academy@peopleshr.com
Level 1, 50 Yeo Street, Neutral Bay,
NSW 2089, Australia
The google map to HR Tech Investments
With all the buzz on HR Tech, it is tempting to get on the bandwagon and invest in a fancy HR solution. But a fancy HR solution does not really mean it is an efficient one. Any business, big or small needs software that gives them the ROI (Return on Investment) that they deserve. No two HR departments are the same, so the expectations on HR automation are not going to be as well.
With all the stress that HR has, the last thing you want is to be stuck with an HR Solution that does not serve the purpose. So, here is a guide to help you make the right choice out of the array of HR tech out there.
- Functionality: The solution should have the necessary features and tools to support your HR processes and what is important for you. Whether it is recruiting onboarding, performance management, or even employee self-service.
- Scalability: The goal is to grow your business, and your HR solution needs to grow along too. There needs to be the capability to add more users and manage more data as your company expands locally, regionally, and globally.
- Integration: With multiple systems in place, your HR solution needs to have the ability to integrate with the rest of the systems in place for a smooth sailing operation.
- Data security: Data is the bread and butter of any organization, and the security of such data is crucial. The solution should have robust security features to protect sensitive employee data and compliant to international standards.
- User-friendliness: The purpose of investing in automation is to make your life easy. The last thing anyone wants is to get lost in technology. The solution should be easy to use for both HR staff and employees to minimize adoption and training costs, and not a burden to use.
- Support and maintenance: Requirements are bound to change with time. Make sure that you go ahead with a vendor that would provide ongoing support and maintenance for the solution to ensure it continues to meet your needs over time.
- Cost: Lets face it, you call it an investment cause its not exactly cheap. But that does not mean you don’t have good HR solutions that can fit your budget. Do your research on costings, features and payment options to get the best value for your money.
- Compliance: With all the international solution providers out there, ensure the solution is compliant with statutory laws and requirements, such as those related to equal opportunity and privacy.
- Reporting and analytics: Data-driven-decision-making needs to be supported for HR managers with the ability to generate reports and analyze data to gain insights into trends and identify areas for improvement.
- Employee engagement: This is the topic for 2023. The solution should have tools to support employee engagement and communication, such as employee portals and intranet functionality and mobile app capabilities.
- Training and development: The current generation of employees appreciates training & development to stay competitive with the global workforce. The HR solution should support employee training and development process such as tracking the requirement, the trainings received and the evaluation.
- Employee self-service: With remote and hybrid working taking centre stage, it is best to focus the user experience of the self-service portal that allows employees to access and update their personal information, request time off, and view their pay stubs.
- Mobile accessibility: The solution should be mobile-friendly to allow employees and managers to access it from anywhere and at any time, with features like check-in/out with geo-tagging, absence management, viewing of payslips etc.
- Customizability: The cookie-cutter solution does not fit all. Check if the solution can be customizable to meet the unique needs of your team and corporate culture.
- Vendor’s Reputation: A good reputation is important in any scenario. Do your research, check vendor ratings & badges on review sites, comments & testimonials received, awards and certification along with global partnerships. The vendor should have a good reputation for providing good customer service and support.
There you go, a few additional areas to keep an eye on when investing in the right HR technology, remember its not just the features you need to consider, it’s the big picture.
Side note: PeoplesHR ticks all the boxes to make your decision easier.
PeoplesHR Turbo 2.0, ‘Do It Yourself’ HR Solution is now available for Asia
PeoplesHR Turbo is thrilled to announce the launch of its new website www.peopleshrturbo.com, subscription console, and Turbo Wizard – the complete Do It Yourself implementation tool with a mission to make the customer journey faster, easier to navigate, and more user-friendly. As a leading HR and Payroll Software in Asia, it’s important for us to make information regarding our solution and its features easily accessible to our current and prospective clients. You will find useful information about our HR Solution on our website with how we have helped over a thousand clients across a myriad of industries to create value.
We understand that making the switch to HR Software for the first time is a big decision for HR teams and that finding the best solution for one’s SME can be difficult. Different SMEs could be at different stages of development and many factors contribute to this decision, such as the features required, budget, and the fact that a small business would want both a self-service system and solid support.
