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How to Design a Modern Performance Management System?

The overall business landscape have drastically changed over the past decade, with the rise of smartphones, internet, social media and digital communication, the way business are building and nurturing their relationships with their customers have completely changed. In the modern fast-paced and highly competitive market environment it is crucial for a business to adopt to modern practices, methodologies and technologies. The performance management system is no exception at all, if you will compare the modern performance management system with the performance management practices just around a decade back, the present day performance management is totally unrecognizable. The modern performance management systems are designed with an aim to support every organization’s unique internal culture, minimize the influence of bureaucracy, increase transparency and maximize the impact of the performance management and human resource programs. Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and other emirates of UAE are witnessing continuous growth, which is attracting more businesses and raising the competition. The governments are also turning toward a modern UAE government performance appraisal system in order to ensure excellent services for the citizens. Furthermore the rapidly changing market trends, and ever-increasing customer demands are compelling businesses to utilize their resources at the maximum potential in order to ensure stability and growth. That is what make performance management system a game-changing tool.

How to Design a Modern Performance Management System?
How to Design a Modern Performance Management System?

What is a Modern Performance Management System?

The major difference between the traditional and modern performance management system is that the old method relies on annual reviews, the modern methods offer more frequent reviews, better performance data collection and analysis, and include software tools which makes the employee performance management process more effective and impactful. When the employees doesn’t have a proper communication with their managers, they are blindfolded and couldn’t know if they are progressing in the right direction or not. Another biggest difference between traditional and modern performance management system is that it focuses on the people and help managers maximizing their potential. However, the traditional performance management system focus on what has been done in past, and have no visibility of the future at all. The software aided modern performance management system is more integrated, robust, responsive, and reactive and can easily be incorporated in the modern work flows.  The modern performance management system offer a more contextual and comprehensive performance data which help managers and employees to identify the problems and help them set course for the future to achieve the excellence. The modern performance management system doesn’t only focus on the monetary incentives, but it offers in-depth employee development programs, it is more engaging and empowering, and help building trust on the performance management process.

See Also: How to Design a Modern Performance Management System?

What is a Modern Performance Management System?
What is a Modern Performance Management System?

What are the Characteristics of a Modern Performance Management System?

Businesses should be aware of modern performance management trends. Because in order to implement a modern performance management system you must understand what the characteristics of a modern performance management system are which distinguished it from a traditional performance management model.

  1. Digital Transformation: The biggest advantage of a modern performance management system is that it enables digital transformation by implement software based solutions and tools. The performance management software help automating several tasks driving efficiency and accuracy in the process.
  2. People Focused: The modern performance management systems focused on both the high-performing employees as well as the low-performer. It offer a great balance between the accountability and the development, which encourage all employees to perform better and also help low performers to achieve their goals while rewarding high-performing employees.
  3. Continuous: The modern day employees want more frequent and instant reward, they don’t like the concept of waiting for an entire year. A continuous performance management system offer continuous communication, frequent reviews (biannual, quarterly, and even monthly), continuous feedback and frequent one-on-one meetings.
  4. Transparent: Most of the business leaders and the employees don’t trust on traditional performance management system due to several factors. However the modern performance management system offers more transparency, it provide more accessibility to performance data and can keep the record of all past data, meetings, and reviews.
  5. Adaptive: The modern performance management systems are great and offer castigation which enables them to adopt to changes in trends, needs and even allow businesses to implement customized performance management strategies and policies. The ability to integrate with other systems and collect performance data from multiple sources make them more adaptable.

See Also: Benefits of Implementing a Modern Performance Management System

These are the essential features which distinguishes between traditional and modern performance management system.

What are the Characteristics of a Modern Performance Management System?
What are the Characteristics of a Modern Performance Management System?

Step-by-Step Guide on Designing a Modern Performance Management System

Now that we understood the difference between traditional and modern performance management system and its benefits as well, let us dive into the actual process of designing a modern performance management system which resonates with your organizational culture and performance needs.

  1. Identify Your Needs: It is important to understand the needs of your organization. Every business have different priorities, different challenges and different culture, this is why it is important to identify your needs. You will have to review the current performance management model and then do some brainstorming to identify the needs of your new strategy.
  2. Chose The Purpose: Once you identify your needs, you should chose the primary purpose of your modern performance management system. There are five major purposes of implementing a performance management framework, accountability, organizational alignment, cultural alignment, development, and recognition. You should prioritize each one as per your needs.
  3. Understand the Workflows: Understand who is making decisions and how decisions are being made. How the information are flowing, what communication channels you are currently using and what you are planning to use in future. Understand how you are currently defining roles, goals and objectives and how the success should look like.
  4. Performance Fundamentals: No matter what performance management model you want to use, the performance fundamentals are the same, reviews, feedbacks and goals. Implement mechanisms to make reviews fair and transparent. Implement SMART goals, focus on accountability, development and alignment and lastly implement continuous feedback model.

See Also: How the HR should select a Performance Management System?

If you follow the above steps you can easily identify your needs and the scope of your new modern performance management system. There are two ways to implement a new performance management system. First you can acquire a ready-made commercial off-the-shelf solution, or the second and more effective way is to acquire a professional software development agency in Dubai, such as RSI Concepts and let them build a customized performance management system as per your needs.

Step-by-Step Guide on Designing a Modern Performance Management System
Step-by-Step Guide on Designing a Modern Performance Management System

How to Analyze the Effectiveness of your New Performance Management Model

Once you implemented a tailor-made modern performance management system you will definitely witness improvements, however, in order to analyze the effectiveness of your new performance management system you can perform a thorough analysis using the following steps:

  1. Start with market research, understand your industry trends, and set the performance benchmarks for your industry.
  2. Set and enlist organizational goals and objectives and accordingly set the individual goals that you are planning to achieve with your new performance management system.
  3. Based on your organizational goals and objectives define how the success should look like for individual goals, also classify performance in three categories, high-performer, low-performer and average performers.
  4. Now compare your design of performance management system and its success measures with this performance management model based on industry benchmarks.
  5. Now try to minimize the gap between both performance management models and you will get a most efficient performance management system.

This analysis will help you improving your design of modern performance management system and it will help you maximizing the impact of your performance management program.

