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How to Use Performance Management Systems for Leadership Development

Performance management means improving the operational performance, productivity, customer service, quality of products, and overall profitability of a business. A right performance management approach can gain a great competitive advantage and help businesses sustain long-term growth. A performance management system is a combination of software application, analytical tools and strategy which provides a comprehensive framework to align individual performance with high-level organization goals and strategic objectives. Traditionally the performance management system relies on annual reviews or biannual reviews, however, the modern performance management systems offer continuous performance management.

In-depth performance data collection, KPIs, OKRs, SMART Goals management and various other intuitive tool to facilitate the performance management process. For any organization the primary goal of implementing a performance management system is to make improvements in both individuals as well as internal processes and workflows. The leadership is crucial for the efficiency and productivity. A modern performance management system comes with specialized tools that help businesses elevate employees based on their true potential, talent and commitment. Businesses who have internal mechanism to produce business leaders tend to perform well.

High-performing employees who are working for an organization for years with flawless record, have great potential to become a good leader. However, it is very hard to identify such individuals. This is where a performance management system steps in. In this blog we will discuss how businesses can leverage the modern performance management system to produce new leaders and high-performing employees.

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

How to Use Performance Management Systems for Leadership Development
How to Use Performance Management Systems for Leadership Development

Role of Performance Management in Leadership Development

For any healthy and high-performing organizational culture, the leadership plays a crucial role. The leadership is responsible for building strategies overcoming shortfalls and mitigating problems. The strong leadership not only effectively implement company’s policies but also guide workforce and help them achieve their goals and objectives. Good business leader also keep the employees engaged and reduce the employee turnover rate. A modern performance management system consists of software tools and modern strategies which provide a structured framework and well-organized mechanisms to nurture talent and groom high-performing employees to become new leaders.

A performance management system help businesses unlock the true potential of the employees, it keep them engaged, address their pain points, provide them opportunities and help building effective development plans. The performance management system help fostering a culture of continues improvement, learning and engagement which help improving employees’ potential.

See Also: The Impact of Performance Management on Organizational Culture

Role of Performance Management in Leadership Development
Role of Performance Management in Leadership Development

Every business grows and evolves on a different pace, this eventually develop a unique business identity which not only reflects on their products and services, but it also shape the internal business processes, workflows and overall organizational culture. Here are some key advantages of a modern performance management system which businesses can utilize to identify high-performing talent and groom them to be able to work in corresponding leadership roles:

Goal Setting and Leadership Development

The goal setting is one of the most crucial process of the performance management. The employees should be provided with the clear and achievable goals. For example, the SMART framework which means Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound. This approach helps employee understand what is to be expected from them and on top of that the performance management system also facilitate communication, continuous feedbacks, and employee engagement tools. These tools help businesses to closely monitor the efficiency, team management skills, and decision making abilities and learning abilities.

This also help businesses course correct, and take timely actions which ensure employee perform well. The performance management system also provides tools which help businesses identify the obstacles, and perform contextual and predictive analysis which further help understanding employee potential and enable businesses to build effective learning and development plans.

See Also: Linking Performance Management to Business Outcomes

Goal Setting and Leadership Development
Goal Setting and Leadership Development

Continuous Feedback: A Key to Leadership Development

The continuous feedback is a crucial part of a modern performance management system. It helps businesses engage employees more frequently through a structured feedback framework. The digital tools also enable businesses to record one-to-one meetings and feedbacks which further improve the quality of review. The regular feedbacks also help employees understand their strengths and weaknesses and provide them vital guide from managers and seniors to improve their performance. Regular interaction with supervisors, managers and senior management is crucial for employees aspiring to take leadership roles.

The continuous feedback help employees to adjust their behaviors, improve their professional competencies and stay aligned with the organizational goals and objectives. The digital performance management system also ensures transparency and accuracy which help building employees trust and it also improves decision making processes.

See Also: What is Continuous Performance Management? Complete Guide!

Continuous Feedback: A Key to Leadership Development
Continuous Feedback: A Key to Leadership Development

360 Degree Feedback Help Improving Leadership Skills

The traditional performance management system fell short at feedback, as these systems only rely on the annual or biannual reviews and doesn’t have any room for 360 degree feedbacks. For employees who are either aiming to work on leadership role or have potential to become future leader, can leverage the 360 degree feedbacks. The 360 degree feedback is a tool to collect feedback on a much wider spectrum. Modern performance management systems offer intuitive tools to collect and analyze the 360 degree feedback.

The 360 degree feedback is not limited to reviews from managers, but it also includes feedback from peers, managers, seniors, customers, suppliers, cross-team peers and managers and any other relevant person. This is very important for future leaders as the 360 degree feedback helps them to understand how other perceive their leadership skills. It also help them understand and improve their professional, behavioral competencies, communication and management skills.

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

360 Degree Feedback Help Improving Leadership Skills
360 Degree Feedback Help Improving Leadership Skills

Impactful Training, Learning and Development Programs

The traditional performance management system are perceived as accountability mechanisms. Because the traditional performance management majorly focuses only on assessing and evaluating employee efficiency, productivity and their contribution in the high-level organizational goals. This is where the modern performance management system tend to be much superior and conventional approach. The modern performance management system not only focuses on accountability and evaluation but it also deeply focuses on developing and designing learning, development, and skill building programs for the employees.

With the AI-powered advanced analytical tool businesses can not only accurately identify the strengths and weaknesses of the employees but they can also evaluate their current skill building, learning and development programs to make them more beneficial for the employees which eventually results in making more high-performing and skilled managers.