PeoplesHR Turbo is a fully featured and robust HR solution with express implementation support that can be set up in less than a week with pricing plans to suit SMEs at every stage, size, and scope.
It’s a brand new year and we are so ready to take new adventures with Turbo 2.0. “As a company the SME segment interests us. Our main bread and butter is our enterprise segment but we can’t ignore the SME segment. This is just one of the many milestones and we have to keep doing more”, said Nilendra Weerasinghe, the Chief Strategy Office at PeoplesHR.
Explore our site here and keep watching our space for more information on how we can help accelerate and transform the HR automation journey for growing HR teams.
How can HR manage employee experience in 2023
As mentioned by a recent Gartner study (2022), HR leaders of the world find delivering excellent employee experience to be a priority for this new year.
But, what constitutes a favourable employee experience?
It is often erroneously perceived that if HR managers were to offer more competitive financial packages, employee satisfaction and loyalty can be achieved. However, the Harvard Business Review was quick to dismiss this common misconception by highlighting that despite Fortune 500 companies investing heavily in attractive remuneration, employee satisfaction remains saturated since 2016. When it comes to employee experience, income is only part of the equation. What researchers propose instead is a holistic approach, where employers build a portfolio of care for their staff covering both financial AND emotional aspects. With this proposition in mind, this blog aims to bring to the reader’s attention three ways to foster an effective employee experience.
Autonomy is everything
During this post-pandemic era, we all have witnessed employers regaining control of whether employees should be working from home or the office. This has unsurprisingly been met with strong resistance and we see two views emerging. On one hand, there is the view of corporate leaders determining when and where employees work as cruel and insensitive. On the other hand, there are those who perceive that granting employee flexibility is inconsiderate of the needs of the corporation.
So which side should HR be on? Here are the facts.
According to a study done by the Harvard Business Review, a high level of employee autonomy had a significant impact on levels of belonging, motivation, productivity, trust in the team, trust in leaders, work-life balance, and mental well-being, all factors that are key in determining employee experience. Furthermore, studies also claim that 64% of Gen Z and 63% of Millennials view “their office” to be anywhere their laptop can get a strong internet connection! So what we recommend to HR managers is to choose autonomy. Choose to trust that your employees will do the job they were hired to do no matter where the office is.
Pro-tip: Monitoring staff check-in and check-out times even when working remotely can be done easily with a feature-rich HR software package. Check out solutions now.
Addressing the personal lives of personnel
Another variable that has become increasingly important to create a favourable employee experience is managers taking into account employees’ personal lives. There is a myriad of academic articles proving that human beings want, nay need, to be heard and validated. This applies to the personal lives of your employees as well. Statistical evidence also supports this point as the HBR claims that 60% of workers feel that companies should care for their life beyond work. But this does not mean HR can stick to the clichéd “how are you?” because reality is such that this would not yield meaningful responses unless supported by genuine follow-up questions. In fact, Forbes recommends that assessing employees’ personal lives means deeper open-ended questions that truly enlighten companies about what their people go through. Moreover, not only do employees expect managers to be aware of life outside work, but they also hope that managers will, through various means, accommodate the personal lives of their teams when possible.
911, put out the fire now!
Alarming results from a 2022 study by McKinsey indicated that 1 in every 4 employees display symptoms of burnout. While employee well-being conversations have been around, there is a question of how seriously this matter is being addressed especially in Asian countries. Most employers are guilty of bombarding staff with a plethora of meeting requests and making working long hours a practice rather than an exception. Such factors plus the ongoing geopolitical instability, economic downturns and social unrest all blend to form the perfect storm. But wait, there is more. The Harvard Business Review claims that this 2023 employers should venture beyond simply implementing wellness policies and go one step ahead to ensure that employees actually utilize these implementations. For instance, a middle-eastern financial intuition not only assesses their staff’s mental state through surveys but then ensures that employees have an action plan that makes use of their company’s wellness offerings.
Overall, this author would like to conclude that the sun has set on the days that employees showed up to work to simply collect their pay cheques and a few perks. That transaction relationship has ended and what has risen is a need for a deeper, more complex meaningful bond between employer and employee. So to win the battle of talent, 2023 should be the year corporations reform employee experience.
