28 minute read
nEwS FEAtURE
Measuring performance in a hybrid workplace
As employees invest extra hours of work to help speed up the process of recovery, are employers reciprocating this sense of empathy and need toward employees? How are employers stepping up to empower employees and adjusting their approach to performance management in a hybrid workplace?
By Bhavna Sarin
After months of navigating and adapting to ‘’the new normal’’, people today want to stop listening to the phrase ‘’new normal’’. Why? They say it has been used enough ever since COVID-19 struck. While we have spent enough time in the new normal to make the phrase redundant in itself, we are yet to experience the much-needed shift in workplace policies that validate the existence of COVID-19 and the consequential impact on people, business, and the ability to perform.
Some say remote working has blurred the work and home boundaries, while some say that productivity in fact has increased, owing to the accompanying flexibility of working from home. But how flexible is remote working? It appears not as much, given the associated well-being costs of said enhanced productivity. How can we navigate these overlapping boundaries? How can employers play a role in managing work and performance?
As employees invest extra hours of work to help speed up the process of recovery, are employers reciprocating this sense of empathy and need towards employees? Shifting focus to business continuity was and to a great extent remains a priority, and employees have stepped up in this need of
the hour. How are employers stepping up to empower employees and adjusting their approach to performance management in an evolving hybrid workplace? Let’s find out.
The intent behind performance management
The disparity and inconsistency in measuring performance that existed preCOVID-19 has only amplified post-COVID, and in a majority of the cases the widening gap can be attributed to discrepancies in leadership styles and belief systems about what performance is and how it needs to be measured, followed by individual choices of adjusting or not adjusting these expectations in the face of the crisis and its resulting circumstances.
In conversation with People Matters, Ashley Goodall, SVP Methods & Intelligence, Cisco suggested an interesting perspective to look at performance measurement, “The fundamental currency of a performance management system should be frequent attention to the humans in our teams. We know that this is the most powerful thing to actually lift levels of performance over time. And the point of performance management, of course, is not to categorize performance as much as it is to enhance and increase it over time,” added Ashley.
This perspective highlights an important differentiator between effective performance management and regressive performance management practice - the ‘’why’’ of implementing performance management. Are we doing it to manage the performance of the workforce to identify strengths and areas of improvement, and equipping them with the needed tools to scale their performance, or are we doing it just as a routine exercise to categorize performance, bucket employees into different performance ratings, which yes continue to exist with different terminologies, and decide who to promote and who to let go off. Is the intent behind performance management, transformational or transactional?
Sure data on performance helps get clarity on how to reward employees who have gone above and beyond, and at the same time hold people accountable for their performance if it isn’t up to the expected and agreed-upon standards, and measuring performance is key there, but is that the sole purpose of performance management or is that only a part of it. Once there is clarity on that, only then can leaders identify the right strategy to measure performance, evolving what it truly encapsulates, and rethink how to measure, monitor, and assess performance.
Managing performance in the post-COVID workplace
There have been innumerable conversations around the globe on measuring productivity and performance in a remote working setup. Every organization has its own goals that need to be met and every individual contributes to those goals in their unique way through the role they are playing. In the bigger picture of how the last few months have unfolded from a business perspective, the outbreak of coronavirus forced organizations to focus on survival and sustainability, replacing the focus on pressing existing performance expectations and culture for many, it is critical to realize that not just new organizational requirements, but the disrupted personal lives of employees is also bound to have an impact on performance. This calls for the HR function to evolve from business partners to people partners, and perhaps upskill managers and leaders to cater to these aspects on the people front.
There is no one-size-fitsall approach to performance management, and there is certainly no proven methodology to get it right in the existing circumstances. ous improvement and development as the pillars of a strong performance management process. Here is a four step approach by Cargill India to relook at performance management: • Simplified process, goals aligned to the changing business needs, and a new way of working protocols • Ongoing discussions between managers and employees, informal feedback, coaching, goal review, and adjustment during the crisis • Simplified and flexible goal setting with fewer, more dynamic goals aligned to business strategy and tailored to the dynamic business environment • Qualitative assessment of the employee achievements, contribution to business success, and development opportunities
exceeding targets set for the year. This led to the senior management having to explore alternatives to keep the ship afloat. In a nutshell, such exploration is bound to lead to new deliverables, new plan of action, rethinking strategy, reallocating roles and projects, and all that in an absolutely new workplace which is virtual, distant, and for many a first-hand experience of working from home.
