For any business the performance management is absolutely crucial. Especially in Dubai and in fact all around the UAE the markets are very competitive and the industry standards are comparatively higher comparing to any other country in GCC or MENA regions. Obviously each industry sector have different challenges however, performance management is equally important for all business and organizations. Whether you are a large enterprise or a small business achieving maximum productivity and quality of the work will help you levitate in the market. Every business is centered on its customers, the customers need high quality products and excellent services. Which can only be achieved if your employees and internal business functions are performing well. That is not all the effective performance management also help reducing the expenses and improve outcome. It also help improving resource management and planning which tend to produce high quality work and better performance. Performance management systems help businesses improve their workforce over the time and gain competitive advantage in the market.
For any performance management method the most important point is setting up goals and objectives. Setting up performance oriented goals not only ensures high performance and produce better outcome but also benefit your employees. The goals and objectives have a huge impact on employee performance, unclear and unrealistic goals not only decline performance but demotivate your employees and lower their morale. The performance management system is a digital tool based on a powerful software application which provide better employee engagement, enhance communication and help businesses effectively implement performance management strategies. Modern day performance management heavily rely on data flow and structured information. That is why the performance management system is used instead of traditional and manual methodologies. In this blog we will cover how a business whether large or small can effectively create result oriented goals to boost employee morale and achieve higher performance, productivity and profitability.
Align Employee Goals with High-level Business Goals
Each business have high-level goals and objectives that they want to achieve. The employee goals should be aligned with the high-level organizational goals. When the employees knows what the organization is wanting to achieve and what is expected from them in order to achieve those goals they tend to perform well. When the high-level goals and individual goals are communicated clearly to the employees and they know how their goals will contribute to the high-level organizational goals they understand the importance of individual goals and they get a sense of importance and value. This way the employee work with passion and focus more on their goals and objectives. Basically the employee engagement is very important to motivate them for better performance. When the business goals are communicated effectively and consistently the employee understand them and feel more connected with the business, this gives them motivation and raise their morale. The performance management system provides a complete framework to set up goals and also help managers communicating those goals to the individual employees.
Another major obstacle in improving performance is the accountability. Employees are usually not comfortable with high accountability. But when the high-level organizational goals and objectives are communicated to them and the importance of their work and performance is clear to them they can tolerate more accountability as they know how their performance can impact the overall performance of the entire organization. Usually the business goals and objectives are derived from its vision and mission. Then these goals and objectives are used as a reference point to build strategies and these strategic objectives and goals are scaled down for the teams, departments and various business functions. Then these goals and objectives are further fragmented into individual goals and objectives. This top-down approach is more effective and help communicating the high-level organizational goals and objectives to individual employee. When individual goals and objectives are perfectly aligned with high-level goals the business can achieve the desired performance objectives.
The performance management system help managers improving employee engagement and provide a variety of features that support communication between employees and managers/supervisors. Furthermore the performance management system is capable of continuously monitoring the employee performance and progress towards pre-set goals throughout the entire appraisal period. This allow managers to immediately detect any deviation from the original employee goals and let them take steps in time to correct course and align employees with the high-level organizational goals. The Performance management system offers several other features and monitoring tools which can alert managers about any discrepancies and obstacles the employee might be facing which is deviating them form the original goal. This help managers identify and rectify the problem in time and prevent any long-term negative impact on the overall performance for the entire appraisal period.
Set SMART Goals for the Employee Using Performance Management System
Setting up goals is one part of the problem, the other part is to build plan of action to achieve those goals. For that businesses tend to utilize SMART framework. The SMART framework is a method to build goals that can be tracked and achieved easily. One of the main reason of failure of an employee is poorly crafted goals. If the employee create goals for themselves they might not be able to create realistic goals, they either tend to create goals with very high outcome or either as per their own convenience. In both cases ultimately these goals will fail the employee as their performance is associated to their contribution in the high-level organizational goals and objectives. That is why the businesses tend to implement SMART goals strategy, which help them create realistic goals, made them more achievable, and enable them to build result-oriented action plans. Here is what SMART stands for:
- S: Specific
- M: Measurable
- A: Achievable
- R: Relevant/Results
- T: Time-bound
SMART Framework: Specific
It is crucial to create very specific goals that can clearly explain what is to be achieved, why it has to be achieved and how it can be achieved. When managers ask their employees they tend to get confused or gave very vague answers, which doesn’t usually specify outcome either. That is why it is crucial for the managers to set a very specific goal and outline the plan of action to achieve it. Furthermore in order to increase employee engagements and to encourage them it is also important to explain them why you would want them to achieve that goal and how it will contribute to the high-level organizational goals. It is prime responsibility of a manager to explain the employees how they can achieve their goals. In fact the managers should not only make step by step plan, but also coach them to let them be more confident and motivated in achieving their individual goals.
SMART Framework: Measurable
Each goal should be measureable or a criteria should be established to quantify the outcome. These criterions indicates the progress towards the desired goals. The measureable aspect of the SMART framework is very important as it provide a mechanism for accountability and also indicates the progress accurately towards the goal, which help keeping employees on track and keep the motivated. If employee get engaged during the goal creation process it can boost their morale and increase their motivation. The manager can also learn about their ambitions and what they want to achieve in terms of growth and progress. Furthermore the managers can discuss the goals in details and let them understand what indicators and what mechanism will be used to track their performance and what indicator will indicate their success.
