How can an organisation make its Performance management systems more effective ?

Performance management begins,when an employee is assigned a job and end when that employee leaves Organisation. Though it is a ongoing communication process, undertaken in partnership, between an employee and his her immediate supervisor that involves establishing clear expectations and understanding about job and how effectively each employee can achieve his/her goal. Though it is combined effort of both employee and his immediate supervisor, but Supervisor/manager are playing major role.Many times we only focus on major factors, and forget many minute factors. If any organisation talking about a successful Performance management then it should focus on the given points.

1.Clarity in Job description:- Job only can be performed when we have a clear idea about our job and that is:

a) what is the job.

b) what are the procedure.

c) what are the skill set we required to perform the same.

2. Selection method:- Once job description is finalized management proceed for recruitment. At the time of selection we should follow only those methods which are related to our required skill set . Right people at right place is the first principle of a successful performance management system.

3.Idea about performance standards,outcomes, and measure:- Employee should know what to do , what are the best procedure to do the job effectively, what will be the quality of product.What are the standard to measure their performance and tips to how easily meet managements expectation.

4.Effective Training:- For best performance, the management should provide necessary information to employee,regarding the company, regarding their position and their job, which has to be performed by them. It is management duty to provide effective training for process and for product. Same time apprise them about customer needs and requirement .

5.Effective and prompt feedback:- Training will be only fruitful, if managers will give on going and consistent feedback to their employees,on their strength and weaker areas. feedback system will be more and more effective, if it will create such a work environment, where people feel free to ask the question about their job, their performance on job, and give suggestion about their job.

6.Monthly and quarterly review:- The review will help to create a healthy and positive atmosphere for discussion on

a) what are their achievement.

b) what will be their next goal.

c) what are they planned for their job.

d) how they are doing their ground work.

7.Design Effective compensation and recognition systems:- The entire process is for money, of money and to money for both organisation and employee. We can't ignore the measure motivating factor. Most of the organisation just over looked this important factor. Any reward or recognition send message to an individual about their value.

8.Promotion/career development:- The immediate supervisor/manager is a best person to help employees to develop their potential, through assigning challenging job, more responsibility and cross training. It will be more productive if manager/supervisor will create a environment, where people feel comfortable to do the experiments.

9.Try to know the reason why valued employees leave the organisation:- When a valued person leaves the company, it is important to know the reason for which he leaves the organisation. The exit interview feedback will help the company to take some measure action. It will not only helpful for employee retention,but also help to retain valuable employees.

Read more...

What a performance review is not ???

• A Performance Review  is not an opportunity for Blatant criticism of an employee without just cause.
• A Performance Review  is not the primary means for firing or terminating employees, though a manager may use it to provide employees with feedback pending and termination.
• Performance evaluation is not a tool that supervisors should use to rate an employee's personality or personal traits.
• A performances assessment is not a negative process.

                                                      By Robert Bacal

Read more...

What are the priorities of the HR managers in this current industrial slowdown?

The HR managers are walking on a tight rope amidst the current economic slowdown. I feel there are six main areas of concern for them.

1. Deciding on whom to retain and whom to retrench.
2. Attempting to meet the aspirations of high performers and keeping them  motivated.
3. Scouting and developing new leadership talent among the existing employees.
4. Managing the impact of mergers and acquisitions, which may alter the company structure.
5. Building new capabilities to meet new challenges in the changed economic scenario.
6. Reviewing and revisiting the reward system for the employees to match it with the financial status of the company and the overall business

Read more...

Variable compensation optimises company and people performance

Companies are increasingly adopting variable compensation systems at different levels to ensure that everybody feels responsible towards the success of the company.

The growing trend is that IT firms are adopting a western salary mode, i.e. companies are ensuring that the salaries of senior employees as well as those associated with sales, marketing and other delivery functions become productivity/performance linked. What is your view on this?

With the industry becoming increasingly competitive, it is important to reward performers, if only to retain them. The focus is slowly shifting from rewarding efforts to rewarding results. Variable pay promotes greater transparency throughout the organisation, holding both the management and staff responsible towards each other. This results in increased productivity and effectiveness.