See Also: Employee Performance Management Process with PMS

Impactful Training, Learning and Development Programs
Impactful Training, Learning and Development Programs

Tracking Leadership Development and Identifying Right Leaders

The modern performance management systems are a combination of integrated software application and modernized performance management strategies. These solutions can autonomously monitor and track various KPIs with ability to track both standard and customized KPIs. These tools provide businesses ability to specifically track skills which are associated with the relevant leadership role as per employee’s qualifications, job role, technical skills and experience. This help businesses set expectations and identify the right talent for the leadership position. Businesses can also identify any disruption in progressing employees and can take steps to enhance their performance and learning skills.

The modern performance management systems not only offer leadership competencies assessment but also help businesses identify the employees with great talent and potential to become leaders in future. The higher management can easily identify the employees who consistently meet or exceed their goals, and show development in their leadership skills such as problem-solving, communication, critical decision-making and collaboration with various other technical and behavioral KPIs.

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

Tracking Leadership Development and Identifying Right Leaders
Tracking Leadership Development and Identifying Right Leaders

Conclusion

Businesses operating in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and all around the UAE are well aware of the highly competitive market landscape and ever increasing customer demands. This demands form businesses to effectively utilize the resources in hand to be able to achieve higher productivity. The human resource is one of the most crucial factor in any business’s success. No matter how much you invest in your production facilities, equipment, IT infrastructure and marketing, if their workforce is not up-to-the-mark then they can never achieve their goals and objectives. Therefore businesses tend to utilize various different types of performance management systems.

A performance management system is a complete framework which monitors employee performance, allow businesses to set and communicate goals with employees and then at the end of performance cycle it helps them in appraisal and various other HR tasks. However, as the technology tend to develop and the market trends tend to evolve the business practices also keep on evolving and changing to meet their needs. The performance management system has also evolved a lot, the modern performance management systems are much more complex and sophisticated, aided by AI-powered software application and advanced data analytical tools.

A modern performance management system not only help businesses implement the modern performance management strategies and methodologies but it also makes performance management much more efficient, cost-effective, accurate and impactful. The leadership development is one of the integral part of the performance management. A modern performance management system provides a multitude of features such as continuous feedback, digital dashboards, real-time monitoring, KPIs, OKRs, 360 degree reviews, and structured approach to collect and analyze performance data. This help businesses identify the high-performing talent and enable them to specifically monitor and groom the leadership competencies of employees.

In this blog we have discussed how businesses can use the modern performance management system for leadership development. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to design and implement a bespoke digital performance management system for your business or organization, 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 Customize Performance Management System?

See Also: 5 Performance Management Problems and How to Solve Them

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


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

The performance appraisal is a crucial aspect of performance management, businesses are proactively seeking ways to maximize their performance. Traditionally the performance appraisal is a once in a year exercise associated with a lot of paper work, yearly meetings, and little bit of frustration. Both the managers and employees felt the pressure during the appraisal process. However, things have changed rapidly, businesses have started adopting more modern and advanced performance appraisals systems to boost the performance and employee engagements. Since past decade we have witnessed a wide-scale adoption of modern performance appraisal methods and systems all around the world.

Businesses in UAE are also rapidly adopting to modern performance management trends. In this blog we will discuss how a modern performance management system can greatly elevate your performance management process. The modern software-based performance management systems digitalize the process, offer advanced data collection tools, and boost employee engagements and satisfaction. The modern workforce have different priorities and require a completely different performance management approach. This is why the traditional annual reviews and performance appraisal systems are failing, compelling businesses to embrace the innovation and automation.

The Future of Performance Appraisals Innovations and Changes
The Future of Performance Appraisals Innovations and Changes

The Evolution of the Performance Appraisal System

The traditional performance appraisal system focuses on annual reviews majorly focused on hierarchal feedbacks, which proven to be ineffective for the modern workforce. The major reasons of its failure are the revolutionary change in the workforce behavior alongside rapid and sudden changes in the business landscape. Businesses started realizing that they need a more frequent and continuous performance assessment framework which is very responsive and it aligns with the modern workforce mindset. Now a days businesses are more focused on continuous feedback and real-time assessments which led to real-time development and improvements.

See Also: Why Organizations need Performance Appraisal System in UAE

Moreover the one-size-fits-all approach also faded away, as businesses have realized that this method is no longer fruitful. Instead of that businesses started adopting personalized and robust assessment methodologies that are flexible and harmonious with individual employee needs and goals. Instead of appraisals being an annual event the modern performance appraisal system offers a bi-weekly or monthly assessments and a continuous feedback framework which keeps employee engaged and promote a highly collaborative and highly efficiency development system. The regular check-ins are a great way to discuss ongoing progress, give constructive feedback and align employees with organizational goals and objectives.

The Evolution of the Performance Appraisal System
The Evolution of the Performance Appraisal System

1. The Blend of Modern Strategies and Technology

The technology is the backbone of the modern performance appraisal system, it completely revamped the entire process making it more efficiency and effective. A technology infused performance appraisal system is built around a performance appraisal software or performance management software (PMS). From integration of AI (artificial intelligence) and smart analytical algorithms to advanced real-time data collection tools, businesses are embracing the power of technology to elevate performance appraisal process which ensures highest levels of efficiency and accuracy. The modern performance appraisal systems offer intuitive online platform where the both managers and employees can access to the relevant performance data in real-time enabling them to take actions, when and wherever needed.