4 People Lessons from the Game of the Year- FIFA World Cup ‘22
Argentina lift the 2022 FIFA World Cup trophy. (Photo by Pablo Morano/BSR Agency/Getty Images). Credit: BSR Agency/Getty Images
The FIFA World Cup Final featured the best of football, some of the greatest moments in history, and unquestionably portrayed human relationships at their best. In a game that is full of AI-driven analytics and tech elements in 2022, the best of it is still human brilliance and people talent. Some of the moments that took place in the finals can be applied as lessons at the workplace to foster a better culture, nurture better teams, and build solid leaders.
PeoplesHR identifies a few moments that can be converted into people lessons for the workplace.
Team responsibility triumphs glory of a super star
Everyone we knew was rooting for Messi this time, hoping and wishing that he could recreate Maradona’s magical final 36 years later. The support was astounding, but France competed strongly, making it a tie where the champions were decided by the penalty kick. At a point like this, the A game of the team is what takes you to the winning goal. Argentina made no mistakes in scoring the goals, and the sheer brilliance of the entire team made them champions.
Recognizing outstanding upcoming talent despite failures
This world cup was Messi’s glorious sunset, and it was definitely Mbappe’s glorious sunrise. Having scored a hat trick against the world champions, getting the team back to compete takes a lot of resilience, exceptional talent, and training. Not letting the victory overshadow the sheer brilliance he brought into the game is important, as is appreciating and guiding new talent that can create magic.
Empathetic leadership, and sportsmanship go a long way.
Leadership comes in different forms, and how leaders react during vulnerable moments and crises brings out their true leadership styles. The French president demonstrated humility in consoling the young superstar Mbappe following the final match. Messi walks to his opponent and embraces him, showing true sportsmanship and a leadership quality that many youngsters would want to have and should have.
Beauty of diversity to stand together in losses and to celebrate victory
The FIFA World Cup also serves as a celebration of diversity. Each team is unique, and each team includes members from various backgrounds. France, for example, has players of white, black, Christian, Muslim, and Arab origins, with the majority of them migrants or descendants of migrants. Despite their differences, they played as a cohesive one and gave one of the most memorable performances. Every organization will have a diverse set of employees – everyone will have different experiences, needs, opinions, and skills. Giving people a sense of belonging is critical for corporate growth and success.
These FIFA learnings and lessons can help to broaden one’s professional horizons in a more human way. Melding more aspects of humanity onto the leadership front is the way to go for the new year. What’s more, agility and the ability to learn from every scenario can turn any person into a lifelong learner.
The 5 step HR holiday guide
It is that time of the year that every employee looks forward to, whereas every employer dreads! The word ‘dread’ can sound overdramatic, but let us face it, the holiday season is undoubtedly the busiest season for any HR department. With multiple time-off requests coming in, HR needs to play the diplomatic role of balancing the workforce at work while making sure your people are happy and not naughty.
Not all organizations have the luxury of closing for the holidays and granting a vacation for their employees to celebrate. For some, the holidays can be the peak of their operational year, this includes retail, hospitality, certain manufacturing organizations, and service sectors. But for most, this is a period of slow work and wrapping up for the year.
We at PeoplesHR have no doubt that your HR department is as busy as Santa’s workshop, and we are here to be your trusted elves ready to get your work done smoothly and swiftly.
Step 1: Share your company holiday policy ahead of time.
Every company has a certain policy regarding holidays. Make sure that you refresh your employees with this policy to avoid any disappointment and confusion. This helps to eliminate last-minute time-off requests and awkward rejections.
Pro-Tip: Use your HR Solution to notify your employees of your company policy and with PeoplesHR, you can make it a mandatory document to read, where your employees get a notification that must be accepted, thereby avoiding the chance of missing it out due to the holiday rush.
Step 2: Have an open communication system in play.
Encourage your employees to discuss with their teams about their vacation plans. This provides a fair chance for all employees to apply for leave without too many people applying for leave on the same set of days. It is advisable to give teams the autonomy to decide the priority when it comes to taking time off, thereby creating a space without discrimination and biases.
Pro-Tip: With an HR Solution, you can notify your employees on their leave balances for the year and what is available to be carried forward. Added to this, PeoplesHR helps you identify who has already applied for leave on the same days that you wish to take, making it more straightforward for your employees.
Step 3: Have your payroll sorted.
The holiday season is an expensive season for all and there is no doubt that all your employees are looking forward to their payday and their year-end bonuses if applicable. The last thing any HR department wants are complaints about late salary remittances and mistakes payroll mistakes.
Pro-Tip: Make sure that your HR Solution is up to date with all employee payments outside of payroll. This would include taxable fringe benefits, shareholder benefits, bonuses, added commissions, compensations etc.
Step 4: Bring on the festive cheer.
With everyone in the holiday mood, who wants to come to a dull work environment? As HR, the options and activities that you could do within the organization are endless. Whether big or small, take the opportunity to bring your employees together and make them feel merry. From festive activities to small appreciations, it is the best time to motivate your employees who must come to work despite the holiday season, or it also can be a good way to wrap up the year with a thank you!
Pro-Tip: Use your HR Solution to notify employees of upcoming events and send in your appreciations and messages to employees wishing them for the season and a job well done.
Step 5: Consider alternative work options
With the pandemic working from home, 4-day work weeks, and hybrid working options are not uncommon words anymore, we have seen it work for most organizations, summing up to a flexible work environment. If it is viable to encourage such a working environment, why not do so? This gives an opportunity for employees to get their work done while providing the flexibility to enjoy the holiday season with their loved ones. Making it a win-win situation for both the employer and employee.
Pro-Tip: With the help of your HR Solution, notify your employees of the new working patterns and update your payroll for the season. The PeoplesHR Mobile App helps to capture employee attendance from anywhere, at any time at your convenience.
Bring out the decorations and tune in some festive music, it’s time to kick-start the holiday season with a cheer. After all, no one likes working with the grinch who waits to ruin your holiday plans.
Moonlighting and why HR Gurus and Managers refuse to greenlight it
Balancing multiple jobs isn’t something entirely new. However, it has become more rampant after the pandemic when all of us were working from home. The popularity of remote working and remote work technology is now allowing people to work from anywhere and at any time making it easier for employees to get a second job without their primary employer knowing—otherwise known as moonlighting.
When I first heard the word moonlighting, I was confused and intrigued at the same time that I had to google for its meaning.
What is Moonlighting?
Moonlighting is when an employee works an additional part-time or full-time job on top of their regular full-time job. It is having a second job AKA a side hustle that one does secretly, without telling one’s main employer, usually done in late hours thus called moonlighting. Now some of you might be realizing that you have been moonlighting for years but never knew that you were doing such cool-sounding work.
Moonlighting is actually characterized by the phases of the moon indicating how much secondary work an employee has.
- Quarter moonlighting – Quarter moonlighting occurs when an employee takes on a part-time job outside their regular job, like tutoring students on weekends.
- Full moonlighting – Full moonlighting refers to when an employee works two full-time jobs at the same time. This type of moonlighting is likely to affect businesses the most since it takes the employee away from their primary job duties.
Why employees Moonlight
Imagine this. You have a 9-5 job that you might like, love, hate or have very mixed emotions about. Your work has become monotonous and you feel like a robot doing the same tasks every day. Or you have grown very accustomed to what you are doing now that you want to challenge yourself by doing something completely outside of your comfort zone. In occasions like this having a ‘side gig’ becomes something you would look forward to working on. It will help you enjoy working your 9-5 as well. You would notice that your learnings from both jobs are interlinked and the extra money is a bonus too! On a more practical note, finances are one of the top reasons that employees may turn to another job.
Here are a few reasons as to why a second job can be tempting.
- Ability to earn an additional income.
- Broadening career opportunities by gaining skills and experience in a new field.
- Pursuing a passion project.
- Using spare time or fighting boredom or,
- Feeling a sense of dissatisfaction with the current role and responsibilities.
The effect of Moonlighting
The whole debate around the topic of moonlighting today has divided HR gurus and bosses and their opinions across the world. While some call it “two timing” or “cheating plain and simple”, there are also companies greenlighting moonlighting.
Let’s face it, although companies have woken up about the practice of moonlighting only recently, it has been there for donkey years and been an open secret in the tech industry.
Then why are companies very much against it now? Let’s go through the pros and cons of moonlighting first.
The Pros of Moonlighting
- Getting your priorities right.
Now that they have to utilize their time even more efficiently, employees will prioritize the important tasks over the bare minimum and will focus on the overall outcome of the tasks. - Employees are motivated.
Employees will be excited to do more. Money from two employers excites an employee to do more. - Boosts growth and learning.
Employees have the chance to grow and to learn more which results in an advantage for the primary job as well. Employees might eventually start feeling content with the job which results in the favor of the organization only
The Cons of Moonlighting
Overworking and moonlighting can be extremely damaging to your business. Employees who work multiple jobs are more likely to experience burnout, diminished motivation, and disengagement.
- Negative performance and productivity.
An employee who is juggling two jobs at once is more prone to get sidetracked and neglect their responsibilities. Two jobs might cause extra stress, which can result in exhaustion or absenteeism. - Conflict of interest.
An employee may end up disclosing private information to their other employer if their second employment is in the same industry. Even if they conceal crucial information, they are still assisting your rival in gaining more clients than you. - Low team morale.
If they observe someone on the team not contributing, other team members could become resentful. When other workers begin to notice how disinterested a colleague is, it might be more difficult to keep them motivated. They might even decide to take on a second job. - Misuse of company resources.
The majority of organizations are against this. It is typically forbidden to use the equipment or software for personal or other tasks unrelated to work.
It may also result in the leakage of sensitive company data.
What is HR doing to manage Moonlighting
In their efforts to manage moonlighting, some companies have a moonlighting policy and a few have a moonlighting ban.
What is Moonlighting Policy?
Moonlighting policy allows employees to keep the second jobs but with some conditions – that depend on the organization.
For example, Microsoft’s moonlighting policy says, “anything after hours, made using 100% of your own resources, is yours” but when it comes to Google, their policy says, “We own everything you produce unless you used no company resources”.
The former one gives free will and the latter gives a warning.
What is Moonlighting Ban?
Moonlighting ban means that the organization does not allow its employees to have side jobs and if the organization finds out about an employee moonlighting then, it can take serious legal action against that employee. That being said, there is no legal action if it’s not written into the contract.
Managing overworked employees
Many employees do not want additional employment. It is often a means to an end. HR managers can play an active role in identifying overworked employees, increasing job satisfaction, and setting boundaries and expectations to prevent employees from leaving jobs and opting for side hustles. They can do so by:
- Engaging employees and helping them achievetheir big picture goals.
- Initiatives such as providing employeedevelopment plans to promote professional growth.
- Taking steps to reduce financial stress andpromote mental health at work.
Going by the contract, any employee who is moonlighting, especially with a competitor, is clearly in breach of contract, both legally and morally. In their view, it is right for companies to call for these employees to be fired to protect their interests. However, on the other hand, the employees, especially the younger generation, most of whom were onboarded in the pandemic period, do not seem to have the same opinion and they value their freedom and flexibility to pursue opportunities to grow their bank balances.
To be clear, in the future, perhaps the best way to remedy this situation is to create two separate worker-employee contracts, one for full-time employment and one for flexibility. Ultimately, the issue is not whether employees are allowed to deal with the other side, but rather that having such an option in the contract will allow them to pursue such opportunities. But they must be prepared for a compromise based on the principle of reciprocity if they are not in the game or engaged full-time with their employer.
On the other hand, who likes to lose a good employee, full-time or part-time? It is just a matter of meeting contractual obligations, full disclosure and transparency.
Mirror Mirror on the wall, can HR help fight imposter syndrome for them all?
Imposter Syndrome
This could be the first time you’ve come across this term or maybe to you it’s one of those fancy buzzwords that keep emerging every now and then. But I’m sure you have felt the imposter syndrome at some point in your life.
Everybody has that one special moment in their lives when they feel like they’ve made it. You feel like you are the king of the world. Your first senior position. Your first deal. Your first award. An everlasting sense of accomplishment.
Then, unexpectedly, you are hit by a strange feeling. You start questioning yourself.
What if it was just good luck? What if I make just one mistake and I lose everything that I have right now? Do I deserve this? How many people have done this already to make it an accomplishment? You start questioning yourself and that’s where self-doubt kicks in.
