COVID-19 has forced businesses of all sizes to shift to a predominantly virtual workforce. This has pushed organizations to rethink every aspect of the employee lifecycle. With declining day-to-day touchpoints between managers and their teams, there is an increasing need for organizations to come up with new performance management strategies for the virtual world, including and especially performance management systems.
What Is Performance Management?
Performance management is a holistic approach geared towards leveraging effective workforce management to meet an organization’s objectives. This process involves different facets of communication with employees, for example, employee recognition, collecting feedback, and enforcing corrective actions. Managers use different tools such as metrics, records, and appraisals to measure employee performance.
From an employee standpoint, having open communication channels with top management about various challenges at work is very important. Whether the employees need assistance with their benefits or have questions about other aspects of their work, effective employee management resources are an invaluable part of workforce management.
In-person performance management has always been complicated. Now that employees are working remotely for the foreseeable future, it will only bring about more challenges. This, however, does not mean it will be impossible. But how can organizations introduce effective performance management systems for their hybrid and remote teams? Here are strategies organizations can use to manage performance in the new virtual workforce effectively.
Communicate Business Priorities and Set Personal Goals
No matter where they work, employees need to have clear expectations. In the same way your business priorities have been affected, the pandemic has affected your workforce, both at work and at home. Now more than ever, it is important to keep updating your team regularly about shifting business priorities.
Setting performance expectations is a key element of an organization’s performance management approach that helps in generating the greatest value for the business. Employees should clearly understand what is expected of them to manage their productivity against the set goals. As an employer, now is a good time to take a more holistic look at your goal-setting needs. You should ensure your employee goals are directed towards achieving the core business objectives, especially if they just changed.
Avoid Micromanaging
You should recognize that you cannot oversee every aspect of a remote employee’s work – and you should not feel the urge to. Once your team understands their job expectations and has the required resources to do their work, trust them to deliver. While at it, make sure you have a virtual open door for your team when they need support.
To achieve success with remote working, there has to be a very high level of trust between managers and employees. The last thing experienced employees need is to be micromanaged or feel they are not trusted to do their work. Instead, managers need to learn how to be more trusting than observant.
Address Performance Concerns Immediately
It’s rarely a good idea to let performance issues linger – they seldom resolve themselves. It is important to keep in mind that most employees may not be able to perform at their normal levels, given how adversely COVID-19 has affected everyone. Some have been sick, bereaved, or may be struggling with childcare.
At least in the short term, managers should have flexibility on expectations. That said, every performance issue should be addressed promptly. Do not wait for a scheduled appraisal or team meeting to raise performance concerns. Instead, schedule a video call specifically to address these concerns.
Acknowledge Great Performance
In a remote workforce, it is not just poor performance that may be hard to observe, but outstanding work too. Keeping employees motivated is important for promoting engagement. Motivation involves recognizing employees for their good work and praising them for their achievements. Create time to celebrate your team’s successes and offer recognition. Sometimes, even a simple thank you can go a long way.
Incorporate 360 Feedback
Feedback, especially in these turbulent times, is a powerful tool. It helps employees and managers gain in-depth insight into their performance and measure the effectiveness of the virtual working style. Providing effective feedback is one of the best ways of driving high performance.
Unfortunately, not all feedback is effective. Good feedback should be honest, strength-oriented, and specific. It should come from a credible source who has first-hand knowledge of the recipient’s work and can offer constructive criticism to help them improve on their weak spots. As a manager, you should ask more questions to get a clearer understanding of an employee’s point of view and make sure they understand what you expect of them.
Keep A Record of Your Observations
It is important to remain objective when carrying out performance evaluations for various employees. The most efficient way to do so is by recording all important observations. This can be done daily, weekly, or bi-weekly.
Modern SaaS platforms have pre-installed features that allow managers to keep a daily log of positive and negative employee activities. These are very useful features, especially during employee appraisals. Organizations can use the recorded observations to gauge the viability of continuing remote working after the pandemic.
Use Technology to Track Productivity and Efficiency
Managers can take advantage of remote working software to identify trends and gain deep insights into things like:
- Email conversations
- Follow-up trends
- Email tracking
- Sales funnel performance, etc.
Track Important KPIs
To hold your team accountable for their work, you should have metrics that are easy to measure. Distance only increases the need for metrics to be as specific as possible. The clearer you can set your objectives and communicate your expectations, the easier it will be for you and your employee during the performance evaluation.
Customer Management Systems can be used to track important KPIs in a sales team, such as:
- Number of calls made in a day
- Number of hours spent talking to clients
- The total number of sales closed
These, and many other KPIs, are important metrics to look at, especially in a remote work setting.
The Role of HR in Managing Performance
HR professionals play a critical role in remote performance management, just as they do in traditional performance management. They should work hand-in-hand with managers to prepare policies and take part in initial communication on setting expectations.
How to Manage Poor Work Performance Remotely
While the primary focus is to motivate employees and be as understanding as they can, managers cannot afford to ignore underperforming employees. That said, here are top strategies for managing poor performance remotely:
- Revisit the goals and expectations of the job to make sure they are clear, and the employee understands what is expected of them.
- If the poor performance is skills-related, make sure the employee gets the right support. This can be through training, mentoring, and coaching, to mention a few.
- Encourage two-way communication. Give the employee time to share their thoughts.
- Do not make the employee feel attacked, as they can understandably become defensive.
- Enable the employee to share input on how they can improve their performance. This allows them to take ownership of their personal development.
How to Motivate Remote Working Employees
One of the greatest challenges facing managers is how to keep their virtual workforce motivated and focused. An important thing to remember is that you can only motivate a team that feels connected and has a shared purpose. Therefore, having and maintaining open channels of communication is very important.
Here are some important tips to strengthen communication and motivate remote teams:
- Online lunches. In the traditional work environment, people often catch up and unwind during lunchtime. So why not organize online lunches for your staff? This is a great way for team members to bond.
- Boost creativity. Creative pursuits help to challenge the mind and create a sense of purpose. For example, you can challenge different teams to develop a new slogan.
- Schedule social sessions. Not every Zoom meeting has to be all about work. Sometimes it’s nice to set up interactive sessions where team members get to talk about how they are coping with life in general. This will make them feel seen and cared for, thus boosting their confidence and morale.
The Lowdown
Performance management is evolving to keep up with technological advances and challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important to keep in mind that transitioning to a remote workforce and adapting to new performance management techniques does not happen overnight. It is a process that may take a while to be embedded in the organization’s culture.
Performance management systems are important to make sure employees have all the resources and support they need to perform excellently in their job and adjust to working in a remote or hybrid work environment. For more information about performance management systems of remote workers, contact us today for a free demo.