See Also: 5 Challenges in implementing Performance Management System

How to Analyze the Effectiveness of your New Performance Management Model?
How to Analyze the Effectiveness of your New Performance Management Model?

Conclusion

Implementing a modern performance management system can greatly improve your employees’ performance, engagements and help you increase retention. When the employees and managers both trust on the performance management models and tools they tend to perform well and it also help elevating their morale which is absolutely essential for productivity and efficiency. There are several modern performance management systems available in the market, however, it is highly unlikely that any off-the-shelf performance management software can fulfill all your needs and produce the desired results. That is why we recommend going for a customized performance management system. In this blog we have discussed the difference between a traditional and modern performance management system, we also discussed how you can design a perfect performance management system which will empower your management and workforce. If is important to critically analyze the performance management model that you are building for your business. You can revise your model many times before reaching to the optimum results. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to design your new modern performance management system for your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

See Also: Why Custom Performance Management System is more Effective?


Employee Evaluation and KPIs for Better Employee Performance

With the rise of technology, the customer expectations have increased, the market trends have been changed, and the competition is getting tougher day by day. Businesses need to be very productive in order to be able to survive in the current market landscape of UAE. An effective performance management is the solution to level up your game and out-perform your competition. Businesses operating in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and other parts of the country are well-aware of the competitiveness of the market and the skyrocketed demands of the customers.

That is why businesses are continuously seeking ways to optimize their internal processes, operations and workforce. Most of the large businesses, enterprises and organizations are using some kind of performance management process, to monitor and improve their performance. Whereas, small and medium sized businesses usually don’t focus much on this aspect. However, the performance management is equally important and effective for all types and sizes of businesses and organizations.

Employee Evaluation and KPIs for Better Employee Performance
Employee Evaluation and KPIs for Better Employee Performance

It is important for a business to understand where they need improvements and how they can leverage the true potential of their workforce to achieve the business goals. For any business employee turnover is a very challenging aspect of HR. Employee retention is connected to employee satisfaction. The employee satisfaction and employee retention is linked to employee engagements. If you are providing a highly engaging environment to your employees where they are given a productive organizational culture, your employee turnover will be less.

See Also: The Role of Performance Management in Employee Engagement

Not only that the employee satisfaction also results in higher customer satisfaction which translates to growth and profitability. When it comes to performance management the employee evaluation and KPIs are they key factors. A good performance management system must provide a comprehensive framework to evaluate employees and monitor their KPIs. In this blog we will discuss how employee evaluation and KPIs can help businesses improve their performance.

For any business employee turnover is a very challenging aspect of HR.
For any business employee turnover is a very challenging aspect of HR.

What is the difference between a KPI and a metric?

People often confuse a KPI and Metric, however, both are different. A KPI or key performance indicator is a high-level indicator which provide context about the business goal and it tells how these goals are related to different business functions. The metric is a low-level perspective and it is used to track activities and processes of different business functions. For example, a business wants to increase its customer satisfaction by 20%. That would be a KPI.

See Also: Employee Performance Management Process with PMS

In order to achieve that goal, different business functions such as customer service team, sales team, marketing, management and various other departments will have to improve their performance, each department or business functions’ metrics will be used to measure the impact of their activities and processes on the high-leave business goal. The best metric to measure customer satisfaction is the NPS or net promoter score, businesses can also use other metrics such as customer satisfaction index to understand their progress towards their goal.

What is the difference between a KPI and a metric?
What is the difference between a KPI and a metric?

How to set KPIs which are aligned with high-level business goals?

The most common mistake businesses made during their performance management campaign is not aligning their KPIs with their high-level business goals. Here are a few key points to consider while creating KPIs:

  1. Start by setting up or analyzing your business goals, for example, if you want to increase sales, or raise customer satisfaction, etc.
  2. Define what you will measure, for example, in case of customer satisfaction you can measure customer satisfaction index, and in case of sales you can measure the increase in sales.
  3. Once you know what you will measure, you have to understand how you can collect that data, for sales, it is easier you can just see how much sales you made, for customer satisfaction you can use NPS or customer happiness gauge, etc.
  4. In order to measure the performance you must have to be able to communicate and relate the KPI to the employees and managers. Your KPI should be able to engage the employees and it should be able to raise the morale and motivate them to put efforts towards achieving it.
  5. Adopting SMART framework is a great way to boost employee engagement. The SMART stands for Scalable, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound. Implementing SMART framework and defining the targets or target range is crucial.
  6. Make an action plan for if the KPI falls outside of the target range, and ensure your action plan is realistic and executable given the circumstances and available tools, workforce or skillsets in hand.
  7. Reviewing and analyzing the performance data is a continuous task, the KPIs should be monitored regularly and the data should be analyzed properly to extract meaningful insight from it.
  8. It is important to fine tune your KPIs over the time to ensure your KPIs deliver value to your business and will remain relevant to your business goals, industry benchmarks and competitive landscape.

If you will follow the above steps it would be much easier to set effective KPIs and if you have to redefine them or improve them you can also do easily with the above mentioned steps.

See Also: Characteristics of a Good Employee Appraisal System

How to set KPIs which are aligned with high-level business goals?
How to set KPIs which are aligned with high-level business goals?

How to collect employee performance data?

When we are measuring something it is usually a number, however, the human performance is not something which can entirely be measured on the bases of hard numbers. Although a good performance management system measures employee performance in quantifiable metrics but this is not as that simple as measuring the weight or height. Here are a few most effective methods of measuring the employee performance:

