HR Performance Review, at its core, is to review the
performance for the past review period and more importantly, set the
goals/expectation for the forthcoming review period. Often the essential and
critical second part of the performance review is not performed because people
get stuck with the first part and disagree on the results and performance
grading. The performance review time is often painful for both employees and
managers alike. This leads to willful postponing of the review by both parties
and done at the last minute hastily is often poorly documented.
Sounds familiar, this is a common scenario on both
corporates and start-up world. There are a lot of tools available for managing
the HR Performance Review. Integrating these tools with the core customer
relationship/work/task/Account management tools/software and other tools used
to carry out the needed tasks to achieve the goals will help to navigate the
Performance Reviews smoothly.
Why there are disagreements in Performance Review
- No or
not clear goals/objectives set in the first place
- No
intermediate performance reviews – The manager and the employee discuss
the objectives and results at the end of the review period and there was
no chance to alleviate any differences early
- Lack
of Candid feedback – We as humans generally lack the skill of objective
feedback giving on the goals that have not been met. We often think that
such feedback is negative and demotivates the other person. We would like
to sugar coat the feedback with other stuff. The problem is we are not
helping the other person, actually, we are causing damage to their
careers. The other person has spent considerable effort on this task and
they deserve to know the feedback. The earlier we provide
the feedback, it will be good for them to learn and adapt.
- Another
main reason is the lack of data. Most of the time the results for the
review period is subjective and not quantitative. This might be because
- The
data is not readily available
- No
time to collect/prepare the data even when data is available
- No
common perspective on the results (The manager says it’s half empty and
the employee says it’s half full)
- Remuneration
changes always at the back of the mind.
What we can do
- Set
SMART goals
- S –
Specific, Stretch
- M –
Measurable, Meaningful, Motivational:
- A –
Achievable, Attainable, Accepted, Agreed upon
- R –
Realistic, Relevant, Reasonable, Rewarding, Results-oriented
- T –
Time-Based
Most of the problems can be solved by setting SMART goals.
Spend a reasonable amount of time in setting the goal and most importantly, get
the agreement from the employees. The critical part of SMART is time bound. The
lesser or more granular will be more helpful. Having multiple goal setting
might be a problem, and most companies now agree that three months is a perfect
period for goal setting.
- Always
have a parent goal – Every goal should be linked to organizational goals.
This is to make sure all the goals are meaningful and in relation to an
organization directive.
- Midterm
reviews – Have at least one or more mid-term reviews.
- When
setting up the goal, both the manager and the employee might have agreed
on the goals but there might be some criteria/scenario overlooked and
needs tweaking.
- There
might be a change in the business direction and hence there might be a
change in the objective.
- Make
sure the employee is making progress in the right direction
- To
see if the employee need any help
- The
final review and rating is not a surprise
- Data
Centric – The performance review should evolve itself.
- Build
your key business management, work/task management tools, and other
similar tools with also Performance Review in mind. We should be able to
extract data/dashboards/reports from them which should be indicative of the
employee performance. Such data helps in
- Avoid
misinterpretation
- A
common scale to measure all employees
- The
employee understands they stand and no arguments
- Documenting
results becomes easy and automated
- Separate
the Performance Review into 2 parts
- There
will be a remuneration part associated with the review. There will be
arguments because the performance review/rating is associated with that.
We can separate the review into 2 parts
- The
first one on the feedback for the past review part and most importantly
the goals/objectives for the forthcoming period
- The
second one is on remuneration and can be done separately at a different
time.
How Data Integration can help
We are from DBSync, so data integration to improve business
is core to our mission. We are market leaders in integrating the cloud and
on-prem applications. Integrating your business and work management
applications with the performance review process/tools will help you in a long
way in
- Setting
clear objectives which the employees could relate to and will breathe in,
day in and day out. The goals/objectives should be relevant to the job and
responsibility of the employee. The integration helps in setting the goals
and even refer or relate to the key business objectives. The goals or in
other words in the same terminology which your employees understand.
- Define
key metrics as evaluation criteria. Integrating the performance indicators
with key business metrics helps everyone understand the progress they are
making and how it contributes to the overall business.
- Keeps
the team focused – Automatically calculating the Key Performance
Indicators/Performance metrics, comparing them with the goals and
notifying the team appropriately will keep the team well aware of what has
been achieved and how much more has to be done to reach goals. This
awareness keeps the team focused on achieving the goals
- For
example, DBSync can integrate your HRIS system and your ticketing system
(JIRA for example). If you have on time resolution or SLA Adherence
defined as a Key Performance Indicator, DBSync can help fetch the current
performance level against the goals and it will be very helpful for the
team to know how they are doing against their business goals and also for
their supervisor to know any deviations very early and mentor/manage the
team back to the right ways.
- No
result documentation – Since the key metrics are integrated, there is very
less effort in documenting the results.
- Continuous
Evaluation – The results are open and viewable to everyone involved. It is
available all the time and helps in making the necessary adjustments.
- All
are on the same page – No explanations or discussions needed to understand
the results. The results are interpreted in the same way by everyone
We would like to help
Set SMART goals and enable your HR performance review to get
the business results from your business applications. This will help in the
smooth and purposeful performance review process and achieve its goal of
aligning everyone to the organization objectives. We at DBSync help organizations integrate the
cloud and on-prem applications. We can certainly help in integrating your
business applications with your performance review process/tools.