See Also: Characteristics of a Good Employee Appraisal System

These tools can greatly enhance the efficiency and eliminate the tedious paperwork from the process. Businesses can not only automate several administrative tasks but they can also get real-time updated data to understand various employee performance trends and deeper insight. This insight helps them identifying the area of improvements and taking timely actions to keep everyone on track towards achieving high-level organizational goals and objectives. Furthermore the modern performance appraisal system software are super-accessible, employees and managers both can access the system from online or even via their mobile phones. The self-assessment tools, advanced skill development modules and accurate KPIs can significantly improve the accuracy, efficiency and impact of the system.

The Blend of Modern Strategies and Technology
The Blend of Modern Strategies and Technology

2. Shift towards Continuous Feedback and Focus on Employee Alignment

The traditional performance appraisal system lacks two major and most crucial factors, one is frequency of the feedbacks, in fact it only has once a year feedback and assessment system and the other most important aspect is the inefficient and ineffective approach towards employee alignment with their individual goals and in long term towards the high level organizational goals and objectives. The traditional annual reviews and feedbacks are prone to develop a gap and disconnect between the employees and the managers which results in delays in feedbacks and actions. Once a year feedback couldn’t course correct and align employees with their goals, however, the course correction and addressing to performance hindering issues is required in real-time.

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

The bloodline of performance management and main objective of appraisal process is to align individual employee’s goals with high-level organizational strategic objectives. The annual appraisal reviews and feedback lacks this connection which results in disengagement of employees from the high-level strategic goals and objectives. This requires intense communication and a strong bond between the managers and the employees. A modern performance management system promotes communication, continuous feedback and give ownership to employees boosting engagements and cultivating a culture of collaboration, communication and collective growth. The modern performance appraisal system ensures every employees clearly understand their goals, success parameters, and how their goals and work will contributes to the higher-level organizational goals and strategic objectives.

Shift towards Continuous Feedback and Focus on Employee Alignment
Shift towards Continuous Feedback and Focus on Employee Alignment

3. Shift from Fixing the Weakness towards Focusing on Strength and Development

The primary focus of the modern day performance appraisal system is not focusing only on the past performance but it also has to be a catalyst for the growth, development and improvements in the future. Now a day’s businesses are more focused on employee development and retention. This help businesses gradually grow their workforce and skillset to build strength which drive performance and efficiency. Another most important and impactful advantage of the resent day employee appraisal system is to give ownership to the employees and empower them to shape their development journey. This system gives employee power, resources, support and tools to build strength, identify their weaknesses and focus on learning and continuous development.

See Also: Modern Methods of Performance Appraisal

Businesses need to build and retain a skillful workforce that can improve operational efficiency and help businesses achieve their goals and drive long-term sustainable success. The managers can leverage the inbuilt advanced tools to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the individual employees with contextual performance insights. This insight is crucial in further enhancing the employee’s skills to make them more productive and fruitful for the organization. This also help businesses and HR leaders to take informed investment decisions in development programs which help businesses build a resilient workforce which ensures high-quality products/services and satisfactory customer experience.

Shift from Fixing the Weakness towards Focusing on Strength and Development
Shift from Fixing the Weakness towards Focusing on Strength and Development

4. Flexibility and Data-Driven Insights

In today’s modern market landscape businesses have to be very vigilant and proactive towards the rapid market changes emerging needs. This demand agile performance appraisal and data collection system which is flexible enough to enable businesses to make instant adjustments. This helps businesses align with the emerging needs and help them to be more responsive towards rapidly changing market trends. This is only possible when the business leaders and managers have highly accurate performance data and critical insights which help management identify trends, correlations and patterns which help making more accurate and informed strategic decision to improve the performance.

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

Furthermore the performance appraisal system is a software based solution which enable businesses to customize their performance management system to accommodate their unique business needs and to deal with unique challenges they face. The ability to customize the performance parameters, goals, KPIs, and even the entire framework help management proactively take actions to respond to the rapidly evolving trends, customer demands, and needs. This also prepare businesses to deal with unprecedented and unexpected situation while minimizing or eliminating the disruptions. Whether it is adjusting to the goals, assessment criteria, feedback and review process or integration of the new technologies, the inherent flexibility and customization of the performance appraisal system helps businesses deal with challenges with no or minimum disruption in progress.

Flexibility and Data-Driven Insights
Flexibility and Data-Driven Insights

5. Performance Beyond Numbers – Accountability with Transparency

Traditionally the performance appraisal was focused on KPIs and achievements, lacking contextual analysis and behavioral competencies. However, the modern performance appraisal system is measuring performance beyond numbers, and recognizing the importance of accountability with highest transparency. Businesses have realized that achieving goals is important but there are several other personality traits and qualities which also plays a crucial role in overall performance as well as fostering a high-performing and engaging organizational culture. Here are a few most important qualities:

  • Teamwork and Collaboration: Today’s work environment demand higher collaboration and teamwork in order to effectively achieve the strategic objectives.
  • Adoptability: Today’s market landscape is driven by technology and the technology evolves rapidly furthermore the customer demands and market trends are also subjected to change quickly, therefore it is crucial for an employee to be able to adopt to emerging changes.
  • Ethics and Responsibility: A modern day employees should have to be ethically strong and they should exhibit exceptional ability to take ownership, responsibility and initiatives. This will make them a valuable asset for the organization.
  • Creativity and Innovation: Businesses are always facing challenges either with emerging needs, or rapid advancement in the industry, therefore an employee with higher level of problem solving skills and a creative and innovative mindset to bring new ideas to the table.

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

The KPIs, OKRs, and the evaluation based on above qualities and other such qualities will help businesses and organizations to build a performance appraisal framework which can precisely evaluate the true potential and abilities of an employee.

The accountability and transparency is the soul of an employee performance appraisal system. This is also one of the biggest reason why business leaders and organizations are adopting to modern performance appraisal system and methodologies. The traditional performance appraisal system lacks transparency and is prone to biased evaluation furthermore the insufficient performance data also hinder the transparency and cause lack of trust on the system. The employees are more concerned about transparency, fair evaluation, clear evaluation criteria, performance expectations and clarity in goal and objectives. This is only possible with modern performance appraisal system, continuous feedback, 360 degree feedbacks, customizable performance dashboards, and various other advanced analytical and data collection tools to promote fair accountability and transparency in the system.

See Also: The Role of Performance Management in Employee Engagement

Performance Beyond Numbers – Accountability with Transparency
Performance Beyond Numbers – Accountability with Transparency

6. More Focus on Reward and Recognition

The employee motivation is one of the most crucial factor contributing to the entire performance of the organization. If the employees are rewarded for their performance and their achievements are adequately recognized and well-appreciated, they tend to perform better. A regular annual raise or bonuses are not enough, businesses are finding more creative ways to reward and recognize their employees such as:

  • Public Recognition: Public recognition is one of the best way adopted by modern organizations to appreciate their employees. When employees are appreciated publicly either in marketing, social media, newsletter or internal meetings, it will not only boost their morale but it will also result in inspiring and motivating others.
  • Development Opportunities: The learning and development opportunities are a great way to raise employee retention and to boost employee skills which eventually contributes to improving performance. Employees who doesn’t found enough learning and development opportunities they feel their growth is limited and are tend to leave the organization.
  • Fair Reward Process: Fairness in the reward process is crucial, the employee who is rewarded must know on what criteria he or she is rewarded and the other employees must also know what he or she did exceptionally which make them eligible for this particular reward. The fairness and transparency is crucial for keeping everyone’s morale high.

See Also: What are the Features of a Best Performance Management System?

The fair and transparent reward and recognition program can greatly benefit both employees and the business by fostering a culture of appreciation and encouragement. Furthermore the modern employee performance appraisal system provides a systematic framework for communication which helps employees understanding their goals, business’s expectations, performance criteria and it is also very helpful in strengthening the relationship between the managers and employees which itself is a great way to increase employee engagements and boost the organizational performance.

More Focus on Reward and Recognition
More Focus on Reward and Recognition

Conclusion

Traditionally the employee performance appraisal process comes with a lot of paperwork, efforts, and some frustration as well. Furthermore the traditional performance appraisal system also fell short of meeting the modern need of performance management and the accuracy of the process is also questionable. Therefore businesses are now adopting to modern performance management and appraisal practices alongside software aided solutions. The modern performance appraisal system comes with a comprehensive software application which not only digitalize the process but also help automating it and offer many additional benefits which enable businesses to conduct more frequent evaluations, even project-based evaluation and bi-weekly assessments are also effectively done through it.

The modern performance appraisal system offer continuous feedback loop, communication framework, goals and objective setting facility, highly accurate KPIs monitoring tools, real-time performance data collection, personalized assessment methodologies, and specialized tools to focus on reward and recognition while boosting transparency, accuracy and efficiency. Furthermore the modern performance appraisal system also focus on higher employee alignment with organizational goals and strategic objectives. This helps businesses achieve their long-term goals and sustainable success.

Furthermore the modern performance appraisal system also focus on fostering highly collaborative organizational culture which not only boost communication but also help businesses keep employees more engaged and proactive. Businesses also want to achieve higher employee retention which is only possible when the organizations are able to identify the areas of improvements, employee problems, their needs and expectations. In this blog we have discussed how the future of performance appraisal will look like in the coming years. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to design and deploy a modern and customized employee performance appraisal system exclusively designed to meet your unique business need, 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 Performance Management Impact on Organization’s Culture?


Customizing Performance Management Systems for Diverse Workforces

In today’s dynamic market landscape where the competition is rising and the customer demands are rapidly changing, businesses need to leverage the full potential of whatever resources thay have in hand to gain competitive advantage and to achieve a steady growth. The UAE is a very diverse society, businesses operating in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and other regions of the country knows that very well.

Hence hiring a diverse team is common, however, business leaders and HR often doesn’t realize that recruiting people from multiple cultural and technical background is not enough, in fact in order to leverage the full potential and all skills of their multi-cultural and diverse workforce, businesses must have to integrate this to the very core of their performance management process.

When the performance management process will be optimized to manage diverse workforces, everyone will feel valued. Employees who feel valued tend to perform well and it this also help reducing the employee turnover. Performance management is a systematic approach involving processes, strategies, and analysis which ensures every employee perform well, their progress is measured towards their goals and their goals are weigh as per their contribution in the high-level organizational goals and strategic objectives.

For that businesses use a digital performance management system which provides a comprehensive framework to streamline performance management processes. In this blog we will discuss how a customized performance management system can transform your performance management process for your diverse workforce.

Customizing Performance Management Systems for Diverse Workforces
Customizing Performance Management Systems for Diverse Workforces

Understanding the Digital Performance Management System

Before we discuss the importance of customizing a performance management system for diverse workforces, it is important to understand what is a modern digital performance management system? A modern day’s digital performance management system is a digital tool which provides a complete framework to ensure that employee’s performance is fully aligned with the organizational goals.

It also help unlocking the true potential of the workforce, and help forming cross-functional and high-performing teams which lead to operational excellence. The performance management system majorly includes planning, goals setting, performance monitoring, evaluations, development and acknowledgement process.