  • Rating Scales: Using the rating scales or graphical rating scales is one of the best way to measure employee performance in different performance areas. The graphical rating scales are usually sequential numbers such as 1 to 10 or 1 to 5. Usually the rating scales are used to measure the behavioral competencies, for technical competencies other tools are used.
  • Feedbacks: The feedbacks or 360O Feedback is one of the most commonly used and most effective method to collect employee performance data. The 360O Feedback includes taking feedback from supervisor/manager, peers, customers, suppliers, cross-team management, and any other stakeholder and then it is analyzed for common trends and similarities.
  • One-to-One: The one to one meetings are a great way to quickly evaluate the performance and identify the areas of improvement. A good performance management system also facilitate one-on-one meetings and provide intuitive features to document them. The one-on-one meetings and discussions can help bridging the communication gap between the managers and employees which is essential for improving the performance.
  • Management by Objectives: The Management by Objectives or MBO is a process where the employees and the managers define the objectives with mutual understanding. Thus the employees have a better understanding of what is to be expected from them and how the success would be measured. This is a great way to increase employee engagement and improve communication between employees and the managers.
  • Self-Evaluation: The employee self-evaluation is one of the best way to increase employee engagements and motivation. Often employees are more critical of their performance than the managers are. Which help managers to compare the employee’s self-evaluation with their evaluations. It help finding similarities and provide a better understanding of the employee performance, it also help managers to build good employee development and training programs.
  • Check-list Forms: A simple check-list form is a great way to quickly evaluate an employee. It could be used for both behavioral and technical competencies. It will help managers identify the employees with major deficiencies in important performance areas and help them improve training programs and also in forming high-performing teams.

There are several other ways and methods to collect employee performance data, however, the most important thing to understand is that the employee performance management requires continuous monitoring and tracking of the employee performance.

See Also: The Impact of Performance Management on Organizational Culture

How to collect employee performance data?
How to collect employee performance data?

Conclusion

No matter how high-tech or advanced your IT infrastructure, assembly line, production plant or customer service center it, one thing is essential and it is your employees who will be utilizing those technologies and resources to generate value. The value which will help you satisfy and retain your customers and help you build a good brand image. Markets in Dubai, Sharjah, and Abu Dhabi or in any other emirate of the UAE are very competitive, the customers tend to switch very quickly if a business fails to meet their needs or expectations.

In such a tough and competitive market landscape it is important to ensure you are utilizing your resources at their full potential whether it is human resource or non-human resource. That is why the performance management system is so crucial for a businesses of all types and sizes. The two core aspects of performance management are employee evaluation and KPIs. In this blog we have discussed what KPIs are and how businesses can utilize them to harvest the highest possible value form their resources.

If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to implement a highly cost-effective and tailor-made performance management system for your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

See Also: How to Develop Custom Performance Appraisal System in UAE?


Why Custom Performance Management System is more Effective?

In the fast-paced business landscape it is extremely important for a business to utilize its resources at fullest potential. Businesses operating in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and anywhere else in UAE are well aware of the fact that the markets in this country tend to change very quickly, the customer demands are also increasing endlessly. That is why businesses all around the UAE give a lot of attention to performance management system. The performance management is one of the primary task of the HR department and that is the reason HR leaders and businesses are ready to invest a lot in performance management systems and programs.

There is another strong reason for investing in performance management system which is the adaptation of agile processes and methods. When businesses adopt agility, a gap is formed naturally between the managers and the employees. Most of the time the business leaders and managers failed to implement proper people management practices which results in dissatisfaction and distrust among the employees and undermine their performance and productivity.

Why Custom Performance Management System is more Effective?
Why Custom Performance Management System is more Effective?

The modern day employees are also more concerned about their personal development and growth, they want more frequent feedback from their managers which help them improve their skills and productivity. There has been several surveys and studies all around the world which suggested more than 80% of the business leaders lost faith on the traditional performance management practices and annual appraisal processes. Almost similar percentage of employees also express their distrust on traditional performance management methods. Therefore a modern, digitalized and technology based performance management system is needed.

Basically a performance management system is a software tool, which can provide a continuous performance monitoring tools and analytical data and allow both managers and employees to access valuable performance management data in a very intuitive and interactive manner. Only a modern digital performance management system solution can fulfill the needs of the modern businesses. In this blog we will discuss why a custom performance management system is more effective for your business.

See Also: Customizing Performance Management Systems for Diverse Workforces

Only a modern digital performance management system solution can fulfill the needs of the modern businesses.
Only a modern digital performance management system solution can fulfill the needs of the modern businesses

What is the Difference between a COTS and Custom Performance Management System?

Before we discuss what is the difference between a custom and COTS performance management system it is important to understand that a performance management system is a software which is used to streamline and improve the performance management processes such as one-on-one meetings, acquiring feedback, appraisal, developing personal development and training programs and other such tasks. For any HR department it is their prime goal to retain and sustain a skilled workforce and ensure other business functions can get the required talent and skillset. The performance management system is built on a powerful analytical and statistical engine, along with smart algorithms and AI software tools which makes it more efficient, impactful and effective.

When it comes to acquire a new software tool there are two options, one is hiring a professional software development agency like RSI Concepts and have a tailor-made solution which matches 100% of your business needs. The second option is to quickly implement a cloud-based solution or acquire a ready-made performance management software. Both the ready-made and cloud-based solutions are COTS software, it means Commercial Off-the-shelf Software. The COTS are not designed for a single business or a specific set of users, in fact they are general purpose tools which are designed and available to a mass audience ranging from a few hundred to millions of users.

See Also: Choosing a Performance Management System A Buyer’s Guide

What is the Difference between a COTSand Custom Performance Management System?
What is the Difference between a COTS and Custom Performance Management System?

What made Custom Performance Management System Superior and a Better Match to your Needs?

Whenever a business needs a software solution and they decide to go with a commercial off-the-shelf software or COTS they usually seek to match as much of their needs as possible, on an average a good COTS solution will meet your 80% of needs. That means you will have to make compromise for the rest of the 20% of your needs. That is one of the major reason business prefer to have a tailor-made custom software solution because a custom software solution is capable of meeting 100% of your needs as it will be exclusively designed for your needs.

Another great advantage of a custom performance management system is that it can provide a great competitive advantage. Furthermore the custom performance management system is exclusively designed for your business, so you also hold the ownership rights for the product. This will free your business from vendor-dependency. Businesses can manage, customize and upgrade custom performance management system in-house as well as they can choose any vendor to do so, as the entire software tool and its resources such as source code, databases and integration tools are handed over to the business who will be using it.

See Also: Performance Management System: Best Practices

What made Custom Performance Management System Superior and a Better Match to your Needs?
What made Custom Performance Management System Superior and a Better Match to your Needs?