It’s a universal feeling and I bet you might have felt this way at some point in life. Imposter syndrome is a bizarre feeling that plagues the minds of people, especially high-achievers who push themselves to be better than what they are. It’s where you feel like a fraud or like your successes don’t belong to you, and it can cause a lot of anxiety. A lot of employees tend to feel pressure from this as they work their way in a certain company. But it doesn’t have to be this way and that’s where the HR heroes come in.
Here’s how HR can help employees manage imposter syndrome:
Many articles and blogs discuss how to help people overcome imposter syndrome, but I believe it is kind of impossible to overcome this feeling completely. It will always linger around you but what is important is how you manage the feeling of self-doubt and move forward.
Back to how HR can help:
1.Managers should receive relevant training.
Managers play an important role in encouraging and supporting employees, but few are well prepared to deal with impostor syndrome among their team members, especially when they start to open up. When confronted with an employee’s self-doubt, most managers will try to reassure them by saying things like, “I know you can do it,” as Tara Mohr describes in the Harvard Business Review. I wouldn’t have assigned you this task if I didn’t believe you were capable.”
Employees with impostor syndrome may be more stressed if they believe their deception is being overlooked by their managers. Educate your organization’s managers on the various symptoms of impostor syndrome and train them on how to communicate to their employees that fears and self-doubt are normal parts of the job. An employee’s goal should not be to achieve supreme self-confidence, but rather to improve self-doubt management.
2.Create open relationships from the start.
You should go beyond interviews as a representative of the HR department. Consider incorporating mentoring into your onboarding process to help employees form relationships from the start. Let them know that HR is always available to talk about anything, including impostor syndrome.
3.Make your workplace a friendly place to be.
A workplace environment that severely penalizes failure is likely to encourage impostor syndrome among its employees. Think about whether your company sees failure as a tragic ending or a chance to learn. It’s crucial to convey to your staff that mistakes do occur, but they don’t have to be humiliating. When appropriate, encourage your executives to discuss their failure and self-doubt experiences. Set the example early on that making mistakes is acceptable and that managing self-doubt rather than always feeling confident is more important.
HR can involve everyone in the company in managing impostor syndrome by coaching your managers, developing connections that make workers feel safe to open up, and cultivating a culture where failure & success are both appreciated & celebrated. This will encourage your employees to give it their all and will be less likely to self-doubt. Even if they do, the company has a strong HR backed by a great work environment that makes them feel secure eventually.
Reimagining Performance Management: The New Talk Of The HR Town
Being in HR, one cannot escape the ‘talk of the town’. With the HR community buzzing on the latest of the Great Resignation and the controversies of Quiet Quitting, reimagining Performance Management is the hot gossip everyone is trying to get their hands on.
Performance Management has evolved with time, but right now it has taken a leap that can be detrimental to many organizations and their survival.
Over the past few years, organizations have been talking about reinventing performance management, especially with the new ways of working since the pandemic, particularly the rise of hybrid work models and the desire for employees to be seen as people, not just workers or mere assets.
The corporate world has started to question. Are yearly performance evaluations important or necessary? Isn’t it sufficient that the manager and subordinate better understand the work done and the contribution to the organization? Do performance evaluations capture all necessary aspects of the modern corporate world?
Now than ever before is a critical moment to rethink the purpose and value of performance management programs. It can be said that leaders and managers will have to go beyond just measuring employees’ outcomes and goals achieved and give weightage to the context in which employees’ outcomes are achieved: their personal goals, work-life balance, the circumstances in which they work, the teams and projects to which they belong and the type of work they complete.
Reimaging performance management is not as simple as it sounds. While many have tried, many have failed and only a hand full succeed.
In March 2020, Facebook announced that it would be giving all 45,000 employees the same, ”exceeds expectations” performance review rating for the first two quarters. Some companies cancelled their next review cycle altogether. Others scrambled to explain last-minute changes to their performance measures and reward allocations.
So, what makes a Performance Management strategy work in the present context? Here are a few attributes spotted in common with the ones that showed positive results.
- Empathy incorporated Performance Ratings
HR professionals need to involve employees in the designs of empathetic performance ratings, which would include learning new skills, focusing outside of work, and prioritizing wellness goals.
- The use of instant gratification to bring out open communication
Instant gratification doesn’t always mean rewarding your team with monetary benefits and recognition. Open communication and feedback go a long way too. This includes providing real-time feedback whenever possible, holding face-to-face meetings with your team, breaking down long-term goals into smaller goals, and continuously monitoring work goals. Let’s face it, no one likes to be left in the dark.
- PM systems with consistent employee rewards and recognitions
Who doesn’t like to be recognized and appreciated? Appreciation and recognition are very important to keep your employees inspired and to drive productivity, after all the basis of this evolution is to appreciate your team as people and not just as an asset that gives you a return on investment. A performance management system that doesn’t include recognition and rewards for employee performance tends to fail more easily. It is important to keep track of employee performance and appreciate their good work.
Everyone makes changes to their Performance Management strategies thinking they could achieve the desired outcome, but where does it fail?
- Unstructured Performance Management Processes.
One reason why performance management fails is that the process lacks structure. It is not a one-time process but whereas a process that needs to be evaluated and corrected constantly. Unfortunately, it is not possible to see positive results if you don’t have a well-designed structure for performance management. The main reason behind having a performance management process in an organization is to improve the overall performance of the employees in the organization and employee behavior is volatile.
So, a well-structured performance management system helps the employees understand the organizational strategies better and work towards achieving their goals with more motivation.
- Wrong selection of employee goals
In many organizations, employee goals are not in the picture when the performance review process is on. Sometimes performance management also fails because wrong goals are chosen to optimize the performance of the employees. In short, goals are important to keep employees motivated and perform better.
- Having only an Annual Performance Evaluation is unsuccessful
Annual Performance Evaluations are a thing of the past. The present generation does not wait for one entire year to be recognized and heard.
Performance evaluation is valuable only when done on a regular basis. An annual performance review is not enough for any organization. Some managers claim that it consumes a major portion of their time but in a practical scenario, if the evaluation is done constantly this wouldn’t take much time as it would be broken down into smaller chunks.
Also let’s face it, close to annual evaluations, the entire team is rushing and kicking their brains to remember every single thing they have done in the past year and so many important tasks are forgotten or dropped out. Some employees simply copy-paste their previous set of goals and submit it into the system due to the time pressure put on by HR, so let’s face it, this is not going the right way.
Thanks to the rapid implementation of HR technology, employee performance management is moving away from traditional models like annual performance appraisals to a more dynamic mode of operation. Here is how:
- HR Tech plays a huge role in optimizing the review mechanism — moving away from the dreaded annual appraisal to a more integrated, continuous review process.
- HR Tech helps generate real-time feedback loops which can make employee expectations perfectly clear.
- Performance management tools also help HR teams to figure out how to hire quality candidates by aligning performance with recruitment
- The right performance management tools also enable employers to become more agile and to get a better bird’s eye view of the organization’s real-time performance.
You heard it right! The talk of the town is true and here to make a change, so don’t underestimate it as just another passing trend.
Succession Planning at its best – lessons from the Royal Family
No one can give a better example of succession planning than the Royals themselves, the process and procedures in place to immediately proclaim and transfer monarch is sublime and smooth. The palace mastered the art of succession planning and successor preparation years ago. The palace teaches us all the amount of detail, strategy, and tactical planning that has to be done to transfer ownership of power and how the leader has to be prepped to take the lead.
Handed power during a crisis at a personal loss
The royal family is being prepared to take over the roles once the leadership transfers. The ultimate ownership has its defined boundaries and detailed plan on how the proclamation of the new monarch takes place while King Charles has to visit all the counties of England for the first time as their King while grieving for his mother in time at a personal loss. The poised poignant royals take a high road in all the traditions, and vigils but not forgetting to communicate and address their audience, their people.
Granular planning & preparation
The London Bridge operation detailing the Queen’s funeral plans on a 10-day project has already been decided with the Queen, King Charles, and the rest of the working royals. The plan takes place as and when the leadership changes and everyone is on board and briefed beforehand so there is no ambiguity or room for speculation.
Successor preparation, develop key competencies for leadership
The most crucial out of all, King Charles III was prepping for it his whole life. Even from his childhood to his education to military training, was a part preparing him and his successors to take up the roles from birth. This involves identifying development needs and closing gaps while getting the successor to develop competencies and skills that is needed for the job.
