Performance management system examples Archives - RSI Concepts - Top IT Solution Provider Company in Dubai, UAE

December 20, 2022

Choosing a Performance Management System A Buyer’s Guide

Businesses and organizations in Dubai and all around the UAE are continuously seeking ways to improve productivity, efficiency and quality of their work. For that businesses adopt new technological solutions, they implement different software business management tools, they adopt to modern business practices and processes and much more. The carving to grow compel businesses to compete in the market and require them to improve day by day. Most of the businesses invest heavily in IT infrastructure, manufacturing technologies, and their materialistic resources, they also hire highly paid employees with exceptional track record but even then they might not achieve their goals, that is only because the loopholes of the traditional performance management practices.

There is no doubt that a digital performance management system is absolutely essential for a modern business, but the problem is that most of the businesses and organizations never realize their performance management practices are outdated and keeping them from achieving what they truly capable of. A modern performance management is a software based solution which help businesses and organizations to unlock the true potential of their employees and achieve their goals and objectives.

In the modern fast-paced marketplace it is extremely important and difficult too to retain a highly talented and skilled workforce. Talent hunt alone is a very expensive and time consuming task for the HR. But the HR’s responsibilities not just end there. It is the HR department who is responsible to retain valuable employees and keep them motivated to perform well and add value to the organization’s outcome. The employees doesn’t only need high salaries and other perks, in order to perform at their full potential the employees need, leadership, mentorship, guidance, encouragement, motivation, satisfaction at work, trust at the business and management, development and training programs, respect and recognition, and a highly productive organizational culture which nourish them, groom them and grow them.

A highly motivated workforce with less experience and technical competencies can perform well than a poorly motivated and dull workforce with most experience and highest qualifications. That is where the real difference is made and that is why the performance management system is so crucial. Usually the HR department is responsible for acquiring a new performance management system which could be very confusing task given that there are hundreds of different solution available in the market. In this blog we will discuss what you should be looking for when buying a performance management system.

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: Do you need a Commercial Off-the-Shelf Solution (COTS) or a Customized Software?

There are two major categories of software development, one is COTS or commercial off-the-shelf software development and the other is bespoke or customized software development. The COTS are the software that are developed by a vendor for a mass audience and any business can acquire then and start using them right away. However, the customized software development means a software or app development which is designed according to the very specific needs of a business and exclusively developed for a particular business or a user group within that business. Moreover the COTS or commercial off-the-shelf software are owned by the vendor and the businesses who use them doesn’t own the application.

The customized software are designed exclusively for a particular client/business hence the ownership also belongs to the user/business. The vendor or software development agency deliver the application to the client/business along with all source code and ownership to the final product. These are some of the major difference between the COTS and bespoke software. Furthermore there is another most important factor which is the cost. The initial cost of the COTS is fairly less, however, businesses might end up paying more for renewals, upgrades, customization, up scaling, etc. The initial cost of the customized software is slightly high but overall the ROI is excellent.

Why Custom Software Development is a Good Choice for Performance Management System?

There are many reasons to choose custom software development for your performance management system. The COTS are expensive, have comparatively lower ROI, the future readiness and up scaling is expensive, the customization is very limited and very expensive. Most of the time businesses end up purchasing a package which have a lot of features that they might never use, the UIs are very rigid, the work flow and the processes are designed for masses hence mostly misalign with your internal processes and work flows. A business might have to make huge changes in their internal processes, work flows and practices in order to fully adopt a COTS performance management system. On top of that you don’t own the software, and you are also bound to a single vendor which have a lot of drawbacks.

It is also very difficult to respond to the market changes and adopt to new methods while using a commercial off-the-shelf performance management system. On the contrary the customized performance management system doesn’t have any of such problem. The initial cost is relatively higher, and the businesses also have to spend time and efforts in research and discovery phases, however, the final outcome of custom software development is a perfect match to your exclusive needs. It perfectly align with your internal work flows and processes, it is easy to integrate in organization’s culture and infrastructure, and on top of that it doesn’t require you to make changes to your existing processes and practices, which results in better efficiency, productivity and more user satisfaction.

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: How to Choose the Right Custom Software Development Agency in Dubai, UAE?