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

Here are the key components of a digital performance management system:

  1. Goal Setting: Setting up clear and realistic goals for employees, teams and different business functions which are aligned with the high-level organizational goals and strategic objectives. Modern performance management systems often utilize SMART Goals framework.
  2. Continuous Feedback: Cultivating a culture of continuous feedback where employees are evaluated periodically, given coaching, and their goals are aligned with organizational goals. This help identifying areas of improvement, setting up plans and acknowledging the achievements.
  3. Periodic Evaluation: Annual reviews are not as that effective anymore. Modern performance management systems include periodic evaluation and assessment to measure employee progress towards pre-set goals and established performance benchmarks.
  4. Aligning with Organizational Goals: One of the most crucial function of a digital performance management system is that it helps aligning the individual and teams’ goals with the high-level strategic goals and objectives of the organization to boost productivity.
  5. Employee Engagements: A digital performance management system provides a systematic approach to integrate employees in important performance management tasks, fostering a culture of collaboration, accountability and engagement.
  6. Employee Development: Performance management system helps HR and manager to create and provide right opportunities to the employees to enhance their skills and to elevate their potential through regular training, coaching, and mentoring and technical development programs.
  7. Recognition and Rewards: Recognizing high-performer and acknowledging their contribution by offering incentives, bonuses, promotions or other form of benefits. This will help raising their loyalty and it will also boost the morale of the entire team.
  8. Performance Improvement: There should be a framework to improve the performance of those employees who failed to achieve their goals. The digital performance management system offers tools to setup and modify goals, take actions, set timelines for the improvements.
  9. Statistical and Analytical Data Tools: The managers can utilize in-built data capturing and analytical tools to understand performance patterns, trends and identify the areas of improvement to make informed decisions.
  10. Continuous Enhancement: A digital performance management system provides integrated tools which help businesses continuously evaluate their performance management strategy and make enhancements to ensure higher impact and efficiency.

See Also: The Impact of Performance Management on Organizational Culture

A digital performance management system is a very powerful and effective strategic tool that can help businesses and organizations to continuously improve their performance, productivity and profitability by fostering a highly engaging organizational culture where employees feel connected, empowered and are provided with suitable opportunities to enhance their technical and behavioral competencies.

Understanding the Digital Performance Management System
Understanding the Digital Performance Management System

How Businesses can customize the Performance Management System for Diverse Workforce?

Businesses in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and all around the UAE are facing bigger challenges with managing diverse workforce. When it comes to workforce diversity, there are several factors that should be considered, for example, here in UAE a large population of expats is living, the government itself is encouraging to diversify workforce to have an inclusive culture. People coming from different backgrounds, countries, cultures and ethnicities, furthermore we also have generational difference too.

The new workforce who belongs to Gen Z. is more tech savvy, have different customs and expectations, the people from Millennial and Generation X have different customs and expectations. When an organization is hiring they need different level to experience, qualifications, and in today’s modern world, the technology also plays a crucial role, hence an organization has to diversify their workforce, which is a great and very positive thing, it helps building strong and productive culture.

See Also: What are the Features of a Best Performance Management System?

Why Customizing Performance Management System is Important?

A one-size-fits-all approach to performance management overlooked the unique strengths, challenges, and contribution made by an individual in a diverse workforce. Customizing performance management system will help businesses enhance their capabilities to collect and analyze contextual performance data with superior efficiency and efficacy. A performance management system that doesn’t include cultural factors tend to be ineffective or in some cases it could hinder and harm the performance of the organization.

Cultural and behavioral understanding help managers understand how their certain actions and feedback could be perceived by the employees. This will influence the way how employee interpret goals and objectives, and how they would interact in a team. Understanding all these factors is extremely important in order to ensure the employees remain fully aligned with the high-level strategic objectives while participating effectively in their team goals and also perform well for their individual goals.

See Also: 5 Performance Management Problems and How to Solve Them

Why Customizing Performance Management System is Important?
Why Customizing Performance Management System is Important?

Before Customization Identifying Key Performance Metrics is Crucial

Before customizing the performance management system it is extremely important to identify the key performance metrics. These key performance metrics should be aligned with the high-level organizational goals and objectives to ensure the entire workforce will progress towards achieving them. This will also help you defining the success incorporating the performance criteria for productivity, performance, quality of work, customer satisfaction, leadership, coaching and training, and professional development.

When clear and easy-to-understand criteria are established it is relatively easier to communicate goals, expectations and feedback. With a diverse workforce the biggest challenge is always with communication and feedback, when clear KPIs are set, the goals and objectives are easier to communicate and understand. Furthermore when the employees are given tools for self-evaluation they can easily understand feedback and are able to evaluate and assess their performance against their goals.

See Also: Performance Management System: Best Practices

Before Customization Identifying Key Performance Metrics is Crucial

Before Customization Identifying Key Performance Metrics is Crucial

Establishing Effective Communication Channels

The customization of a performance management system begins with establishing highly effective communication channels. Communication is a key to a successful implementation of a performance management system. The communication should be both understandable and quick. The organizations must build clear and easy-to-understand resources, guidelines and instructions which will help all groups of employee to understand the performance management system and evaluation processes along with the expectations of the performance management process. This will help connecting them and integrating them within the process.

Providing open, transparent and easy communication channels can greatly enhance communication and employee engagements. Every HR and business leader knows the importance of employee engagement, and the communication is a key to enhance engagements. This will help employee to take feedback, share their concerns openly, and it will help managers building trust which boost the impact of the performance management system in a diverse workforce.

See Also: How Performance Management Impact on Organization’s Culture?

Establishing Effective Communication Channels
Establishing Effective Communication Channels

Providing Continuous Feedback and Coaching to Build Trust

The diverse workforce doesn’t mean management difficulties, but it means there could be many complementary and unexplored sets of skills and strengths in every employee of the workforce. The HR and business leader have to explore those skills to leverage them to boost their employee’s potential. A digital performance management system typically offers continuous feedback and review framework which is essential for understanding the hidden strengths and also the areas of improvements.

This will help managers unlocking the true potential of the employees while discouraging stereotyping and any type of bias. A perfectly designed performance management system provides transparency and fairness which help gaining employee’s trust. When the differentiation of class, ethnicity, cultural background, and gender is neutralized, the employees feel more equal, important and valued. This raise their loyalty and encourage them to perform better.

See Also: Employee Performance Management Process with PMS

Providing Continuous Feedback and Coaching to Build Trust
Providing Continuous Feedback and Coaching to Build Trust

Culturally Sensitive Feedback and Communication Tone

Throughout the performance management processes there could be various interactions and reviews along with constant communication and feedback between the managers and the employees. It is extremely important to drive methods and way to include cultural sensitivity in all communications. A certain word or wording could be acceptable by one culture and could be disrespectful or considered blunt by another. Hence all feedbacks and communications are revamped to make them more culturally sensitive.

This also doesn’t mean that you should dilute your message, but it means conveying the right message in right tone which is both understandable and acceptable by the recipient. Businesses must have to train their HR and managers to enhance their cross-cultural competencies to ensure higher employee satisfactions. For example, in some cultures directness is appreciated and in some it is considered somewhat rudeness, hence a well-trained manager could ensure all employees are happy and satisfied while the message is conveyed effectively.

See Also: What is Continuous Performance Management? Complete Guide!

Culturally Sensitive Feedback and Communication Tone
Culturally Sensitive Feedback and Communication Tone

Customized Performance Reviews and Contextual Data

Most of the performance management systems have a standard employee feedback reviews mechanisms, totally disregarding any aspect of cultural background, individual challenges, and contextual data. Flexibility is a key when you are customizing performance management system for a diverse workforce. A digital performance management system is exceptional at offering such flexibilities and customizations. It is also important to include employee feedback and consider it too.

Regular and continuous feedback is a great tool to establish a strong relationship with diverse workforce, this will give your employees a chance to share their opinion, concerns and feedback. Regular interactions also help building a productive and positive environment which boost morale and encourage employees to seek solutions of their challenges. Because with diverse workforce, every employee also comes with their set of roadblocks and challenges. A flexible performance management system can help dealing with all these aspects of performance management.

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

Customized Performance Reviews and Contextual Data
Customized Performance Reviews and Contextual Data

Conclusion

UAE is a country where diversity is celebrated on an unparalleled scale to any other nation, the large population of the country is based on expats coming from all around the world. In such a dynamic marketplace where any business could have employees coming from a lot many different ethnic and cultural background, the customization of the performance management system is not something that is trendy, but it is something that is an absolute necessity. A tailor-made performance management system designed to account for versatile backgrounds, cultures, religions, ethnicities and age groups could be a game changer for a business.

Businesses can unlock the true potential of their employees by embracing their uniqueness, exploring their unique sets of strengths and dealing with their exclusive problems and challenges. A performance management system customized for a diverse workforce ensures every employee feel empowered, valued and engaged within the process which led to higher performance and better communication between the managers and the employees.

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

In a multi-cultural UAE landscape businesses embrace diversity, it help fostering unique skills and a competent workforce. HR and business leaders always struggle with managing performance that is because of the lack of understanding and focus on diversity and managing a diverse workforce. A digital performance management system customized for your tailored business needs can greatly enhance productivity and operational efficiency which is a key to higher profitability and long term success.

In this blog we have discussed various crucial aspects of customizing performance management system for diverse workforces, if you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to implement a culturally sensitive digital performance management system for your diverse workforce, 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: 5 Challenges in implementing Performance Management System


Performance Management Trends in the Digital Era

In the era where digitalization is reshaping each and every aspect of our work and personal life, the performance management systems stand at forefront of business transformation. Performance management is a framework which provides a systematic approach to monitor and improve the performance of any organization. The workforce of any business or organization is its core strength, if your workforce is performing at its best you can produce more and high quality outcome by investing less resources. Think of the employees at a customer service center, one employee is able to serve 45 customers in a shift whereas another is only able to serve 20 – 25 customers a day.

How would this impact your operational cost? The performance management not only streamline human resource processes, but it also help enhancing employee productivity and satisfaction. Businesses operating in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and other regions of UAE are well aware of the fact that the employee retention is one of the biggest challenge of modern day business landscape. The high employee turnaround causes a lot many problems and indicates even more problems.

Therefore in order to keep your workforce engaged and to offer them a productive organizational culture businesses turn towards modern performance management systems. A modern performance management system is a digital tool which consists of software application, analytical tools, and techniques to enhance performance and employee satisfaction. In this blog we will discuss how a modern performance management system can be game changer for your business.

Performance Management Trends in the Digital Era
Performance Management Trends in the Digital Era

What is Performance Management?

By definition, the performance management is a business process which involves continuous communication and feedback between the managers/supervisors and the employees. Traditionally the performance cycle is one year long, and at the end of each year the managers sits with the employees, interview them, get their feedback, analyze their progress towards set goals and objectives and on the bases of these feedbacks, reviews and progress manager determine how well or poorly an employee performance throughout the year. The primary goal of performance management is to align employee objectives with high-level organizational goals.

See Also: How Performance Management Impact on Organization’s Culture?

The performance management system not only aligning employee objectives with organizational goals but it also ensures that the employee develop and become more skilled while ensuring a steady and sustainable business growth. The performance management system provides tools and streamline processes which help businesses create more effective employee objectives, while utilizing a systematic approach and digital framework to closely monitor employee performance and ensure every employee achieve their goals that contributes to the high-level organizational goal and objectives.

See Also: Linking Performance Management to Business Outcomes

What is Performance Management?
What is Performance Management?

What are the Drawbacks of Traditional/Manual Performance Management?

The traditional performance management system are manual, usually following a one year long performance cycle, which means the appraisal is done at the end of very year. This process in itself is outdated, and incapable of meeting the modern needs of the businesses. However, there are several drawbacks of using traditional/manual performance management methods such as:

  1. Lack of Flexibility: The traditional performance management methods are annual or bi-annual which lacks the flexibility require to deal with dynamic job roles and frequent changes in the goals and objectives, which are crucial for course correction.
  2. Personal Bias: One of the biggest drawback of traditional/manual performance management process is that it is prone to human bias. Sometimes managers have bias towards certain employees, but most of the times employees think that their evaluation is not fair due to manager bias, hence reduced the overall fairness, accuracy and transparency of the system.
  3. Limited Feedbacks: Since the manager and the employees are not engaged throughout the year, the reviews and feedbacks are also infrequent, therefore it forms a gap between the needs and the actions hindering the improvement process and reduce the overall efficacy of the system.
  4. Lack of Employee Engagements: The employees are very less engaged in the performance management activities as most of the decisions are unilateral and employees have absolutely no or very little say over the policy making and even on their own development processes.
  5. Time-Consuming: The traditional or manual performance management process is very time consuming, majorly based on manual reviews and feedback processes involving a lot of paperwork and manual analysis. Furthermore the HR and employees both have to spare a lot of time for these activities.
  6. Unsatisfied Employees: The traditional/manual performance management system lacks the ability to satisfy employees because most of the employees and the HR leader doesn’t trust the system and are very skeptic. Poor communication, infrequent feedbacks and lack of engagement lead to further distrust and failed to satisfy employees, unsatisfied employees tend to leave sooner or later, causing more problems for the HR and the business as well.

The modern day employees wants instant gratification, they need more frequent feedback, higher contribution to the process and demand higher engagement. Which is not possible with traditional/manual performance management systems. Therefore businesses and organizations are turning toward digital performance management systems.

See Also: How to Customize Performance Management System

What are the Drawbacks of Traditional/Manual Performance Management?
What are the Drawbacks of Traditional/Manual Performance Management?

What is a Digital Performance Management System?

A digital performance management system is a technology-based solution that help businesses implement and adopt to modern performance management processes and techniques. The digital performance management systems are the latest trend in the rapidly evolving performance management sector. A business’s success very much depends on the performance of its employees, in order to boost this performance businesses implement several technologies and adopt to modern practices which help them make their employee more productive, happy and satisfied.

See Also: Customizing Performance Management Systems for Diverse Workforces

A digital performance management system not only meet the modern performance management needs, but is proven to be many times more effective and accurate from the traditional/manual performance management practices. The digital performance management systems comes with a centralized software application and customizable tools which help businesses and organizations to implement modern performance management practices as per their needs and help them boost employee productivity with better monitoring, evaluation, transparent and accurate analytical and software tools.  In this blog we will discuss the emerging performance management system features and top trends.

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

What is a Digital Performance Management System?
What is a Digital Performance Management System?

Challenges Businesses can Overcome with a Digital Performance Management System

A digital performance management system can address several challenges modern day business are facing. It provides a comprehensive framework and support tools to improve the efficacy and impact of the performance management process. Here are some common challenges of the traditional methods which modern digital performance management system can easily overcome:

  1. Continuous and Real-time Feedback: The modern digital performance management systems offer continuous and real-time feedback data. The continuous feedback and real-time data increase managers’ visibility enabling them to take timely actions and course correction.
  2. Informed Decisions: The modern performance management systems offer a variety of monitoring tools and real-time updates, enabling managers to quickly identify the obstacles and problems. Comprehensive and customizable reports enable data-driven decisions and timely actions.
  3. Digitalization and Automation: The modern performance management system comes with a highly effective performance management software which digitalized several performance management processes, making it more effective and hustle free. The digitalization also drive automation lifting up the heavy workload from the HR team and managers.
  4. Flexibility and Adoptability: Modern performance management systems heavily rely on a software tools which offers great many features and customization to make the system more flexible and adoptable. Businesses can adopt to emerging needs and changes with in-built tools in a totally seamless manner.
  5. Employee Engagement: The modern performance management system offers variety of user interfaces and dashboards for various management levels and job roles. Intuitive user interfaces engage employees in their performance management activities and also streamline communication which enhance employee satisfaction.
  6. Effective and Efficient: The digital performance management systems are more effective, thanks to the digitalization and the automation it brings along. Furthermore the in-built tools, centralized management framework, real-time monitoring and data updates make performance management process much more efficient.
  7. Higher Employee Development: The digital performance management systems offer in-depth insight to employee performance and provide advanced tools for career planning, employee development programs and skill enhancement drives. All these tools help increasing employee satisfaction and also raise retention rate.

Businesses can completely transform the way they conduct their performance management by implementing a modern digital performance management system. It is not just an upgrade to modern technology but it provides a systematic framework to gradually boost the performance and productivity enabling businesses and organizations to leverage the true potential of their workforce.

See Also: Performance Management System: Best Practices

Challenges Businesses can Overcome with a Digital Performance Management System
Challenges Businesses can Overcome with a Digital Performance Management System

How Automation and AI is Redefining the Performance Management

The Human Resource is one of the essential business function. Without a high-performing HR a business can never achieve its desired goals and objectives. A digital performance management system is a tool which not only help HR team but also aid administration and provide higher management with deep insights, better understanding of internal process, workforce capabilities and various aspects of growth and scalability. The digitalization drives automation and with the advancement of the technology and AI or Artificial Intelligence businesses are boosting their operational and functional capabilities.

The integration of digital and technology-driven tools empowered by advanced algorithms and artificial intelligence businesses can greatly boost their performance and capabilities. Traditionally the performance management is limited to annual or bi-annual reviews, paper-pen based feedback forms, subjective assessments and manual work. The modern performance management software equipped with AI and advanced analytical tools are completely reshaping the performance management.

Businesses can have real-time reporting, behavioral analysis, technical analysis, and various analysis in intuitive performance monitoring dashboards and above all the data is updated in real-time. All these features help management quickly identify and rectify problems. This ensures that each and every employee is fully aligned with the high-level organization goals and objectives.

See Also: 6 Performance Management Problems and How to Solve Them?

How Automation and AI is Redefining the Performance Management?
How Automation and AI is Redefining the Performance Management?

What are they Key Advantages of a Digital Performance Management System?

As I have mentioned above the digital performance management system can help businesses overcoming several challenges of traditional/manual performance management methods, the digital performance management system offers several benefits which further improve performance and help businesses gain a huge competitive advantage by achieving highest possible operational and administrative efficiency. Here are key advantages of a digital performance management system:

  1. Align Employees with Business Goals: Aligning employees with business goals is crucial for the success. For that the most important thing is to be able to create individual goals and objectives that positively contributes to the high-level organizational goals and objectives. It is also important to communicate those goals and objectives with at most clarity to create a purpose-driven workforce who knows what they are doing, why they are doing it and what do they will achieve by success. A digital performance management system offers specialized tools to align employees with the high-level business goals along with real-time monitoring tools to keep employee aligned with the business goals through the performance cycle.
  2. Enhanced Feedback and Reviews: There are several methods businesses use to improve the quality of the feedback and reviews. These feedback are reviews are absolutely essential for making crucial decisions and defining employees’ career path. Therefore adopting to 360 degree review or 720 degree reviews could provide a much deeper insight to employees’ performance as well as the performance of the managers and even higher management. All these features help highlighting the factors that are hindering performance and also provide valuable insight to take decisive actions and strategic decisions to rectify these problems.
  3. Better Investments in Employee Development: Businesses are investing huge amount of money and efforts in employee development programs. However, without an accurate and deeper understanding of employee’s strengths and weaknesses, the employee development programs failed to deliver desired results. The digital performance management system provides full 360 degree view of employee strengths, weaknesses and also the context of their performance. All these tools help businesses to design employee development, up-skilling and reskilling programs with much higher impact which later contributes to the overall success.
  4. Higher Focus on Contextual Performance Management: Businesses are utilizing digital performance management systems to increase their focus on the contextual performance management. The major difference between the contextual performance management and traditional performance management is that rather than focusing on regular performance metrics the contextual performance management also includes the environment conditions in which employee operates, the team dynamics, employee skillset, and even the external factors such as personal and economic conditions of the employees as well. This level of information skyrocket the accuracy, fairness and transparency of the performance management system and greatly improve employee satisfaction.
  5. Reward and Recognition: Businesses are realizing the importance of reward and recognition. It is not just the monetary gain that the employee seeks the most, but only appreciation and proper acknowledgement of their achievement could greatly increase their happiness and satisfaction. The modern performance management systems offer a comprehensive framework to design a successful reward and recognition program. Instead of one-fit-all businesses are leaning towards the personalized rewards, hence the digital performance management system makes it easier to help designing a reward and recognition program which suits employee’s expectations. The modern performance management system help management greatly boost motivation and drive performance while maintaining maximum level of engagement.

A modern performance management system is capable of boosting productivity and performance while ensuring employee satisfaction and higher retention rate. The digital performance management systems also help in recruiting, onboarding and off-boarding activities keeping the overall morale high and ensuring highest level of transparency and accuracy in the performance management system.

See Also: 5 Performance Management Problems and How to Solve Them

What are they Key Advantages of a Digital Performance Management System?
What are they Key Advantages of a Digital Performance Management System?

Conclusion

Businesses in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and all around the UAE are well aware of the importance of employee retention and employee satisfaction. Businesses are using various different performance management systems and methods to do the same. However, with the passage of time the traditional/manual performance management systems are losing their ability to make desired impact. Both managers and employees are losing trust over traditional performance management methods. Therefore business are turning towards the more modern and advanced digital performance management systems. The annual or bi-annual reviews are replaced by the more in-depth contextual performance management and continuous feedbacks. Businesses are increasing employee engagements in the decision making, goal setting and various strategically important processes. All this is possible due to the advanced capabilities and features of a digital performance management system. A centralized management framework with personalized dashboards and real-time data, businesses can effectively overcome all challenges of past. Furthermore the easy customization, flexible control integration with AI and advanced tools can greatly improve the control and visibility and help management make their performance management process more effective, impactful and fruitful.

In this blog we have discussed all major aspects of the modern performance management. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to build and implement a customized 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.