Build empathy and manage vulnerability
King Charles III and the working royals have been extremely empathetic toward the public in consoling and sharing their personal experiences about Queen Elizabeth II. They all accepted her devotion and service, and while it is understood that the new leader will have certain changes there never was any criticism among the successors. While Queen Elizabeth II left on her terms, the path was clear for the next person with no grey areas – the process to her duties, charities, and work was defined and passed on to the next generations.
Brand image and communication on point
King Charles addressed the nation for the first time with poise, controlling his personal emotions yet being vulnerable. Royals go by “never complain, never explain” yet are approachable to the public, friendly, and charming when they are among the public. Each of them shared their personal experience with people who loved their leader and shared her with them.
Accept advice and seek counsel
The royals always had counsel and mentors advising them, especially during transitions and crises. Having an expert panel to support you through the change of leadership and reputation mishaps to protect leadership and reduce human errors.
Something that organizations fail to do is acknowledge the good done during past leadership, protect the corporate legacy not criticize predecessors who lack integrity. Many companies might not have the board strength to oversee the transition and prepare succession in a royal way, but with a digitized and modern HR it is possible. HR tech has come a long way, it might not be royal proof but HR systems such as PeoplesHR have been built to be future-proof for succession planning.
Quiet Quitting, the fall of going above and beyond
Rapidly rising in popularity, the term Quiet Quitting is now of key interest to us all. Simply put, if you’re doing the ‘bare 9 am – 5 pm minimum’ so you can rush home to watch House of the Dragon, then yes you’re Quiet Quitting. To experience the brouhaha surrounding this term, one needs only to tune into TikTok, where young professionals are loudly proclaiming their stance against going above and beyond for their jobs.
So in a nutshell, employee engagement rates are falling especially amongst Millennials and Gen Zs. In order to address this staggering phenomenon, human resource partners and company decision-makers should first attempt to determine the cause. Why are people quiet quitting?
1.Enough is enough!
Perhaps we are just on the cusp of over-exhaustion and burning out. In this new normal of working from home, work-life balance is diminishing for most. Meeting are scheduled at all hours, an act that has shifted from being occasionally to business as usual. In response, the ‘yes men’ (and women) of the past have now summoned the courage to say no to late hours. They are more focused on self-care and mental well-being. Hence, this may be a clear indication to those who govern corporations to start setting healthy boundaries.
2. Bad Bosses
It is time to shift the blame from the quiet quitters and reevaluate company leaders. A study done by the Harvard Business Review posited that ineffective managers are three to four times more likely to have quiet quitters in their midst. While this may be a tough pill to swallow, here’s the hard truth that most take for granted. If you want your employees to go that extra mile, inspire them to do it and at the same time, reward their sacrifices. Because let’s face it, is the tale of endlessly working for that promotion only to be let down at the end not as old as time? If your employees have started “acting their wage” as revenge against false promises, can one really blame them?
In short, many of the inhabitants of the world of work are now unsubscribing from going above and beyond for their employers. So then the question is, what can be done to address this?
For starters, get on the right side of this phenomenon. Promote, nay advocate for work-life balance in your organization! We’d advise a top-down approach where company leaders are educated on the importance of creating a culture where workers do not have to feel like they need to apologize for their personal lives. Set policies to minimize meetings after 6 pm, prevent uncompensated work on weekends and enforce consequences on rule breakers.
Next, rethink your management approach. If you have multiple direct reports who are deemed as quiet quitters, then a key point to reflect on is whether it is the fault of your workers… OR…. is it a shortcoming of your leadership abilities? If you can bring yourself to accept that it might be the latter, perhaps you can work on fostering better relationships with your team. We think that this starts with open communication. If there is an urgent need to work late, help your direct reports understand the criticality. When your team does work late, acknowledge their efforts and compensate when possible, even if it is just a cup of coffee. In our experience, a cup of coffee goes a long way!
Let me sign off with this final thought. It is worth remembering that while a company’s profitability, key performance indicators, and other growth targets are important, employees are not just tools at a manager’s disposal. They are human beings. And more often than not, if you give them your best, they will give you theirs.