In a Volatile World, Confidence Resides in Performance Management

The COVID-19 pandemic is not only pushing employees to work remotely, but it is also relentlessly teaching the world how status quo processes dynamically change, requiring organizations to pivot quickly if they are to be successful. Forward-thinking organizations have prioritized performance management for years, and more are following suit, but during a crisis, performance management is essential to survival and success. Effective performance management is imperative in this dynamic, rapidly changing crisis for organizational survival, especially when they don’t have the security to fail with traditional course correction – layoffs and business closures now appear where learning curves once were. There are critical performance management pieces to managing employees during a pandemic: defining expectations, understanding and context of real-time performance, and effective communication. Performance management systems, like Performance Scoring, provide innovative solutions that are required to effectively manage performance in today’s volatile times, the ever more unpredictable tomorrow, and the long-term future after we emerge from this pandemic stronger.

The Top Priority: Defining Expectations

When everything is changing so rapidly – day by day, hour by hour, and even minute by minute — people need to understand what is expected of them from leaders and managers. “If a manager needs weekly progress reports, for instance, or prompt replies to emails, the manager must say so and hold the employee accountable.”¹ These are all examples of Factors that are easily measured with Performance Scoring. Winning individual moments matters now more than ever, and expectations should promote that. “As such, businesses are turning to technology to properly implement work-from-home arrangements and manage remote workers.”² Performance Scoring allows managers and leaders to quickly create, manage and modify their factors to set expectations for communication and performance with their team members in real-time, and to adjust them as those Factors change. Custom Factors are used to set expectations at every level, expectations from the company leadership, to team, down to individual employee expectations. Scoring Factors to a user or user group automatically notifies employees in real-time, recognizing them when expectations are met and coaching up the areas where improvements can be made. These are uncertain times for many in the workforce, by setting clear expectations and then measuring in real-time against those expectations, instills employee confidence while removing the overwhelming sense of anxiety that is detrimental to morale and productivity.

Course Correct Before the Result with Continuous Feedback

Accountability to expectations is vital during this crisis because the difference between high and low performance may be the determining factor of which businesses will weather the storm, and then thrive when the pandemic subsides. It’s all-hands-on-deck, and managers have a responsibility to maximize the productivity and values of their teams. “Companies must set goals and establish guidelines to help remote workers know what’s expected of them and keep them on the same page to meet deliverables.”² Performance Scoring’s ScoreBoard displays company-wide performance scores in every ScoreCard Category to direct leaders where engagement and coaching are objectively needed based on performance data. Employees have scores in every ScoreCard Category that is relevant to success in their role, where they can understand their strengths as well as where improvements can be made. With Performance Scoring employees manage up and self-correct to ensure their performance is meeting the expectations of their team. Course correction and improvement occur before the result, before failures manifest. “Leadership teams and managers also need to ensure they’re collecting feedback and sentiment about the distributed employees they manage.”3 Continuous feedback with Performance Scoring empowers managers to measure what they know matters to the success of their teams, all in real-time while automatically engaging relevant stakeholders and employees. This team data is aggregated, and reporting features provide critical insight into the Factors that drive high performance in each role.

Communication Instills Confidence, Relieves Anxiety

Communication of expectations, progress, and achievement to employees are more important than ever during times of crisis. “One of the biggest challenges in managing remote workers is ensuring effective and efficient communication.”² Continuous feedback with a performance management system, like Performance Scoring, is needed especially when in-person communication is not possible. Consistently communicating employee performance instills confidence and security in employees that are taking life day by day and moment by moment during these times. Performance Scoring features a built-in instant messenger to chat with managers, employees and peers for guidance or to offer coaching. A “survey shows that while 95% of business leaders recognize the value of collaboration tools, only 56% have rolled them out.”³ It can be difficult and stressful to manage so many different tools for so many different uses and their siloed data, which is why Performance Scoring is an all-in-one solution that unifies data, aggregates it, and then automatically communicates it to the relevant parties. Automated Communication in Performance Scoring is built by notifiable Factors, and all relevant stakeholders have real-time access to the same objective data. Push notifications create a baseline for accountability and communication, and managers can schedule email or SMS text notifications of individual and team performance data.
The coronavirus pandemic has changed the world and continues to change the ways in which businesses are operating in order to survive. Even after this crisis peaks and the world begins to recover, the ability to efficiently adapt is required to maximize success. Effective performance management is essential now, to define expectations, to provide context and continuous improvement, while instilling confidence through more effective communication. Performance Scoring is the ultimate performance management platform for organizations to come together, especially in these times, to not only survive but thrive.
References
¹Hickman, Ph.D., Adam, and Ilana Ron Levy. “How to Manage Remote Employees” Gallup, 14 Aug. 2019, https://www.gallup.com/workplace/263510/manage-remote-employees.aspx.
²Snyder, Victor. “How to Keep Employees Productive During the Coronavirus Outbreak” Business 2 Community, 16 Mar. 2020, https://www.business2community.com/crisis-management/how-to-keep-employees-productive-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak-02292676.
³Trodella, Christine. “4 ways to manage remote workers when you don’t know how long they’ll be working from home” Fast Company, 16 Mar. 2020, https://www.fastcompany.com/90477145/4-ways-to-manage-remote-workers-when-you-dont-know-how-long-theyll-be-working-from-home?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss.