The businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are facing many challenges, especially when it comes to talent acquisition and retention. The HR is not only responsible for hiring skilled staff but they will also have to establish a system where they can nurture the relationship between the employees and the business. This system should be able to help HR and management to foster the hidden talent of their employees. This system will have to provide a framework which help businesses to laydown excellent training and development program which up lift their employees and help them identify the future leaders. This system is called performance management system. The performance management process is becoming more complicated day by day. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the high employee turnover rate is a very common problem. There are many factors that can contribute to that problem which is what makes its solution more complex. That is why the HR leaders always emphasize on the use of a modern digital performance management system which help them laydown excellent plans, enable them to collect valuable performance data, improve the employee assessment practices, and help them build impactful training and development plans.
No matter how excellent your performance management process is or how great your plans are, you could still run into some really challenging situation, it is your response and capabilities to handle those challenges which will determine the success of your performance management program. A modern digital performance management system is a very capable and powerful tool which is used by the businesses and organizations to boost their employees’ performance, improve and groom their talent, increase their retention and engagement and maximize their outcome to succeed in achieving high-level goals and objectives. However, when businesses and organizations failed to use this tool correctly they face a lot of problem, the problems which could complete derail their performance management efforts and could inflict significant damage to the growth and progress. The work environments, employees’ mindset, and business practices differs from country to country, here in Dubai and anywhere else in UAE the markets are very dynamic, the HR manager and business leaders need to be more active to increase employee engagements and productivity. In this blog we will highlight the 5 most common performance management problems businesses are facing in Dubai and all around the UAE and we will also discuss how you can solve them with a modern performance management system.
Performance Management Problems: 1. Failure to Set and Communicate Clear Goals
Setting up goals and objectives for a performance management cycle is essential and everyone does that. However, most of the HR managers or business leaders failed to clearly define goals and their strategic objectives which is the root cause of several problems. When the goals and objectives are not clear or not communicated properly the employee will lose focus, direction and motivation to achieve those goals. If you don’t clearly know what is to be expected from you, how could you do that? That is why most of the performance management failures are caused by unclear goals and lack of communication. It is extremely important to set clear, achievable and easy-to-understand goals and it is equally important to communicate them properly to your employees so they can have a clear sense of direction which will help them focus on their progress. Setting up clear goals and communicating them properly will help employee understand the expectations from them and will provide them a standard for the success hence they will know what the success will look like and what is the measure of the success and how their contribution will add up to the high-level organization goals and objectives.
A good performance management system offers a variety of in-built features along with customization abilities which enable businesses to easily set goals and communicate them with the individual employees. The performance management system also provide a clear understanding of the performance evaluation metrics and will help employees understand their progress in real-time. The success and performance metrics further simplify everything and set clear expectations which help employees align themselves with their goals and objectives. Any modern performance management system will offer OKRs (objectives and key results) and KPIs (key performance indicators) to set clear goals and also set metrics to measure the progress toward these goals. The SMART framework is ideal for setting up goals and performance metrics. The SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable, Relevant/Results, and Time-bound. Every goal should be time-bound, without a measure of time there is no point in setting up a goal. The performance of each employee should be evaluated as per their progress during a specific time period. That time-period is usually called performance cycle, which will help employee understand what is to be expected from them and when so they can prepare themselves to achieve those specific tasks during the given time period. That is why a digital performance management system is a great solution to fix this problem.
Performance Management Problems:2. Poor Communication
The communication is considered to be the lifeblood of any corporate environment, whether it is performance management or any other process, the communication is an absolute essential for everything. Without good communication businesses can never utilize their resources at full potential, the performance management process in particular is designed to break down the silos and to encourage engagement between employees, different teams, departments and management as well. The poor communication can create a lot of problems and it can have huge negative impact on the overall performance of the business or organization. There could be many reasons of poor communication and many factors that can undermine your communication, here are some of the most common factors which have huge impact on your communication:
- Poor communication network which is unable to deliver the required information to the relevant personals or team within time
- Unproductive and unregulated meetings and discussion which ends-up going off-topic
- Poor feedback framework which fails both managers and employees to deliver their concerns to one another or highlight the problems they are facing
- Poor email communication which results in incorrect or lack of actions
The poor communication can have very negative impact on the employee performance, furthermore it also demoralize them, harm the relationship between employees and the managers, it hurt the trust and it gradually increase the employee turnover rate.
The poor communication is one of the most common cause of the poor performance, if this problem persists for a longer time, it could cause unrepairable harm to a business. That is why not only to achieve higher efficiency but in order to keep the operations running a business need to solve the poor communication problems. There are certain types of communication that are more important than the others. However, the management frequently utilized different channels to communicate with the employees on regular bases but certain communications are necessary to boost the performance, such as regular discussions, one-on-one meetings, regular bidirectional feedbacks, frequent performance reviews, and other such communication types which are associated with the performance management are a key to a successful performance management strategy. Implementation of a good performance strategy by deploying a modern digital performance management system and integration of a multi-channel communication framework within the work environment can solve almost all major communication problems. Furthermore the businesses can implement strategies to make sure the written and verbal communication is delivered and understood by concerning parties. Reaching out to the employees, even if they are off-campus is essential for employee engagement. Personalized communication is also very important. The performance management system provides a comprehensive communication strategy which help solving all communication related problems.
Performance Management Problems: 3. Lack of Transparency and Trust
Another most common cause of failure of a performance management strategy is the failure to satisfy employees with the sufficient steps to ensure transparency in the system which is essential to gain employees’ trust. Without trust on the system the employee can never get motivated. There has been several studies and worldwide researches which have suggested a positive relationship between the trust and the employee performance. The problem with the traditional performance management practices is that there is no framework to ensure fully transparent evaluation and reviews. Most of the time it the traditional performance management systems are designed for annual or biannual evaluation. This biggest problem with that system is that when the managers are evaluating an employee they might not be able to recall all of the events in the distant past, they might focus on the activities and achievements of the past few months. Furthermore the personal bias, favoritism and other factors also cause the lack of trust by the employees. If an employee doesn’t trust on the business and their manager, the leadership and mentorship efforts goes straight out of the window. A leader or a mentor can only be a leader or mentor if the people he/she is leading will trust them. That is why the lack of transparency and trust is one of the most common cause of poor performance.
The solution to that problem is to implement a modern and technology based performance management system which not only introduce transparency but also address the most common concerns of the employees and gain their trust. If the employee don’t trust of the system or if they are not aware of how the system is working and how they are being awarded or if the performance metrics are confusing the employee will lose the trust and they might not support the system. However, a performance management system which clarifies all these confusions and offers clarity and transparency in the system could help gaining employees trust. Furthermore the digital performance management system also remove the most common problems with the traditional performance management system such as lack of understanding, poor communication, biased opinions and reviews, lack of performance data and much more. This will help business leaders and HR to establish employee trust on the performance management system and process and encourage them to support it. The dedicated features of the performance management system also improve the employee reviews and appraisal processes and make them more transparent which further strengthen the relationship between the employee and the managers. The digital performance management system transform the process into a proactive process rather a reactive process which help quickly addressing employee problems and concerns and raise their satisfaction.
Performance Management Problems: 4. Too Much Relying on Technology
Another common reason to fail in performance management is the ability of managers and leaders to understand that the technology alone is not the solution. We have witnessed in Dubai and all around the UAE the business leaders and the HR managers implement advanced technologies and software based performance management system and then expect that everything will improve automatically. However, that is not true. The performance management system is not just implementing a highly advanced and popular performance management system and not focusing on the right areas. The lack of strategy or poor performance management strategy can also result the same. But most of the time is not the performance management software or tool that you have implemented but it is your inability to focus on the right areas and lack of integration of processes and technology in the organization’s work flows. The prime goal of the performance management is to ensure the growth and profitability however this can only be achieved by employees’ individual growth and development. The business leader most often doesn’t realize that the performance management system should be able to improve your workforce and help you identify the need for the new skills in future to get you prepared for coming challenges.
The technological advancements and innovation is definitely transforming the businesses and also the performance management systems. However, the technology is solely not the solution to your performance management problems. The HR managers and the business leaders should have to actively participate in the performance management process to ensure higher employee engagements and to lead employees to ensure higher success rate. The managers should understand that if they are failing to solve the problems or addressing the concerns that their sub-ordinates are reporting or having, then there is no point for these employees to help you out or to support you with higher goals. That is why an active involvement of the management is essential for the success of the performance management strategy. Another most important point to consider while utilizing a digital performance management system is to ensure the performance data and information are regularly shared with the stakeholders. For example, generally all performance management systems allow employees to see the performance of their peers and other employees to encourage them to outperform the others. Furthermore the self-assessment and your own performance data should be presented in an easy-to-understand format which will help you perform better in order to achieve your goals. Similarly there are tons of other features that a performance management system offers but it is the management who will determine if all those features are utilized to gain the benefits or not. So the technology alone is not the solution the performance management also needs full involvement of the management in the process.
Performance Management Problems: 5. Micromanagement
The micromanagement is one of the main concern of the modern workplaces. It is a culture that is being discouraged all around the world, but in reality every business or organization have to deal with it. The biggest problem with the micro-managers is that they firmly believe that they are doing the right thing for their employees, teams, and even the organization, however, in reality they are just harming the performance of the employees by demoralizing them and taking their confidence away. The micromanagement causes a lot of problems as the micro-managers usually don’t focus on the macro level in fact they are completely occupied by the minute details and focus only on the very small issues and problems. They want to control or inspire each and every tiny action of their sub-ordinates and they want to get everything done in their own way, which they think is the only way to do a certain thing. It is this belief that led to a lot of problems and cause frustration and hopelessness among their sub-ordinates. Furthermore when the employees are dealing with a micro-managers who doesn’t regard of their skills, experience and capabilities the feel worthless, they start suppressing their ideas which kills the innovation and creativity. They start focusing only on pleasing their manager no matter even if they will have to cheat the system or they will eventually rebel which result in higher turnover.
The problem with the micro-managers is that they think they are acting in the best interest of the organization, their this belief prevent them from trusting others as they always keep correcting others and start believing that no one else is loyal to the organization. This mindset can completely kill the relationship between the employee and the managers and it also harm employee loyalty. Another most common trait of a micro-manager is that they always need updates, they always try to check-in to know the progress and they always want to see the progress of the work. These all problems can be solved by implementing a digital performance management system which not only provide real-time performance data to the managers and employees but it also provide a complete communication framework which reduce the unplanned follow ups and communication. Hence the employee gets the space they need to breath. They don’t get interrupted too often, they remain focused and their performance and progress is shared with the managers automatically. Furthermore it will also help the micro-managers to focus only on the employees who are lacking or not doing so well. The fully structured and pre-planned performance discussions also prevent micro-managers to reduce interruption and let them focus on more important tasks. Furthermore the performance management system also help managers to understand the performance management process and improve their skills to conduct the regular performance management tasks and help improving the overall performance of both the employees and the managers.
Conclusion
Businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are eagerly adopting to modern technologies and solutions to maximize their operational capabilities and to gain a competitive edge which will help them to attract more customers. No matter how much you have invested in technology or modern solutions, if your employees are not up-to-the-mark then everything will be in vain.Businesses need to integrate a technology based performance management system and the HR and the business leader should invest their time and efforts in the performance management process in order to achieve the full benefits of the system. In this blog we have addressed the 5 most common performance management problems and how you can solve them using a digital performance management system and a well-crafted performance strategy. The lack of trust and transparency, poor communication, unclear goals and objectives and difficult or confusing performance management processes will undermine your performance management efforts. That is why it important that the HR managers and the business leaders doesn’t only rely on the technology but also put sufficient efforts to it. Businesses who have properly implemented performance management systems have witnessed huge improvements in their outcomes, productivity, and profitability. A performance management is a long term success strategy, it help businesses retain the required talent and develop their employees and culture to unlock the true potential of their workforce and resources. RSI Concepts is a leading performance management system provider in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to design a customized performance management system for your 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.
Check out this: Increase Customer Engagements to Boost Sales