Here are some key advantages of choosing a custom performance management system over a COTS solution:

Custom Performance Management System: Effectively Implement Strategy

It is important to understand that the performance management is a very flexible concept. Every business has a unique organizational culture so does the strategy to implement different performance methods. It is due to the preference which every business have different from the other. These preferences are based on the business goals, strategic objectives and their desire to improve certain aspects of the performance. For example, some businesses might prioritize the technical competencies and some might want to focus on behavioral competencies and so on.

See Also: The Role of Performance Management in Employee Engagement

Along with that for a different set of employees the KPIs are different the desired outcome is different, hence the strategy and focused performance aspects would be different. Furthermore there are different performance management methods and every business would have different choice, on top of that most business leader prefer to use a combination of two or more methods to implement their own unique performance management strategy. That is the reason the commercial off-the-shelf software solutions can never fulfill all of your needs. Furthermore the COTS are built as per industry standards and offers more rigid framework.

However, a custom performance management system can offer you more control, flexibility, freedom and customization which enable you to effectively implement your own unique performance management strategy. You can utilize in-built templates and configurations wizards to setup your own customized KPIs, OKRs and performance metrics as per your needs. This allow you to laser focus on your prioritized aspects of the performance management which can greatly improve the impact and outcome.

See Also: The Risk of Poor Performance Management and How to identify it?

There are different performance management methods and every business would have different choice
There are different performance management methods and every business would have different choice

Custom Performance Management System: Easy Integration with Data and Third-party Systems

The entire performance management system depends on collecting, flow and analysis of the data. It is extremely important to understand that if data collection would be easier, the outcome would be more accurate. That is why most modern performance management systems have ability to automatically collect data. Businesses can manually upload data too or they can use dedicated dashboards to input the data but it is important that uploading data or integration and automated-data collection is as per the needs of the business. The IT infrastructure of any organization is a very complex eco-system, it develops gradually and evolve as per the needs and changes within the organization or due to the impact of external factors.

See Also: Performance Management Trends in the Digital Era

This means there would be a lot of different system some of which might be integrated already with the central information system. There could be a lot technology platforms and different vendors that a business is using to form their IT infrastructure. When a new software application is deployed in such environment the biggest challenge is integration and communication between different third-party systems and tools. Since the commercial off-the-shelf software are usually standardized tools, hence integration could be a big challenge, it could be very expensive and in some cases it could be impossible.

However, the customized performance management system is exclusively built for your needs, so all these problems are already accounted for. All these challenges can be dealt effectively and with convenience when you have full control over the structure of the software that you are building. That is why the customized performance management system are more effective in integrating with third-party tools and databases, which allow them to easily attain automation and built innovative features to minimize the effort and workload of the users. Even in case of manual uploads or dedicated dashboard to input data the customized performance management system is much more effective and far superior to any COTS solution in the market.

See Also: Which one is better Standalone VS Integrated Software?

Easy Integration with Data and Third-party Systems
Easy Integration with Data and Third-party Systems

Custom Performance Management System: Get Customized Features and UI

Similar to performance strategy implementation, the features of the performance management system also require customization if you want to align the system with your needs. The biggest problem with the commercial off-the-shelf performance management software is that they are built according to the industry standards and only follow standardized procedures and processes. Which is helpful but sometimes it could be a hurdle instead of support. The custom performance management system software is exclusively designed as per your requirements hence there is no such barrier or limitation. You can customize each and every feature, process, SOP, protocol and even the reporting formats and designs.

See Also: Linking Performance Management to Business Outcomes

For any performance management system the ultimate goal is to collect performance data, drive reports from the data and then take informed decisions to maximize the probability of the success. There is another most important aspect which is the user interface (UI). Most of the businesses doesn’t focus much on it, however, it is extremely important aspect of any software application. With the custom performance management system you can customize the GUI or UI as per your requirements, you can have your customized branding, and even functionalities can be customized and labeled as per your needs which can greatly enhance the efficiency and efficacy of the performance management system. The stock or off-the-shelf solutions doesn’t offer such customizations.

See Also: How to Customize Performance Management System

Get Customized Features and UI
Get Customized Features and UI

Custom Performance Management System: High Scalability and Easy Upgrade

Whenever businesses are acquiring any software solution, the scalability and ability to upgrade it in future are the two most important aspects to consider. The commercial off-the-shelf software comes with several restrictions and limitations. Similarly the commercial off-the-shelf performance management system could be easier and quicker to deploy but down the road it will pose more challenges. Furthermore these software are usually cloud-based and comes in different tiers and plans which are designed to target a specific size or industry. Hence if you need some features which are not available in your plan you might have to subscribe for additional plan, which will be more expensive and at the end of the day most of the features comes with expensive plan might not be useful for your business.

See Also: The Future of Performance Appraisals: 6 Innovations and Changes [Quick Guide]

The markets evolve very fast, the customer demands could change over the night, and business need to be very vigilant and responsive towards such changes, which is usually not possible with the commercial off-the-shelf solutions. Furthermore these applications take ages to develop and build new features, there are several challenges for the vendor to upgrade them. Businesses keep growing and after sometime scaling up these software would cost you a lot. The custom performance management system is completely free from all those limitations and restrictions. You can customize it whenever you want, you can scale it up or downsize it whenever you need and without paying even a single dime.

Furthermore you can also customize your custom performance management system to add new features or to make changes at a nominal cost unlike the COTS which incurs hefty fees and charges for such requirements.

See Also: 5 Challenges in implementing Performance Management System

High Scalability and Easy Upgrade
High Scalability and Easy Upgrade

Custom Performance Management System: Cost-effective and High ROI

When we compare the initial cost of the commercial off-the-shelf solutions and the customized software applications, the COTS apparently looks more cost-effective. However, that is not true at all. The COTS can be deployed quickly but won’t be able to fully match your 100% of the requirements, however, the custom performance management systems have higher initial cost but can fully aligned with your requirements and fulfill your 100% of the needs. In order to compare the cost we will have to look at the ROI over a longer period of the time. The stock or commercial off-the-shelf solutions have regular subscription charges which you will have to pay on monthly, quarterly or yearly bases as per your plan. You will have no control over the software vendor, the vendor will own the application and in some cases your data is also stored at vendor’s server which is not as that secure.