Is this trend likely to intensify?

Variable compensation is here to stay. However, I feel that most companies will embrace this system in phases, with the variable component of the salary going up slowly. The fixed component of the salary will eventually reduce to a level between 50 and 70 percent of the total compensation package. The rest will be performance-linked.

The real challenge lies in measuring employee performance correctly by evolving an impartial system of evaluation that is in line with the organisation’s business and culture.

Does your company have a variable pay programme in place? If yes, is this for all employees/functions or only in specific areas?

Recently we introduced variable pay system in our company at all levels in the hierarchy. For the lower and middle management, the variable component has been fixed around 7-10% of the total salary. For senior management, the performance-linked component is as high as 25% of the total salary.

What has been the reaction of the employees to this programme?

The response has been encouraging. In fact, our first initiative towards introducing variable compensation was based on a suggestion from few of our staff members. My contention is that the IT industry is composed mainly of young individuals who are more receptive to performance-linked compensation than their older counterparts.

What benefits do you hope to achieve from a performance linked compensation policy?

The benefits are all encompassing and will affect the entire organisation. Besides improving productivity and efficiency of the staff, we expect an increase in the billing rate per employee. An important intangible benefit comes in the form of higher customer satisfaction. In the IT industry, customer interaction is not limited to just the sales team. The technical team has to work in conjunction with the customer. Customer-Relations is an important feature of any sustainable business model in the IT industry and a performance linked pay will stimulate an overall increase in efficiency and accountability that will have a direct impact on customer satisfaction.

Coming to recruitment trends, has industry slump made it easier to find good candidates at lower salaries?

That is not true. I don’t agree with the general viewpoint that skills are available in plenty. Talented people are still in demand, primarily because the skills they possess are rare. Also, in the current situation, most people are afraid to take the risk that comes with a new job. That’s because, in case of downsizing, the usual tradition followed is that of "last in - first out".

As far as salaries are concerned, besides the actual compensation most candidates look for a host of intangible factors before accepting a job offer – this includes reputation of the employer, working environment, growth and learning potential, etc. So, we still need to provide sufficient compensation to attract the right talent.

Read more...

Automatic defrag also a way to increase productivity.

Today office means computers on the desk. We all are handicapped without computers. Automation concept introduced us with computer and eventually it became our priority.Automation helps us to increase productivity with 100 percent quality within time frame while keeping a watch on the cost barrier.

Hope all we noticed in our day to day office life, that some of our colleague are wasting their valuable time on gossiping,forming informal group,to  giving thousand one excuse  and many more.It not only spoil the working environment, but also effects productivity.

The day computer was introduced in the work place, employees discovered a new way how to avoid the work. The most used  excuses are: computer is constantly slowing down, hanging, periodically crashing.

These ultimately leads storms of calls to the help desk .  For every minute problem they tends to  depend on helpdesk people. The  interesting part is, even the  managers raise their hands. The result leading to an obvious under-productivity.

The primary cause of these occurrences is file fragmentation, and today it seems to be more prevalent than ever. This is despite the implementation in many sites of scheduled defrag. But in fact, because computing environments have changed while defrag solutions have not, scheduled defrag is actually the cause of the problem. A higher-than-ever number of systems must now remain up and running 24X7, and "time windows" in which defrag can be run while users are off the system have all but disappeared. The solution has become to schedule defrag whenever possible and unfortunately those opportunities are rare.

A unique solution to this problem which I came across, as many organizations have discovered, is Diskeeper(R) software with InvisiTasking(R) technology. InvisiTasking allows Diskeeper to defragment whenever otherwise-idle resources are available -- meaning that drives are constantly kept defragmented and running at maximum performance. Scheduling is never required and there are never negative performance hits from defrag. Factors such as crashes, slowdowns, and slow boot and load times become a thing of the past

According to me, rather  than wasting valuable time for helpdesk, the employee can manage on their own. Only thing require, that is notion to develop himself/herself.

Read more...