When it comes to COTS software service provider, the best formula to choose a right software development agency is to check how much of your needs it can fulfill, usually the corporate sector follows a 20/80 rule. It means that if any software can meet your 80% of the needs and can’t offer solution for your 20% of needs, than that is best option. However, usually businesses and organizations also settle down with COTS who can meets their 70% or more of the needs. However, the custom software development is different, as the software is exclusively designed for the business, so it mostly meets the 100% of the needs and businesses doesn’t have to compromise.

When it comes to performance management system software the HR department usually tries to get their all needs and requirements met, which is why the custom software development is the best solution. However, here in Dubai and all around the UAE there are hundreds of custom software development agencies. Which makes it very difficult for the HR to decide which bespoke software development agency they should chose.

Here is how to choose a right custom software development agency in Dubai, UAE:

Step 1:Start making a list of custom software development agencies in Dubai, UAE. Ask friends, colleagues, search online, take recommendation from industry experts, choose from the companies you have experience in past and short list at least 10 companies.
Step 2: Share your objectives and basic needs with all and compare their responses, proposals, offers, suggestions and then make a list of at least 5 best among them.
Step 3: Compare each company on the bases of their work experience in the relevant field, their clients, and the client feedback/testimonials, etc. It is important to explore their portfolio and then further reduce your list to 3 companies.
Step 4: Sign NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) share your complete details, held meetings and discussions, provide them the information they might be needing to prepare the technical scope of the project.
Step 5: Ask them to provide you with detailed commercial and technical proposals. Negotiate the price and the scope of the work and finalize the best option. Sign-off the project and immediately start the work.

These steps will help you finding a best custom software development agency in Dubai, UAE. It is extremely important to choose a right partner for the custom software development project. Because most of the time if businesses failed to properly scrutinize the vendors, they end up prolonging the development time which may results in disputes and it could also raise your cost.

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: Features of a Good Performance Management System

One of the biggest advantage of a customized or bespoke performance management system is that it is capable of fulfilling 100% of the needs and requirement of the business. The process of the custom software development begins with the discovery phase and requirement gathering phases, in which the business/users have full contribution and they can ask for whatever feature they need, they can control the entire work flow, process and everything as per their own convenience. The UI (user interface) plays an important role in any software application, with the custom software development the businesses can design highly effective user-friendly UIs to maximize the usability and efficacy of the system.

This is what makes custom performance management system more efficient, user-friendly and impactful. Regardless of your choice whether you go with COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) software or custom software development, here are some key features that you should consider while choosing a performance management system:

Feature for Setting Effective Goals and Objectives

For any performance management system the goals and objectives are one of the most important part. The business goals and strategic objectives are inspired by the vision and mission of the business. The vision and mission is a very long term objective, however the goals are usually for one year or a few years at most. In the traditional performance management framework usually the business goals are for one year. Even in modern and digital performance management systems the business goals are set for one year, and that is also called performance cycle, but the difference is that the business can set more short term goals which are aligned with the annual goal or long term goals.

A good performance management system offers several features to set up goals and it also provide analytical data and historical overview which help the management set up more realistic goals and objectives. The performance management system provides SMART framework which is considered to be the most successful framework. The SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable/Achievable, Realistic/Relevant, and Time-bound. Furthermore a good performance management system allow the management to set dynamic goals and objectives, which means that the employee goals and objectives can be changed to further allow them to grow, improve and achieve higher success.

Features to Digitalize and Automate the Performance Management Process

The technology is making our lives simple and more efficient. The performance management system software is one of the most modern and advanced tool any business can utilize to support their growth and progress. The digital performance management system help businesses digitalize and automate the performance management process. The manual performance management was a very time and effort consuming process that is why it was expensive too. The traditional performance management cycle is annual, it is done once a year or in some cases businesses do it twice a year.

The performance management system software help businesses minimize the effort and time required to conduct performance evaluation which enable businesses to adopt to modern and more effective performance management practices such as agile and continuous performance management methods. Furthermore the digital performance management system also help businesses to improve the quality of the performance management process by providing fully automatically, semi-automatically and manually collected performance data. The highly accurate in-depth performance analysis help businesses improve the process and its outcome and bring transparency and efficiency to the process.

Features to Increase Employee Engagement and Satisfaction

In order to inspire performance the employee engagement plays an important role. Without engaging employees in the processes it is hard to motivate them. The performance management system should offer features that help facilitate communication process and increase employee engagement. The communication is a key to improve performance and productivity. The performance management system help managers effectively communicate the high-level organizational goals and objectives and long term business vision this is what induce a sense of destiny and motivate employee to accomplish more. Most of the time there is a gap between the individual goals and the high-level company goals. Managers often communicate individual goals to the employee, but they failed to show them the bigger picture.

The performance management system help bridging this gap. It enables managers to communicate the organizational goals and objectives and also the individual goals and objectives and help employee to understand the relation between their efforts the business success, which can greatly motivate employees to perform well. It also help managers to include employees in goal setting and decision making process and the performance management system provide employees with features to provide their feedback and share their opinion which increase their engagement and boost their morale.

Features to Enhance the Communication

The digital performance management system offer effective features to enhance communication and eliminate the common problems caused by the communication gap between the managers and the employees. The communication plays an important role in building the relationship between the employees and the managers which is vital for various performance management objectives such as mentorship, guidance, motivation and also help managers enhance their leadership skills and make their role more effective. The performance management system make sure that the manager and their sub-ordinate communicate more often and maintain an optimum communication frequency. Furthermore the digital performance management system also provides a comprehensive framework for the one-to-one meeting, reviews and feedbacks.

It also allow the employees to share their opinion and feedback. This help building trust among managers and employees which make employee more comfortable and open to their management. The strong communication help managers understand the concerns and problems of the employees which are keeping them from performing well. Furthermore the communication also help employees to understand the importance of their role and achievement it help them understand the organization’s expectations from them. The communication also increase employee engagement and give them confidence to share their innovative ideas. Basically the communication is the backbone of performance management system and it helps greatly to boost the performance.

Features to Improve Feedback and Review Processes

The employee performance management and appraisal systems are nothing without feedback and reviews. The feedback and reviews are the soul of the process. A digital performance management system not only provide features to improve the processes but it also bring transparency and fairness to the system which is a much needed feature in the modern performance management. When we think of the feedback the 360^O degree feedback is the first thing that came into the mind. That is because it is the most popular and widely used method in Dubai and all around the UAE. Traditionally the feedback and reviews were taken only from the managers for the performance of the employees, however, this method have many drawbacks, it lacks transparency and eventually both the managers and the employees lost trust on it.

However, the 360 Degree feedback and review method includes the feedback and reviews from the managers, peers/colleagues, supervisors, subordinates, relevant stakeholders across the organization, even customers and suppliers too. Which make the process more transparent and make the conclusion more accurate and fair for the employees. Furthermore the performance management system treats feedbacks as a cyclical process and introduce continuous feedback in the system. This helps solving many problems and hurdle which are hindering employee’s performance.

The performance management system can automatically track previous communications, and it can set a mechanism to remind both employees and managers to have a feedback session or discussion and it can also support online feedback methods. The reviews help managers and employees to assess their competencies and help manager set more realistic goals and increase the success rate which give employee confidence and encourage them to perform well in future.

Features to Set Clear and Accurate Metrics to Measure Success

For any performance management system it is crucial to have a clear and easy-to-understand performance metrics. The employee should know what success will look like, what they should do to be successful and how their success will be measured, this will help them understand what is expected from them by the organization. Most of the time the employees don’t have a clear understanding of the success metrics which tend to hinder performance. There are four major types of performance metrics:

Qualitative Metrics

The qualitative metrics are subjective in nature, they tend to measure the progress or success in objectives furthermore the feedback by managers, peers, and other stakeholders are also important factor in qualitative metrics. It is always difficult to measure the quality of the work, however, the performance management system provide qualitative metrics which are usually weight, value, percentage or point scores which make objectives more tangible.

Quantitative Metrics

The quantitative metrics are easy to understand and measure, there are tons of way to measure the quantity of work produced by the employee. The quantitative metrics can be measures by collecting the right data and applying simple formulas to it to measure the accurate contribution of the employee. The quantity of work is important for both the employees and the managers. The number of sales or percentage of revenue or the number of produced items, etc. are the common quantitative metrics.

Efficiency Metrics

The efficiency metrics include both quality and quantity aspects of the work produced by an employee. The quantity of the work alone or the quality of the work alone can’t fully justify the efficiency of the employee. The performance management system provides efficiency metrics which combined both and measure the efficiency and efficacy of the employee such as at a service center how many customers are serviced, how many left satisfied and how much time is consumed to perform those tasks, etc. will provide a clear and highly accurate measurement of the efficiency of the employee.

The digital performance management system further help the management by digitalizing and automating the data collection processes. It also links different data feeds in a single dashboard and it can automatically perform analysis and formulas to find conclusions and to prepare reports.

Feature to Track and Monitor Organization’s Performance Metrics

Another great advantage of the performance management system is that it not only accurately monitor and measure the employee performance but it is very capable of monitoring organization’s performance. It offers a variety of metrics that measure the performance of the large groups, departments, teams, and even the entire organization. That is a very useful feature which help higher management understand how improvements or decline in the employee performance is impacting the overall organization’s performance. Furthermore it also help management understand the contribution of each team, department, or employee group. Here are some important organizational performance metrics:

9-Box Grid: This metric is used to understand or assess employee’s potential or capabilities along with their current performance and that is a great tool to identify and promote high-value employees and identify future leaders.
MBO: The MBO or management by objectives is basically a goal setting tool it helps setting up goals and objectives for the individual employees based on the high-level organizational goals and objectives and a great metric to understand the individual and collective progress towards high-level organizational goals.
NPS: The NPS or net promoter score is one of the most used metric, it tells how likely a customer is going to recommend your business/organization to others. It is also used to assess the performance of the sales and service staff.
360 Degree Feedback: The 360 degree feedback includes the feedback and reviews from the managers, supervisors, peers, clients, suppliers, relevant stakeholders, and even from the sub-ordinates to track and measure the performance.
180 Degree Feedback: The 180 Degree feedback is slightly different from the 360 degree feedback, although the method is same but the feedback is collected from only the managers and the peers/colleagues.
720 Degree Feedback: The 720 Degree feedback is same as 360 degree feedback, the only difference if it is conducted twice, after conducting first 360 degree performance the individual development programs and designed and implemented and another round is conducted after that to understand the impact of the individual development programs.
Errors Count: The error count is sort of self-explanatory, it is used to count the number of errors the employee or teams make, it could be as simple as a syntax or grammatical error in official correspondence or it could be an error in the source code or production machine’s inputs, etc.
Absence Rate: The absence rate or absenteeism is the measurement of the absence of an employee, the high-performing employees have less absence and even if they are absent they would have a valid reason. This is a very useful metric to identify high-performers.

These all metrics and several others like that will help management to understand the overall progress of the entire organization as well as individual business function, project teams, different employee groups up to the individual employee and help management understand the impact of their performance on the overall performance of the organization.

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: System Integration

The system integration is a very important aspect to consider while acquiring a performance management system. Regardless of what solution do you choose, the COTS (commercial off-the-shelf solution) or the custom software development, the system integration is a must to have feature for a performance management system. The system integration is a technical way of allowing two software or databases to talk to each other. It means one system can push or pull data from another system. Usually the system integration depends on the technology that is being used to develop the software. In case of performance management system as it heavily depends on data integration in order to offer more modern features, both the commercial off-the-shelf solutions (COTS) and the customized performance management systems offer an adequate support for system integration.

However, the system integration of a customized performance management system is much superior then the COTS. Another great advantage of integrating performance management system with other business tools, enterprise solutions and central information system is to leverage the digitalization and automation. The digitalization and automation has many perks and it can significantly improve the performance management process and its outcome. Another great advantage of having a customized performance management system is that its integration is relatively easy and is much more cost-effective than the COTS systems.

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: Maintenance and Scalability

Maintenance and scalability is one of the must have feature of not only performance management system but any other modern software solution. Both commercial off-the-shelf solutions (COTS) and the custom software development offer maintenance and scalability to some extent however, the customized performance management systems are superior here too. The COTS require less maintenance but the updates and security patches are responsibility of the service provider, which usually happened to be slower than expected. However, with the custom performance management system the business itself or the maintenance contractor can take care of it.

Furthermore the customized performance management systems can be hosted in cloud and also in local or in-premises data centers which provide businesses or the maintenance team more control over the software and the environment. With the COTS since there could hundreds if not thousands of businesses using the same product all around the world, the upgrades, changes and updates are slower and less frequent.

But with the customized performance management system the business can keep them up-to-date fairly easily, they can make changes to the system anytime they want, they can update or upgrade it anytime without any restriction. For COTS the up scaling is relatively expensive but with custom performance management systems it is absolutely free.

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: Data Protection and Privacy

Obviously the performance management systems have the most important and confidential data about the business, which is why they data privacy and data protection should be one of the top priority while choosing a performance management system. Any breach to that data could be catastrophic. We have witnessed in past few years that giant multi-national businesses and organizations have suffered billions upon billions of losses after data breaches. For a medium sized or even a small business such misshape could be more devastating. The first thing that happens after such incident is that the customers immediately lose faith in your business. They will question everything about your brand your values, your practices and even your capabilities. This could harm the reputation of a business to an extent where it could take years to recover from such an event.

That is why the data protection and privacy should be the top priority when implementing a performance management system. The COTS or commercial off-the-shelf solutions are used by hundreds of businesses worldwide, this means that their infrastructure and source code could be exposed to thousands of users all around the world which is what makes them more vulnerable. However, the customized performance management systems are exclusively designed and developed for a business, and the business also have all ownership rights to it, so there would be no other business who would be using the same system.

Hence the software architecture and source code remains hidden form anyone outside of the organization which makes it more secure. Furthermore all of the data is stored on the servers which are fully controlled by the business or its outsourcing partner, hence the data breaches are very rare in such systems.

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: Cost and Long-Term ROI

Apart from all technicalities the cost is one of the major factor that can significantly influence the decisions of a business. Usually only a few of the decision makers have enough technical knowledge to make in-depth technical comparisons, most of the decision makes focus more on timelines and cost of the system and also its operational/running cost. The COTS performance management systems have relatively less initial cost, but the system expansion, scalability, upgrades, updates, customization, integration and other such needs can significantly increase the cost of the system and reduce its long term ROI (return over investment) value. Which is why most of the businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are diverting their attentions from the COTS and are rapidly adopting to the customized software solutions.

A customized performance management system might have higher initial cost which includes the system design and development and implementation expenses, but in terms of operational/running or long term ROI the customized software solutions are much superior then the COTS. As the customized software solutions are exclusively developed for a business and the ownership belongs to the end-use there is no additional subscription or rental cost. The system is owned by the business, so they can also chose any vendor or outsourcing partner for maintenance and future customization/upgrades. They are not bound to a single vendor hence they can get very competitive services. Furthermore there is no restriction on the scalability and growth which also makes its ROI much better in long term.

Conclusion

A performance management system is one of the most important part of modern business environment. In the present day the markets are very competitive, the customer demands are rising day by day, the disruptions and abrupt changes in the market trends are becoming more common which demand a business to perform at its highest efficiency possible. It is not that the performance management and appraisal is a new phenomenon, however, the ways businesses were managing their performance to optimize their efficiency and productivity in past have drastically changed. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the markets are growing steadily, the governments are very business-friendly and more and more investors are joining in, which requires businesses to maintain a strong competitive edge in order to stay relevant and keep growing.

The employees are the most critical resource and a crucial asset for any business. The HR department puts tremendous efforts to hire highly talented and skilled workforce, however, the common problems that any HR department faces are lack of motivation among the employees, poor or average performance, and higher turnover. That is why the businesses implement a performance management system which help them boost employee performance, engagement and morale, it help them groom their employees, find future leaders, improve the skills and capabilities of their workforce, highlight the strengths and weaknesses of their employees and guide actions to improve that.

In this blog we have discussed some of the most important aspect any business should consider while choosing a right performance management system. This blog was intended to provide our audience a basic understanding of how different features of the performance management system works and what they should be looking for while comparing different performance management system available in the market. RSI Concepts is a leading custom software development agency in Dubai, UAE. We have a highly experienced and skilled team of experts, analysts and software developers.

If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want us to help you with developing a highly cost-effective and impactful 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.