Given individuals are working from home, under Yet, talent leaders everywhere are doing their bit to make the process as seamless and empathetic as possible with the focus on keeping communication lines open. One such talent leader is Raj Karunakaran, HR Head Cargill India. Sharing with People Matters how Cargill India is solving the post-COVID performance management puzzle, Karunakaran emphasized frequent and future-focused conversations on continuShifting the needle on performance assessment
Several organizations today are caught in the maze of finding the right way out to address performance assessment. There are several elements to performance today, with a tradeoff of several responsibilities between the employer and employee, trust being a significant aspect of that. And while we have established that there is in fact no one-size-fits-all approach to performance management,
here are some guiding notes to help you structure your efforts in this segment:
Redefine performance and purpose, keep it real-
istic: The working environment that is in play today is one that has never been experienced before and is certainly different from the working environment the workforce functioned in during pre-COVID times. An overnight shift to working from home vs working across a hybrid workplace requires different performance measurement parameters.
Some employees might be working remotely, some might be in essential roles on the field, while others might have had to return to the office. In that context, maintaining the flexibility to enhance the performance of a distributed workforce becomes even more critical. Additionally, in the present day, we aren’t only redefinTo keep up the morale there is a need to explore non-monetary methods to reward employees and also identify avenues to reallocate funding to make employees feel cared for
ing performance but also redefining organizational purpose, and that needs to be communicated to the larger workforce to align efforts and enhance performance.
Adjust goals: The pandemic has led to revising focus areas for the business which trickles down to revised deliverables for employees. There is a need to clearly define these goals at the earliest to help employees plan their efforts accordingly, and ask for help where needed. Redefining performance and adjusting goals is only scratching the surface of a redesigned performance assessment strategy. To ensure effective implementation, organizations must appoint culture advocates to both lead by example the revisited performance assessment mindset as well as reinforce abiding by the new guidelines to avoid any deviation or falling back into the old practices and notions.
Culture and mindset are a precursor to performance. While the responsibility of performing work lies with the individual, that of providing an enabling culture rests with the leaders and managers. Mindset is an important aspect of change management. Given a more flexible and open approach
to performance management might go against ageold assessment strategies, breaking through those mental roadblocks is among the basics that need to be checked.
Non-monetary rewards
and recognition: Rewards and recognition are a critical element of performance management. Employees today are already experiencing a financial setback, much like their employers. To keep up the morale there is a need to explore non-monetary methods to reward employees and also identify avenues to reallocate funding to make employees feel cared for.
Align benefits programs to current employee needs:
The existing circumstances also provide an opportunity for organizations to tap into revamping benefits more in tune with changing employee needs.
Employee wellness is
core to productivity: “I strongly feel that this is a time to show more empathy, be role-models and be declarative on employee well-being and work-life balance,” shared Raj Karunakaran, HR Head, Cargill India. Employee well-being is core to productivity and performance. This sentiment is echoed by organizations and visible in the increasing focus on employee wellness initiatives. In such times, it is all the more important to provide employees with resources to help them combat the threat to their well-being, physical, emotional as well as financial.
Invest in technology: “It would be desirable for organizations to invest in a technology solution for effective management of performance if they don’t have any in place,” suggests Sushil Baveja, Executive Director - HR, DCM Shriram Ltd. Building a performance management system from scratch SVP Methods & Intelligence, Cisco, hits the nail on the head with his description on the best way to measure performance: “The best way to measure what a team leader thinks of somebody on their team is not to have them attach a rating to that person, but to describe how they would invest in them." He added, "And so, the performance management system of the future will have some way of understanding which investments we decided to make in people—who did we decide to move, who did we decide to promote, who did we decide to give a stretch assignment to—and ask which of those decisions we followed through on, and then use those as a gauge of what our team leaders actually think about their team member.”