However, the custom performance management system is exclusively designed for your business, the vendor doesn’t have the ownership of the application, instead you will own the ownership rights of the software and you will also own all the software code, resources and the entire application which will be handed over to you. You can have full control over your custom performance management system, there is no vendor dependency, you can chose any vendor or even in-house team to maintain and upgrade your software. Your data will be hosted with you or at the server/cloud of your choice which offers better security. There will be no subscription fee or hidden charges, the customization will be very cost-efficient and if you calculate the ROI over an extended period of time the custom performance management system will cost you less than half of a reputed commercial off-the-shelf performance management system.

The custom performance management system have longer life-cycle which can be further extended by making few changes and iterations, but in case of COTS you might have to acquire a completely new software after a few years.

See Also: The Impact of Performance Management on Organizational Culture

Cost-effective and High ROI
Cost-effective and High ROI

Conclusion

Businesses operating in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi or any other emirate of UAE knows that very well that the markets here are very competitive. The overall government policies and environment is very investor-friendly hence the competition will keep rising in future too. Furthermore the customer demands are also skyrocketing and the market is subjected to rapid changes. In such environment if a business want to maintain a steady growth it is extremely important for them to have a proactive performance management strategy.

The modern day employees need higher engagements and the business leaders also want more productive and effective tools to maximize the performance and productivity of their organization. That is why businesses deploy performance management systems which are mainly a dedicated software application designed to streamline the performance management processes and aid management in performing performance management tasks.

When it comes to acquire a performance management system software, businesses have two way, one is finding a suitable commercial off-the-shelf solution and quickly implement it and the other is slightly longer path, which is to develop a tailor-made and fully customized performance management system which is exclusively designed for the business by keeping in mind all the needs, requirements, and existing IT infrastructure.

In this blog we have discussed several aspects of performance management system and tried to highlight the aspects which make custom performance management system more superior, effective and impactful then its counterpart, the commercial off-the-shelf performance management software. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to develop an exclusive tailor-made custom performance management system for your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

See Also: How to Develop Custom Performance Appraisal System in UAE?


Characteristics of a Good Employee Appraisal System

The employee appraisal is the most important aspect of performance management. Every business wants to increase its performance, with the limited resources in hand every business wants to generate more outcome with limited inputs. That is why business adopt various workforce optimization methods and implement performance management strategies to improve the outcome and minimize the operational cost. This can provide businesses with a great competitive advantage and help them grow and achieve its goals.

The employee appraisals are extremely important as it will help businesses identifying any areas of improvement by evaluating employee performance and measuring the effectiveness of the employee. The employee appraisal system is a great tool for workforce optimization and performance management it help businesses implement their performance management strategy and align employees with the mission of the business by leveraging the employee performance data and various techniques that are designed to evaluate employee performance.

Characteristics of a Good Employee Appraisal System
Characteristics of a Good Employee Appraisal System

What is Employee Appraisal System?

The employee appraisal system is a combination of tools, strategies and methodologies which are used to measure the employee performance against a pre-set goal, and employee appraisal help setting up the goals for future and provide guidance for employee development and training programs. The employee performance appraisal provides a framework for the mangers to identify the areas of improvement, highlight the causes of failure and success and from future performance strategy.

Businesses and organizations in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and everywhere in UAE are investing heavily in employee performance management solutions such as employee appraisal systems. We have witnessed this trend increasing since past five years. The actual reason of deploying an employee performance appraisal system is to unlock the true potential of the employees, enable them to perform at their best and achieve the highest organizational efficiency which drive growth and long term success.

See Also: The Future of Performance Appraisals: 6 Innovations and Changes [Quick Guide]

See Also: Why Organizations need Performance Appraisal System

What is Employee Appraisal System
What is Employee Appraisal System?

Here are the characteristics of a good employee appraisal system:

Employee Appraisal System: Objectives

For any employee performance management strategy the most important point is to clearly define and communicate the objectives to the employees. An employee performance appraisal system does the same. It help management clearly define objectives which aligns with the organizational high-level goals and objectives. The employee performance appraisal system provide specialized tools which help management create objectives that are well-defined, aligned with mission, easy-to-understand, achievable in timely manner, and can be communicated to the employees.

The employee can easily understand what success will look like, it help them understand what business/employer is expecting from them and what has to be done from their side to create valuable outcome. The employee appraisal system not only help making objectives quantifiable but also help managers to correlate the objectives with the employee’s skills, experience, capabilities, and resources they have along with a complete historic background of past performances which is a great way to set goals and expectations for future. The systematic approach and specialized tools of employee appraisal system increase the success rate.

See Also: Performance Appraisal System for the HR Department

See Also: 5 Challenges to face if Performance Appraisal is not customized as per Organization’s Policies

Employee Appraisal System: Objectives
Employee Appraisal System: Objectives

Employee Appraisal System: Reliability

The trust and fairness is the main driver of the performance, if the employees think that the appraisal process is not fair or if the think the employee appraisal system is not reliable they will lose morale which can kill the performance and productivity. The employee appraisal system ensures transparency and fairness in the process and help gaining employees’ trust. The reliability is the key component to introduce transparency and gain employees’ trust. The employee appraisal system is a digital tool which offer intuitive features and empower both employees and the managers.

It ensures that the performance metrics and data used for appraisal are valid, reliable and accurate. Usually the data is related to the employee’s progress toward the assigned goal, how much time it took them to accomplish the goal, and the status of the goal, all this data is stored in the system along with complete historic accomplishments of the questioned employee. The employee appraisal system can also provide contextual data which also help managers understand employees’ certain behavior and decisions they take during the performance cycle. Employees and managers trust the system when they have access to accurate and reliable data.

See Also: Modern Methods of Performance Appraisal

See Also: Employee Performance Appraisal System for Small Businesses

Employee Appraisal System: Reliability
Employee Appraisal System: Reliability

Employee Appraisal System: Standardization

Standardization is one of the most important characteristic of employee appraisal system. Obviously every business and organization is different from each other, even two businesses who operate in same domain, have same products and services and same targeted audience could have greatly different internal processes, procedures, strategies and methodologies. However, when it comes to employee appraisal the main difference occurs when the managers took two different employees to assess who belongs to a same employee set/class or category.