SMART Framework: Achievable
A specific and measureable goals should also be achievable so that the employee can realistically improve their progress to achieve it. This can be done by closely analyzing the capabilities and competencies of the employee. Managers can also check their previous performance and they should also discuss it with the employees as well. Most of the time managers and employees both don’t consider the possible obstacles or limitation that can prevent them from achieving the goal. It is crucial to understand the limitation and obstacles that an employee is facing or could face while working to achieve their goals. This will make goals more realistic and achievable. When employees are given achievable goals they tend to perform well, as they understand they can achieve it and in case if they have to work harder, they don’t hesitate. If the goals are over-complicated or doesn’t look achievable, most of the employees lose hope immediately and doesn’t even try to achieve them.
SMART Framework: Relevant
The SMART Framework encourages managers to create relevant goals that are not only relevant to the high-level organizational goals but also relevant to the employees as well. This way the employees can understand the importance of the goal and they can also understand the benefits for them in achieving that goal. This also makes it easier to explain them how the goal will contribute to the high-level business goals and objectives. Furthermore it is important to see how relevant the goals is to the business’s broader visions and if it is relevant to the current priorities. Mostly businesses keep improving step by step, for example, a business is more focused on marketing at a time and on the other time it might focus on reducing the customer churn rate or improving the customer support department, etc. Although all such goals are achieved in parallel however, at a certain time certain things are more important than others.
SMART Framework: Time-Bound
Each and every goal should be time bound, whether it is high-level organizational goal or individual employee’s goal a clear sense of time should be there for example, if a business wants to increase their sales by 10% in a particular region, then the time should also be defined such as 10% in sales in Ras Al Khaimar by the end of 2022 or 2023. Similarly the sense of urgency and time limitation motivate employees more to work harder to achieve the goal. A manager should clearly specify the deadline for the goal and explain employee why it is important to achieve the goal during that time period. The performance management system is used to boost performance and productivity, time-bound goals gives a sense of urgency and also clarify the importance of the goal which encourage employees to work harder in order to achieve the goal in time.
That is how the SMART Framework works and it can significantly improve the performance management process. A modern performance management system provide intuitive features and customized features to allow businesses implement SMART goal setting framework. The performance management system can also provide the previous data and other analytical data which can help managers predict the possible outcome, hence they can further optimize the goals and make them more realistic, achievable and impactful.
Include Employees in Goal Setting Process & Set Consistent Goals
The managers always want to set goals that can improve productivity and efficiency. As the primary focus is to achieve those goals with a better performance it is better to engage employees in the process as well. Usually managers have certain ideas and plans in mind for each employee and they set goals accordingly to maximize their progress and performance. However, discussing them with the employees first can provide a greater insight. Managers can directly ask the employees to identify the goals or suggest the goals relevant to their position and skillset. Moreover when the employees and the managers are on the same page the goals are more likely to be achieved successfully. Imposing goals on the employees and asking them to suggest goals for themselves which aligned with the high-level organizational goals are two different things. When goals are imposed the major problem is it is extremely difficult to convince employees that the goals is worthwhile and it will add value to their personal experience.
Furthermore another most important aspect of employee goals is consistency. It is always best to assign similar goals consistently. This will gradually increase the employee performance and skills and it will also give them a sense of direction and help them set their career path for future. Such goals help managers to achieve better results and also encourage employees to improve their certain skills. This also prevent competition and rivalry among employees and maintain a healthy and productive work environment. If a certain goal is assigned to an employee next time the same employee should be assigned that goal. The managers should never encourage competition and rivalry as it cause frustration, resentment and lower down the morale of the employees and prevent them from working at their full potential like they can do with consistent goals and tasks.
Reward, Recognition and Accountability
It is an important part of performance management to recognize and admire the employees who achieve their goals or exceed them. The performance management system provides a dedicated dashboard to create, implement and improve reward, recognition and appraisal processes. The reward and recognition program show employees how much respect is given to them and how valuable their work is for the business. Such things help improving their morale as well as it helps motivating others. It is important for the managers to prepare a plan for reward and recognition based on the actual achievements of the employees. As when employees knows no matter what they accomplish their efforts would not be acknowledged, they lose motivation and their morale declines which result in poor performance. The reward and recognition processes should also be transparent, hence no employee feel discriminated.
As much as the reward and recognition is important the accountability is also equally important. If the employees know no one will ask them about their poor performance or no one cares to correct them or confront them, they tend to get lazy and start losing aim and ambition. This could result in gradual decline in employee performance over the time. The performance management system provides a framework to lift up the entire culture of the organization and make it more productive. For that the managers frequently review the employee progress towards the goal and keep assisting them whenever needed. However, there would be some employee who will fail despite a lot of efforts are done by the managers. In such case the manager should take a very positive approach and encourage the employee to express themselves openly to understand what prevented them from achieving their goals. This way the manager can held the employee accountable for their poor performance while also encouraging them to perform better for the next performance cycle.
Conclusion
Since past few years business in Dubai and all around the UAE have started upgrading their performance management practices. During past 4 – 5 years the performance management systems have become significantly popular. The main reason is that, businesses realized the traditional and semi-digital methodologies are losing their impact day by day so much so that the traditional practices are no longer impactful as they were around a decade ago. That is why the performance management systems got rapid adaptation. Basically the performance management system is a modern technological solution for the performance management needs. It is a software that has capability to automatically collect data, streamline various performance management processes and allow businesses to leverage automation and advanced features to improve the process. Setting up goals is the first and most crucial part of any performance management cycle.
That is why we decided to wrote this article to provide our audience a basic understanding of the goal setting process and how they can improve their strategies to ensure they will achieve those goals at the end of performance cycle. If you consider the above mentioned suggestions and methods you can significantly improve your performance management strategy and its impact on the actual performance of the entire business. RSI Concepts is a leading software development company in Dubai, UAE specialized in customized and tailor-made performance management system solution provider. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you need our help to build an exclusive 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.
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