Measuring performance in a post-COVID workplace will have its own trials and errors as organizations undergo the journey of evolution in adapting to the virtual workplace with a distributed workforce. Performance in the current scenario will therefore need to be driven through a partnership between employers and employees, with each having to step up for the other and making this transition, while a struggle, but one that leads to a brighter future for work, workplace as well as the workforce.
would be an additional stressor at this point in time for leaders and managers, this is where technology comes in. These times are a great way to test the entire human-tech debate - the need for humans to invest their time in strategy and culture, and leverage technology for routine tasks that can be automated.
As we strive to adapt people policies and the workplace to the circumstances before us, Ashley Goodall,
ROB ROSENBERg How the pandemic forced organizations to review expectations and targets
The underlying tenets of performance management have remained the same. At its essence, it is about turning goals into actions, inspiring people, and providing purpose and direction
We’re (still) living in a changing world
Aconstant theme of HR management literature prior to 2020 was that the world of work was changing. Aging demographics in many markets, rapid advances in technology, a shift in generational attitudes toward work, and the ebbing tides of globalization were challenging HR organizations across all industries to adapt their strategies to recruit, manage, engage, develop and retain the best talent.
After the year we’ve all just had, it’s safe to say that we’ve experienced both a crash course in what challenges change can bring when it arrives unexpectedly and a road test of how successful we had all been in preparing ourselves for it. Conventional approaches to all aspects of HR were turned upside down – many companies had to embrace remote working for large numbers of employees overnight, and, for those with essential frontline workers still out in the field or on the shop floor, the constantly evolving protocols around social distancing, PPE and other hygiene and safety measures suddenly topped the agenda for every daily meeting. Depending on how their core businesses were impacted, HR departments had to quickly implement furloughs, re-deployments, or other measures to adapt to downturns and protect the overall business or to rapidly source and onboard new recruits, often remotely, to cope with a sudden surge of activity. They had to foster teamwork and collaboration using different formats and tools. They had to provide reassurance to an
anxious workforce over what lay ahead in an uncertain environment. And they had to manage different types of stress and digital fatigue, continue to drive engagement, and to identify ways of measuring and boosting productivity with new remote working models.
The pandemic has also had a significant impact on performance management. From a short-term perspective, it forced many organizations to, at the very least, review the expectations and targets they had in place for much of their workforce. They have also had to assess whether their incentives and bonuses were calibrated correctly in a challenging economic environment, which brought significant financial headwinds for most sectors. It threw training and development programs – particularly those with a strong faceto-face/in-person component – into disarray. And it changed the dynamic of even the day-to-day feedback and coaching process between managers and their team members. From a longer-term perspective, it accelerated certain trends that were already in play before COVID-19. It also shone a light on some new skills that are likely to be essential for future leaders.
Everything and nothing has changed
As DHL’s most recent advertising campaign states, “everything and nothing has changed.” In some ways, the last year has sent shockwaves throughout the world that can’t help but alter some of our beliefs, perceptions, and ways of working. In many others, however, it has simply either reinforced some of the trends that were already being addressed by HR organizations or provided conditions in which companies can further evaluate and test how robust their systems and processes are in the face of change.
The underlying tenets of performance management have remained the same. Companies want to track and incentivize employees for how they deliver (or exceed) against their core work activities, while also moni-
toring and recognizing the qualities and skills that contribute to organizational success, to support professional development. At its essence, it is about turning goals into actions, inspiring people, and providing purpose and direction.