For example if the assessment is required for two computer programmers who work on Native Application Development within the team, the assessment process, methods and criteria should be exactly the same for both of them. In manual practices and traditional appraisal methods, the managers have too much influence on the process hence the personal bias or emotions can hamper the quality of the assessments made by the same manager. The employee appraisal system completely remove this from equation, it standardize the evaluation criteria, performance metrics.

Furthermore it provides a comprehensive framework which make employee fully aware of appraisal standards, process, and decisions hence everyone knows how their success is being evaluated. The standardization can greatly increase employee trust on the appraisal process.

See Also: Beginners’ Guide to Appraisal System

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Employee Appraisal System: Standardization
Employee Appraisal System: Standardization

Employee Appraisal System: Communication

The communication is the backbone of any performance optimization or workforce optimization campaign. For the employee appraisal the communication is most crucial component of the process. The employee appraisal system help businesses and organizations to enhance communication between the employees and managers using specialized tools and unconventional methods. The managers must communicate the goals, objectives, mission and vision and the criteria of appraisal to each and every individual employee. If the employee doesn’t know about the system or doesn’t have clear information about any process or step, they will lose trust form the appraisal process which can easily kill productivity.

The employee appraisal system help integrating employee feedback at various stages, especially in goal setting process. When the employee and managers have shared vision about a particular goal the employees tend to perform well and their motivations and morale raises. The employee appraisal system strengthen the communication between the managers and the employees with more frequent feedbacks, discussions and interactions which help identifying and rectifying problems that employee might be facing and also help managers to correct course in order to ensure success by the end of the appraisal cycle.

See Also: Employee Evaluation and KPIs for Better Employee Performance

Employee Appraisal System: Communication
Employee Appraisal System: Communication

Employee Appraisal System: Development

The employee development is most important aspect of any employee appraisal system. Businesses and organization always want to minimize the employee turnover rate. This is essential in order to develop a highly skilled and experienced workforce. But if your employee keep leaving the organization, then you must have to bear the additional training costs, onboarding costs, time wasted in integrating a new employee and obviously the delay in the work, sometimes when the employees from key position left they could hinder the performance of the entire team or department, especially in startups, SMEs and very specific businesses.

Every employee wants to grow, everyone wants to improve their professional skills and every single employee wants to learn new things which add value and increase their worth as an employee. However, most of the time the employees are confused about selecting a right career path and the managers too rely on guessing while selecting a career path for an employee or designing a personal development plan .However, the employee appraisal system provides in-depth understanding of the employee performance, their capabilities, skills and ability to grow.

That is why with the employee appraisal system managers can design more effective and attractive employee development plans which help them raise employee satisfaction and reduce the employee turnover.

See Also: The Role of Performance Management in Employee Engagement

Employee Appraisal System: Development
Employee Appraisal System: Development

Employee Appraisal System: Training

When it comes to training, businesses often focus on the employee training. However, the managers’ or evaluators’ training is also very important. The evaluator and managers who are conducting the appraisal should also be well-trained in principles and processes of the appraisal along with the employee appraisal system tools. The evaluators and managers should be trained and provided with sufficient knowledge which enable them to effectively design and conduct appraisals. Conducting appraisal interview is a very crucial part of employee appraisal process, the evaluator or manager must have proper training to be able to conduct those interviews. Apart from that the employee training is the core of the employee appraisal process.

Every business or organization have such employees who just need a little training or polishing in order to unlock their true potential. But the question is how to identify those employees and how to design the training programs for them. The employee appraisal system provide insight to employee behavior, it provide highly accurate employee performance data and provide a greater understanding of employee’s skills and capabilities which are essential to design effective training programs. Effective training will help businesses achieve higher productivity and it also help gaining employee trust and loyalty.

See Also: Appraisal Methods in Performance Management System

Employee Appraisal System: Training
Employee Appraisal System: Training

Conclusion

Performance management, workforce optimization, employee appraisals, training programs and various such activities are a part of any growing organization. Every business wants to generate as much outcome as possible with the limited resources and inputs. High performing teams and employees are a great asset of a business and can provide a much needed competitive advantage as well as help boosting performance, profitability and growth of the business. That is why businesses conduct employee performance appraisals. However, when it comes to employee appraisals, it is a very sophisticated and crucial process. That is why businesses in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and all around the UAE uses specialized tools such as employee appraisal system in order to make the appraisal process more effective and efficient.

The employee appraisal system helps setting and communicating goals and objectives, it improves communication, it increases transparency and help businesses gain employee trust and satisfaction. In this blog we have listed some key characteristics of employee appraisal system, if you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to design and implement and customized employee appraisal system for your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

See Also: Employee Performance Management Process with PMS


Why Organizations need Performance Appraisal System in UAE in 2022

Why Organizations need Performance Appraisal System in UAE in 2022

The performance appraisal system is a great tool for the HR department. It help them to unlock the full potential of their workforce. The performance appraisal system is a necessity in a competitive marketplaces such as UAE. The UAE is one of the largest economy of the region with a high-paced growth and very friendly environment for businesses. That is why businesses and organizations are flourishing in the country. The local market and the international markets both are accessible form the UAE and this has attracted a lot of businesses and organizations to operate in the country. These circumstances also led to a very competitive market with high standards and very high customer demands. In order to ensure the sustainability and growth a business must have to operate at the maximum levels of efficiency and productivity. These factors led to a rapid adaptation of the digital performance appraisal systems all across the entire country. Businesses have started implementing various different types of performance appraisal systems however, most of the businesses preferred a customized performance appraisal system in 2022 and we are hoping to see a rise in this trend in coming years.

Why Organizations need Performance Appraisal System in UAE in 2022

A modern performance appraisal system is a digital tool that enable businesses to evaluate their employees with high accuracy and enable them to identify factors that are impacting the performance of the employees. The biggest advantage of a digital performance appraisal system is that it is a data-driven performance framework which provide highly accurate and structured methods to evaluate the employee performance and help businesses align them with the high-level organizational goals and objectives. Traditionally the performance appraisals are a very time and resource consuming activity, hence only done once or twice a year. However, with the help of digital performance appraisal system several processes can be automated and the data is fully digital which enable businesses to conduct a performance appraisal with very less resources, time and efforts. The businesses who use a performance appraisal system usually have more performance evaluation cycles in a year, usually quarterly, but it can be further reduced to monthly or even project wise appraisals.

