Performance reviews during COVID–19

A closer look at the evolution of performance reviews during the COVID-19 pandemic reveals a need for more manager training. Anna Earl, from the University of Canterbury, looks at the research.

Employment New Zealand in 2021 stated that managers need to act fast to deal with performance issues. University of Canterbury students conducted research in the Advanced Human Resource Management course with New Zealand companies on performance appraisals. They found that traditional performance appraisal (PA) policies and practices that merely focus on managing poor productivity and performance of employees do not work during COVID-19.

The findings indicate that PAs, policies and practices in organisations need to adapt and progress, to facilitate the emerging trends in employment relations. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way organisations and employees view and manage PAs. Employment conditions have changed to flexible working hours and working from home, making managing teams and relationships between managers and employees within organisations more challenging. So, how has the COVID-19 pandemic changed the rules of the game of PAs?

From performance appraisals to performance conversations

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment in New Zealand advises PAs should be around an open discussion about how employees find the role. The consensus from researchers and practitioners is that PAs should, in turn, be performance conversations (PCs).

Simon Lind (co-founder and CEO of Prolorus Solutions) echoes this view and adds that PCs should be value driven. Research suggests that encouraging a two-way conversation, with ideas and input from an employee, is essential for relationship building between the manager and employee. This relationship is a vehicle to building trust between them because the employees feel valued.

The University of Canterbury found that employees do want PCs and it is the managers who need to be more engaged. Managers often focus on managing their departments and don’t consider themselves as coaches to their employees and teams because they are time poor. Simon further adds that this is why we see the term ‘performance appraisal’ slowly being dropped out of an organisation and the need for day-to-day, light-touch coaching and conversation. This is more important during COVID-19 because some of these conversations happen online, and keeping engagement with performance conversations is more challenging. Organisations need to invest in coaching the managers on how to have performance conversations.

PCs are going to evolve, and organisations need to understand that managers serve as vehicles to lead people.

Team-based performance conversations

The COVID-19 pandemic and working from home have changed and somewhat challenged the teamwork within the organisation. Research indicates that team-based PCs ensure that diversity in teams (eg, cultures, genders) is respected, which creates a safe space for honest and constructive PCs. Simon Lind states that team-based performance conversations can help companies sustain their competitive advantage. For team-based performance to work, trust is needed to talk about how the team can achieve its goals.

Keeping individual conversations with employees is still important when shifting towards team-based PCs. However, individual conversations should be around individual employee personal development, as opposed to team performance. Team-based PCs need to be aligned to the goals, which need to be filtered from the board or executive level to the employee level to get buy-in from employees. A successful PC within the team enhances the wellbeing of employees and increases collaboration in the workplace, which helps achieve organisational goals.

From courageous conversation to having a conversation

A trend evident in research is that managers need to learn how to remove their armour and have courageous or challenging conversations that negatively affect them. During the COVID-19 pandemic, conversations should be simple instead of courageous or challenging and built on trust between managers, individual employees and teams.

Typically, PAs are carried out annually or every six months, which worked well before COVID-19. A shift towards working more from home requires more light-touch conversations, and the wellbeing aspect needs to come into PCs more. These conversations need to shift towards ‘how are you doing personally?’, that is, a more informal basis. Simon Lind says that understanding where people are in their life cycle, and being open to the fact some employees do not want to have PCs is important, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. So having honest and straightforward conversations around performance can be more beneficial for these employees.

PCs are going to evolve, and organisations need to understand that managers serve as vehicles to lead people. Hence, organisations need to invest in training their managers on how to lead people and be more flexible in their performance review policies and practices based on employees’ life cycles.

Anna Earl (PhD) teaches advanced human resource management. Her main research interests revolve around the relationship between government and multinational enterprises, and the practices of qualitative researchers. Her current research interests are in emerging economies, expatriates and stakeholder relationships.