How companies approach that has begun to evolve in recent years. Many have spent time assessing whether annual reviews are the right fit, how they can make the process more continuous, to what extent metrics and goals can and should be standardized, and, arguably most significantly, how the process can be tilted less toward the “rearview mirror” of performance and to overall company performance. This is a huge asset in establishing standardized KPIs across different functions and tracking individual performances. It has also helped to manage productivity and performance in the socially distanced and remote environment we saw in 2020. In addition, digitalization is changing the nature of skills that we look for within our business, making change management, analysis, and even just a curiosity for new technologies and applications increasingly important. This in turn means that we have to adjust both our recruitment and our internal talent
Remote working will play a bigger role in the working set-up of most companies than it did in the past. There will remain differences depending on the proportion of white-collar and blue-collar workers, but in cases where companies – or even particular workers – have identified a clear productivity gain from working from home, technology and digitalization will be an enabler of this trend
more toward the “windshield” of development. In this context, three trends had already played a key role in shaping DHL Supply Chain’s approach to performance management: 1. Digitalization: The emergence of new technologies was already fundamentally transforming performance management. Thanks to advanced software and data analytics, HR now has an unparalleled ability to gather and analyze data across a broad range of metrics, and to correlate them development practices – as well as our performance management systems and metrics – to focus on these skillsets and help future proof our business and workforce. 2. Engagement: Engagement is one of the great “intangibles” in any business – challenging to measure but widely recognized as being one of the main factors in exceptional operating performance and higher customer satisfaction. While digitalization can help companies to better capture
survey data and understand indicators of engagement, the actual driver of engagement is undoubtedly people. And in a business in which more than 85% of our 155,000 employees are front-line workers, we have come to recognize that a crucial role is played by line managers and supervisors. We have introduced Supervisor Academies to specifically target the development of this group of future leaders, but we have seen that it is also crucial to encourage regular interactions around performance. For those companies that still need to retain a formal performance management structure, in order to maintain a high level of standardization or because a component of their performance system is closely tied to the annual financial reporting structure, for example, supplementing annual reviews with mid-year reviews and regular performance dialogs can be an effective way of addressing this and driving engagement. 3. Values: Business success is no longer being judged just on traditional financial metrics such as profitability, cash flow, or revenue growth, but also increasingly on non-financial metrics. Performance against environmental, social, and governance factors is now a major consideration for investors and customers. In a tight labor market, it is also becoming a key ingredient in attracting the next generation of recruits to join and stay with a business. Performance management systems need to be adapted to capture value-based performance and development, but they can also in parallel play an important role in driving a culture of values through a company. In 2018, we introduced a new framework of leadership attributes for all white-collar workers, built around working with qualities such as results orientation, purpose, and a positive attitude to change – what we at DHL call “Head, Heart, and Guts”. This reflected our commitment not just to developing common leadership qualities and skills to drive our business in the future, but also to embedding principles such as diversity and inclusion at every level. In 2020, these attributes have also undoubtedly helped to build the resilience of our company against the various challenges that have arisen every day.
How has COVID-19 changed the game?
The pandemic threw a number of curveballs into the game in 2020. While many things will likely revert to the way they
were once the virus is brought under control, I see two trends that will “stick” and continue to shape performance management in the future. 1. Ways of working: Remote working will play a bigger role in the working set-up of most companies than it did in the past. There will remain differences depending on the proportion of white-collar and blue-collar workers, but in cases where companies – or even particular workers – have identified a clear productivity gain from working from home, technology and digitalization will be an enabler of this trend. Performance management systems will need to adapt to this in terms of tracking productivity, maintaining coaching, mentoring, and development opportunities, and ensuring that engagement and values can continue to be reflected throughout the organization.
2. Leading through a crisis:
This applies to everyone in an organization – because a crisis such as the one we faced in 2020 can pose even an existential threat to those companies that are unable to step up and lead on behalf of their industry and customers. Just as many companies have revisited their strategic priorities and their attitudes to risk and resilience as a result of the pandemic, a number of core skills have also come to the fore that, while already on the radar of most HR professionals, were perhaps not fully appreciated in the pre-pandemic world. Employees’ ability to work in an environment of ambiguity In this constantly changing world, which has underscored once again in the last year just how unpredictable it can be, performance management will remain a constantly evolving discipline for the HR function
and uncertainty, their adaptability to change, their problemsolving skills under pressure, their communications skills, and ability to develop and sustain personal connections with their colleagues is becoming more important. The transferability of these skills to other activities will undoubtedly be highly valued by employers who now have a higher sensitivity to risks and unexpected changes in the market.
In this constantly changing world, which has underscored once again in the last year just how unpredictable it can be, performance management will remain a constantly evolving discipline for the HR function. However, those companies who can strike the right balance between driving performance and developing the skills and values that address future trends – while remaining flexible to change – will be best positioned to emerge from the current pandemic with greater strength and future growth prospects.
roB roSEnBErg is the Global Head of Human Resources, DHL Supply Chain, an entity of the DPDHL group with 155,000 colleagues employed in 2000 sites spanning 60 countries. Rob sits on both the Divisional and Global HR Boards.
iN aN exClusive iNteraCtioN with people matters, WIllIam j.T. STRaHaN, exeCutive viCe presideNt, humaN resourCes, ComCast CaBle, shares some iNsights oN treNds that will have sigNiFiCaNt impaCts oN BusiNesses gloBally, what the Future oF remote work would eNtail, aNd how orgaNizatioNs are shiFtiNg the Needle oN produCtivity maNagemeNt aNd perFormaNCe assessmeNt amid this uNCertaiNty By Mastufa Ahmed
William J.T. Strahan, Executive Vice President, Human Resources, Comcast Cable leads the Human Resources function for Comcast Cable. He has responsibility for all aspects of Human Resources including talent, compensation, benefits, learning, employee, and labor relations.
Bill has been involved in various aspects of Human Resources work for over 35 years. He began his career with over a decade of work at Macy’s Department Stores and Riggs National Bank. The second decade of Bill’s work included practicing law in Washington, D.C. in the area of Compensation and Benefits – mostly in the context of mergers and acquisitions and in initial public offerings. For nine years, Bill was a consultant and manager at Mercer HR Consulting.
Bill holds a B.A. in Religion from Villanova University; and a Juris Doctorate from the George Mason University School of Law. He is an Active Member of the Virginia State Bar.
Bill serves as chair of the board of Philadelphia Works, an organization that connects employers to a skilled workforce and helps individuals develop the skills needed to thrive in the workplace, and chair of the board of the Emma Bowen Foundation, a leader in promoting young people of color for careers in media and technology.
Here are the excerpts from the interview.
The future of work, shrouded in uncertainty with a flurry of changes and a cloud of digital innovations, appears to be completely different. How do you see the current scenario?
Changes in the way individuals, teams, and markets operate have been occurring for a while - so I don’t think of it as “completely different”. Elements of these changes – robotics, optical recognition, machine learning – are really extensions of automation that have been incorporating into work for decades, providing more data than legacy automation and a different type of output, that is, fewer simple comparisons and more sophisticated analyses like sentiment, facial recognition, and autonomous machines. More digital systems mean that workers are spending less time passing information back and forth, less time with simple analysis, and less
time doing the administrative activity. What is actually different is the speed of the change, which has accelerated dramatically, especially because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, and this is critical, as more workers will be using the output of these digital products to then do new, very sophisticated, creative, and very human work, as opposed to just using the digital tools within the legacy structure of old jobs.
With COVID-19 triggering a monumental shift in how and where work gets done and it seems, the workplace is set to see a massive overhaul. What are the top two trends that will have significant impacts for businesses globally?
I think the “hybrid meeting” shift is here to stay, meaning we will much more frequently spend time in collaboration that will be combinations of synchronous and a-synchronous; both physically proximate and virtual. This is important not just for making collaboration more efficient relative to travel expense, but it will bring a higher level of inclusiveness. Fresh faces and voices are more likely to be included. The use of digital tools will continue to be a necessity. The second one is what COVID-19 could not change, but did highlight - there are millions of people whose workplace is out in the community – in customers’ homes or places of business, in natural resource areas, movie studios, on city streets, and in hospitals, schools, and retail. These people are NOT working on Zoom or Microsoft Teams and have not shifted to a virtual environment. The trend is a renewed respect and appreciation for “frontline” workers and the need to safeguard them and the people they engage with. Our company expanded the capacity of the internet in our markets to accommodate the increase in demand from people working and learning from home, and we have journalists out in harm’s way telling the story of the day. We understand that we need to be even more focused on them and caring for them in a separate way than those who are able to work safely from their homes.
Is remote work here to stay? Can it help in creating a more sustainable future of work?
Remote work is going to continue but not evenly. To the extent that someone is a true individual contributor or working transactions, especially if they are working across chat, phone, or computers, I think we will see an increase in the number of people working primarily remotely. My belief, though, is people working on collaborative, creative or development teams will want to find themselves back together in the workplace even if it is for sprints of a few days, weeks, or even longer workshops and events. The powerful effect of body language and social cues that steer great team design work is not yet able to be captured in two-dimen-
sional, two sense, virtual conferencing.