Why Organizations in UAE Needs a Performance Appraisal System in 2022

Since the economies all around the world are recovering from the 2020 pandemic, the marketplaces have evolved rapidly and become more customer oriented. Furthermore the customer demands and trends are also continuously changing. The competition and other market conditions are also rapidly changing and need businesses to be more vigilant, resilient and proactive. A business can only respond to such changes quickly enough if their employees and resources are working at their full potential. Most of the time businesses have all the ingredients of success, but still failed to achieve their goals because they are not performing as well as they could. The performance appraisal system provide a structured framework to manage and improve the employee performance and drive productivity by effectively evaluating the employees, solving their problems and inspiring them for better performance. The modern performance management systems have become more integrated, smart, and easy-to-operate and become more autonomous than ever before which makes the process more effective, accurate and agile.

Why Organizations in UAE Needs a Performance Appraisal System in 2022

Advantages of the Performance Appraisal System

The performance appraisal system have many advantages which makes it as perfect companion for modern businesses in 2022. As the system is digital so it can offer great visibility and customized view of performance data for different user groups. It provides a structured framework for communication and help organizing the conversation repository which also enables it to offer various comparative analysis and past performance data. Here are the key advantages of the performance appraisal system:

1. Align Employees with the Organizational Goals and Objectives

The performance measurement might seem a simple process however it is not as that easy to integrate a performance appraisal framework in organizations. For that businesses require a good performance management strategy which always begins with defining the goals and objectives for the employees, managers, teams, departments and for the entire organization. Each organization has a long term vision, all their annual or shorter goals are derived from that vision. Obviously the vision or mission is not something that can be fully communicated to the individual employees. However, the vision and mission statements can be communicated effectively to the employees along with their goals and objectives which are derived from the organizational goals and strategic objectives to achieve that vision. The top management define the organizational goals and objectives that are always aligned with the vision and mission. Then these goals and objectives scaled down to the departments, teams, and individual levels. These goals will provide a reference point to measure the performance.

Align Employees with the Organizational Goals and Objectives

The employee performance is measured based on their progress towards their goals and objective during a given time period or appraisal cycle. For example if the appraisal cycle was for 3 months, the goals of an employee was to produce 300 parts at a lathe machine and they have produced 250 parts during that time period then their progress can be measured as 83.3%. That was a very simple matric the performance measurement was simple and easy. However, most of the time the performance measurement is a bit more complex that is why the managers set quantifiable goals for the employees so their performance can be measured accurately. In some cases only one matric is not enough to measure the actual performance which makes things a bit more complex. For example, in case of a service center, a service agent was given a goal to serve 300 customers in 3 months, however, they served only 250, but their performance can’t be taken as 83.3% success. In fact it the customer experience that is equally important. Just by calculating the number of customers alone can’t determine how beneficial the employee was for the organization.

Align Employees with the Organizational Goals and Objectives

The digital performance appraisal system allow businesses and managers to set up goals along with the scale to measure the progress. Usually the goals and objectives are defined using SMART framework, it means scalable, measureable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. Adopting SMART framework can eliminate almost all major mistakes that any HR or line manager can make setting up goals for the employees. The employee performance appraisal system allow both the employees and the managers to access the system through their dedicated dashboards to monitor their performance and progress in real time. Which is also very helpful in encouraging the employees to perform well. Furthermore the performance appraisal system also support managers to communicate the goals and objectives to the employees along with their impact on the high-level organizational goals and objectives. When the employees know what their efforts worth for in term of achieving the high-level organizational goals, they tend to perform well. Communicating the organizational goals and objectives is crucial for the employees to understand how they are and how they can contribute to the organizational goals and objectives.

Align Employees with the Organizational Goals and Objectives

2. Organize Communications and Reviews

The digital employee performance appraisal system provides a structured communication framework and make communication more effective, organized and convenient for both parties. The communication is the most crucial aspect of performance management. An organization can never achieve higher performance without an effective communication mechanism in place. The communication help the management to acquire the required feedback to understand the performance and progress. It help them understand what employees are doing, how they are doing and what is to expect from them in future. Furthermore it also help management understand the employee’s problems and help them identifying the factors that are harming the performance. The performance appraisal system streamline the communication, it provides a structured framework to establish effective relationship between the managers and the employees. All one to one sessions are logged, scheduled and recorded in the system along with the regular performance reviews and other feedbacks. This will help management take actions to improve the performance and increase the chances of success.

Organize Communications and Reviews

3. Increase Employee Engagements and Collaboration

The digital employee performance appraisal system allow managers to include employees in decision making processes which increase employee engagement. When the managers and the employees collaborate to set goals the employees are most likely to achieve them. It is the employee who can completely understand their circumstances, limitations and strengths. The managers obviously have a good understanding of work environment but it is the employee who have deeper knowledge about the ground realities. When the employees and the managers sit together the chances are they will set more realistic and achievable goals. This help increase the success rate and also increase employee morale. Moreover when the employee knows the goals are set with their consent they are most likely to get attached to it and feel more responsible for that. This encourage them to put extra efforts to achieve such goals and increase the success rate. The success itself is a great factor to increase employee courage, confidence and passion about their work. The increase employee engagement and collaborative environment always tend to produce better performance and higher productivity.

Increase Employee Engagements and Collaboration

4. Bring Transparency to Reward and Recognitions Processes

The reward and recognition is one of the primary objective of any employee performance appraisal system. Traditionally the employee performance appraisal system was based on manual assessments, which are usually done by the managers. This method is outdated and no longer viable, employees in businesses and organizations are not happy with the traditional assessment processes. Usually the employee complain about the lack of transparency in the system. Studies have revealed that the managers only consider the most recent and most prominent events to assess the overall performance of the employee for the entire year. Most of the time the managers failed to recall the employee performance and behavior from the earlier months of the years, which in itself cause a lot of problems and reduce the accuracy from the system. However, the digital employee appraisal system can record and provide the employee performance data of the entire year. The managers can view the employee performance of the entire year along with the recorded reviews and feedbacks at their dashboard which help improving the accuracy and transparency of the system.

