, there and then, affording both the employee and the manager the opportunity of continually reviewing objectives, thus ensuring that they are 100% relevant to the actual tasks the employees have been assigned.

As mentioned earlier, there is a total inadequacy in having the normal mid-year and full year review for a staff member.

The employee’s performance contract should be a living document, with the management and accountability equally shared between both parties.

Both employee and manager should be equal partners in the creation of goals as well as all the resultant processes that lie therein, such as planning and execution of ongoing skills development, forward focusing career planning and of course how reward and recognition will be measured and awarded.

eSIGNATURES; AMO DERN SYSTEM OF AGREEMENT

Andy Papastefanou, founder of Impression Signatures

In the digital age, the world is innovating at an exponential rate. As 4IR drives digital transformation, electronic signatures are becoming ever more prevalent. Now the question arises; how does one prove consent?

With many varying mediums being used to manage contractual agreements, a modern system of agreement becomes imperative. Thanks to ongoing digital transformation, eSignatures offer a reliable, trackable guarantee that an electronic document is authentic. Soon, one will even be able to use WhatsApp to finalise agreements.

The key is to opt for an eSignature that relies on an innovative consent engine to ensure identity, consent and context are verifiable. According to Andy Papastefanou, founder of Impression Signatures, there are four key components to a reliable eSignature: engagement, agreement, trust and management.

Engagement relates to how the document is presented to the parties for signature, be it via WhatsApp, USSD/SMS, email, push notification, etc. With a unique, omnichannel engagement platform, users are empowered to enjoy communication and seamless channel of the device being used. “Taking a unique approach to WhatsApp contracts, Impression Signatures also holds the patent for USSD message acceptance as a form of electronic signature,” he adds. “Considering WhatsApp in the view of the overall consent engine, this feature – which is unique to Impression Signatures – will offer far more than more than a Chatbot experience.”

Agreement relates to the process the document goes through from its generation to signature, and storage. From designing, generating documents and prefilling them with data from trusted sources, to sending signature requests to all relevant parties, and returning it to the storage service of choice, every step ensures compliance and full agreement.

Trust is essential, and an advanced eSignature offers this in abundance with a unique Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model driving onboarding, digital identities, and managing Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). This ensures that the agreement process remains compliant and that the integrity of the transaction is maintained.

The Management of these documents and digital signatures ensures a fully transparent chain of custody. This allows parties to track who signed the document when, and where. Users of Impression Signature software can also track documents throughout their journey via dashboards, noting when and where requests are opened, how the document is paged through, signed and ultimately returned.

In practice, what sets the home-grown Impression eSignature apart is its ability to allow parties to engage – even when they do not have a smart phone. “The focus for all technological development should be on true digital transformation, touching every part of the country, not just people with a fancy phone,” adds Papastefanou.

At ABSA, for example, the Impression team used this technology to enhance Merchant Onboarding, specifically with regards to applications for speed point machines. “We essentially built a SaaS model, whereby the ABSA consultant would visit the merchant with an iPad and capture their details. The process was handled 100% digitally, with the merchant receiving a USSD message on their phone to accept the details of the contract, and once

Through this modern system of agreement, a legally binding process has been completed in minutes rather than hours.

clicking ‘Accept’ the eSignature was applied, and the speed point could be handed over immediately.”

This drastically decreased turn-around times for the delivery of the speed points, as well as the paperwork and amount of communication required between the parties before an agreement is reached. With this reduction in laborious admin, the consultants could see more clients in a day, significantly increasing productivity.

In the medical field, USSD and WhatsApp are also being used internally at a large hospital group to ease the administrative burden on doctors. Using a USSD model, doctors receive a message that requires them to authenticate that they have the authority to view a document – in this case, financials that require approval. Once authenticated, the doctor can open the financials on his/her phone and approve the documents immediately.

“Through this modern system of agreement, a legally binding process has been completed in minutes rather than hours, all with a reliable chain of custody underpinning the handling of the documents,” concludes Papastefanou.