What should be the top imperatives for leaders in the new reality of COVID19 to address the enormous short and long-term goals?
One is to try to reinforce the need for facts and a reliance on expertise. With COVID-19, we have seen examples of genius: CO-V generic mapping leading to the rapid development of vaccines, even optimizing the mRNA platform, but also the power of gossip, rumor, and speculation to resist science and solid policy. Leaders need to appreciate that the tension we see in the media is present in the workforce. Taking care of how we inform and engage our teammates so we can maintain and grow the trust that workers have in leadership is critical to do anything big and complex. Secondly, a renewed focus on holistic wellness could not be any more timely or important. At Comcast, we focus on four elements of wellness simultaneously – physical, emotional, career, and financial. Stress and impairment from any of these always aggregate as stress or provide limitations on people’s best work. Overall wellness should be a top strategy for every HR team globally.
Has COVID-19 crisis transformed the role of HR? How can HR take the lead in helping their businesses accelerate continued performance?
In shorthand and maybe too simplistically, I think that we will see a gradual merging together of the functions of the COO and the CHRO. I believe that the best HR functions, those that are most relevant, will see themselves as enablers of managing the achievement of the strategic plan through people. During COVID-19, I have seen many HR leaders integrating into newly the economics of labor has had the most interesting competition with capital and non-human investment ever. We can see the acceleration of digital capability in the economy through more financial capital being invested in digital tools and automation, both to keep humans safe (employee and customer) and also to make the operation more effective and efficient. HR must think more like a general manager in this kind of environment to build and execute an
formed cross-functional teams. These teams had to build new protocols for how work was done that cared for the wellness of teammates and customers, but at the end of the day had to get goods and services “out the door”. Setting HR policy in a pandemic is tantamount to setting customer interaction policy. The future great HR leaders will have had the experience of thinking, designing, and executing in this bi-lateral way, differently than when I was coming up in the profession in the 80s and 90s. Further, appropriate talent plan that complements these investments to best achieve business goals.
Do you think the pandemic has offered an opportunity to get social inequalities, diversity, and inclusion right, now that the pandemic has elevated disparities and gaps?
I think that the pandemic gave us an opportunity to try and get social inequalities, diversity, and inclusion right. I want to be precise about those words. My sense is that in 2020, in
the United States, and then rolling through to Europe, and many other countries, the murder of George Floyd was such a catalyst for many reasons. The sad, shameful fact is that the murder of black men and women and violence against people of color is hardly new. What was different with Mr. Floyd was that the raw emotion, the anger, and the tools of mass voice through the digital tools all came together. From a workforce perspective, I think that society and business were optimized for confronting our anger, our fears, and our ignorance, all enhanced by virtual conferencing. We have the advantage of seeing one another, hearing each other’s voice, but with just enough objectivity and distance that old social pretexts could be overcome by honesty and real human connection. The experience of my company providing both connectivity and storytelling through all of this unrest and uncertainty will be a career-defining point of pride for me.
I think it cuts both ways. Initially, organizations adapted very quickly, and teams and workers were incredibly creative in meeting the needs of customers and clients – everything from healthcare workers – obviously, to restaurant teams pivoting to takeout and grocery, the scale-up of logistics businesses, even our own call center agents. We pivoted thousands of our employees to work from home so they could continue to serve millions of our customers across the US. Our first priority was ensuring that they had a safe environment to work in while performance management followed after. As we become more used to the environment, I believe that organizations are getting more clarity on real output and real contributions.
What's your take on how can organizations instill a continuous feedback culture and have clarity between assessment and development?
There are three simple things: first, senior leaders have to make themselves available in authentic and approachable ways. They need to answer questions from teams and be open with the context for their goals and objectives for the team. Second, real work has to go into the manufacturing of data to measure work. It is worth the effort to be sure that some portion of every project’s, or standing process’ resources be devoted to measure of progress. Data builds clarity. Third, understand that feedback has to be on-going in order for it to become authentic and free – like exercising any other capability, the more it occurs, the better we become at it. Feedback is not a skill that a leader learns; feedback is an element of a healthy relationship between two unique people. The two have to practice it together – the more it is dialogue and not monologue, the better the relationship.