Bring Transparency to Reward and Recognitions Processes

The employees are also provided with the data collected by the employee performance appraisal system hence the chances of misconduct or mistakes are very less. There is no room for favoritism or personal bias in the evaluation process which also build confidence of the employees on the system and produce highly accurate performance data. Furthermore the management can embrace the employees who have performed well and they can try to improve the performance of the employees who lagged behind. The appreciation, recognition and reward for good work plays a crucial role in employee satisfaction and raise their morale. It also increase their loyalty and motivate them to perform even better. The performance appraisal system doesn’t only rely on the reviews of the manager, but it collect quantifiable performance data and also allow other stakeholders to provide feedback. The peers, managers, senior management, cross-department managers, and even relevant customer can provide their feedback which significantly increase the transparency of the performance appraisal process and help gaining employee’s trust.

Bring Transparency to Reward and Recognitions Processes

5. Offer a Better Career Path to the Employees

The employee performance appraisal system is a great tool to harvest future leaders. The modern performance management is leaning towards more contextual analysis rather only measuring the quantity of the work. The employee performance appraisal system help managers to implement contextual performance measurement techniques and enable them to include both the quality of the work and the quantity of the work in the evaluation process. Furthermore the performance appraisal system also help businesses effectively analyze the skills, technical competencies and the behavioral competencies which help them determine the exact value of an individual employee. The employee performance appraisal system can also be integrated with the accounts and help HR department with cost-accounting appraisal processes. It is extremely important for an organization to determine the exact value of individual employee and then propose them right career path to keep increasing their potential and talent. When the employees are provided with the right opportunities they grow, when they grow they become more beneficial for their organization. This require highly accurate performance data and in-depth analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of each individual employee which is only possible with a digital employee performance appraisal system.

Offer a Better Career Path to the Employees

6. Improve HR Efficiency

The performance appraisal either annual or interim is one of the most important function of the HR department. It requires a lot of resources, efforts, planning and time. The primary function of the HR department is to select the right talent for the business, retain employees, ensure employee satisfaction to maximize the outcome and keep filling the skill gap in the organization’s talent pool. These all tasks require a lot of in-depth understanding of the workforce and individual employee. The digital performance appraisal system not only help HR department achieve their organizational goals, but it also facilitates all these processes and make the appraisal more simpler and easier this it help boosting the efficiency of the HR department. It is the employee performance appraisal process that generates the right data to let HR understand what talent and skills they have and what is missing or what can be added to further boost the productivity of the business. Without accurate performance data the HR’s decisions could be risky and might failed to generate the desired outcome. That is why the employee performance appraisal system is absolutely essential for the HR in modern work environments in 2022.

Improve HR Efficiency

7. Improve the Efficacy of the Training and Development Programs

The training and personal development or employee development programs are crucial for any business. They are expensive and it requires a lot time and efforts to develop an effective training and employee development program. The employee performance appraisal system not only provide the required information and performance data that help HR to design most effective training and personal development programs but it also help the HR to further analyze and evaluate their training and development programs. The HR departments can complete several appraisal and performance cycles to reach to a conclusive decision for these programs. This means that it also require a lot of resources and time. Once the HR department have designed an employee training and development program they can measure the efficacy by simply conducting another appraisal after those programs to measure the effects. The performance data will provide highly accurate results which will help determining the efficacy of these programs. The HR department can further tweak and upgrade those programs to generate the desired outcome. That is why the employee performance appraisal system is so crucial for organizations.

Improve the Efficacy of the Training and Development Programs

8. Reduce Employee Turnover

The employee turnover is one of the most impactful factor at enterprise and organizational performance. The HR department have invested a lot of efforts and resources to hire an employee, then the business will also have to bear the retention cost. Usually the HR can successfully target the right talent but the problems come when the HR will have to retain those highly-talented and ambitious employees. Most of the time the organization failed to retain those highly valuable and talented employees. There could be so many reasons why employee leave but most common is the lack of appreciation, acknowledgement, engagement and future score at the job. The employee performance appraisal system help the HR to solve employees’ problem and fulfill their needs which help reducing the employee turnover. When the employees are happy and satisfied with their current position they are most likely to stay. The employee satisfaction can be achieved by gaining their trust, appreciating them for their efforts and helping them out when they are not performing well. The employee performance appraisal system help streamline the communication, it improves the employee satisfaction and engagements, it improves communication and help HR to understand the needs and problems of the employees. Which help HR to take actions to retain employees and prevent unwanted disruptions in the performance.

Reduce Employee Turnover

Conclusion

The UAE is a rapidly growing economy and a very competitive marketplace, the businesses and organizations need performance appraisal system to maximize their productivity and profitability. In the year 2022 we have witnessed a huge increase in the adaptation of the modern performance management methods and digital employee performance appraisal systems. This is an indicator of how important it is for the modern work environment. No matter how expensive and advanced IT infrastructure an organization builds, or how modern and effective solutions they have acquired for their daily operations, if the employee are not performing well then everything else is just worthless. That is why the businesses emphasize a lot on performance appraisal systems. The traditional appraisal systems have already failed the business and organizations in UAE and in fact all around the world. The employees and the managers both are rapidly losing faith in the traditional appraisal methods and practices all around the world. This requires businesses to adopt a modern and highly advanced employee performance appraisal system.

The employee appraisal system is a digital tool it helps businesses set up most effective goals and also enable them to communicate these goals effectively to the employees. It help monitoring the employee performance in real-time hence make managers more ready and prepared for interruptions and unprecedented scenarios. It help improving the evaluation practices and provide highly accurate performance data which help the HR and the management to take informed and effective decisions. The modern performance appraisal system also help organizations to reduce the cost of the appraisal process and make it very simple so much so that the businesses who have implemented a digital performance appraisal system can conduct performance appraisal activities many times a year. It also help businesses to adopt modern appraisal practices such as in-depth contextual based performance reviews and support them to boost the skills and performance of the employees over the time. RSI Concepts is a leading employee performance appraisal system provider in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject of if you want our help to build a highly efficiency and cost-effective customized employee performance appraisal system for you. Please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

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