September 23, 2022

Employee Performance Management Process with PMS

No matter what your business goals are, effective performance management process is absolutely necessary for any business to sustain and grow. The primary objective of performance management is to maximize the employee performance which drive productivity and profitability. In the modern business landscape, where the competition is tougher, the customers’ demands are skyrocketing, and hiring skillful staff is becoming more difficult, the performance management have become crucial for the business. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE, businesses tend to follow traditional performance management methods. A PMS or performance management system/software provides a modern and highly advanced framework to track, monitor and improve performance of the business. Another great advantage of the performance management is that it make businesses agile, responsive and help them deal with the rapid changes in the market and customer trends. The performance management system help businesses effectively build top-level objectives and goals and implement strategies to scale them down up to individual goals and daily tasks of the employees. This align each and every individual employee with the high-level organizational goals and objectives and ensures progress in the right direction.

What is PMS?

PMS or performance management system is usually referred to a software application which help organizations to implement various performance management processes and strategies. The manual performance management requires a lot of resources and it is time consuming, however, when done with the help of a PMS it become simpler, easier, and more impactful. Usually the manual performance management processes have annual appraisal or sometimes biannual evaluation, however, the performance management system (PMS) enable businesses to monitor and manage performance in real-time, it collects data in real-time rather once or twice a year, which make it more impactful. The PMS is also referred to as performance management software, basically it is a software exclusively designed for the performance management processes. The biggest advantage of using a PMS is that it can automatically collect performance data, monitor KPIs, and it also help streamlining the reviews and other appraisal processes. The digitalization and automation reduce the effort and make process more convenient and impactful. The managers get more visibility with the real-time performance data which enable them to take actions in time to maximize the outcome for the performance cycle.

The managers can view all the performance data such as Balanced Score Cards, KPIs, Reviews & Ratings, BARS data, and other performance matrices at a single dashboard. There are penalty of in-built analytical tools which allow managers to perform several analysis with just a few clicks. The intuitive UIs and simplicity of the system makes it a perfect tool for performance management needs. Furthermore it capture the data in real-time and it is also capable of performing several automated analysis, which allow management to set triggers for alerts and notifications. Every user dashboard gets real-time updates, so the managers can get the very recent performance data which help them understand the current performance, progress and it also help them easily identify the obstacles and areas of improvement. Hence the managers can take decisions in real-time and do course corrections instantly. This also help them rectify the problems and boost the performance of the employees for the performance cycle.

That is the reason the modern performance management is incomplete with a highly efficient technological solution. The PMS or performance management system or performance management software is exclusively designed for the businesses to maximize its impact and to increase the convenience. The PMS supports almost all modern performance management processes and methods. Here are some of the most important and commonly used performance management processes in Dubai and all around the UAE.

The Pain Points of Traditional Performance Management Process without PMS

The markets have changed drastically in past decade, the businesses have to adopt to new practices and modern processes in order to keep up with the pace. The modern business environment is continuously evolving, the customer behavior and the employee behavior is also changing. This left traditional decades old performance management processes ineffective and prone to errors and mistakes. Businesses, large enterprises, government sector and private sector in Dubai and all across UAE have realized that the modern problems require modern solutions. The PMS or Performance Management System/Software help such businesses and organizations to leverage the technology to improve their performance management processes. Here are a few notable pain points of a traditional performance management methods that can be avoided with the modern performance management processes through a PMS:

Course Correction: The traditional performance management processes such as annual or biannual evaluation doesn’t give enough time to the employees to do course correction. The PMS on the other hand ensure real-time monitoring and performance evaluation, the managers can instantly understand if an employee is deviating.
Rating Mechanisms:The traditional performance management processes have poor rating mechanisms, which led both employees and the managers to not trust the rating process. The PMS makes monitoring simple, effective and highly accurate with modern KPIs and performance tracking mechanisms.
Transparency: The traditional performance appraisal processes lack transparency, due to no check and balance on the employee’s actual performance and heavily rely on the reviewer’s point of view. The PMS resolve this problem effectively and provides a framework to monitor the performance and it also provides universal rules and criteria to measure the performance.
Goals and Objectives:The traditional performance management processes lack ability to set achievable but challenging goals for the employees. The PMS allow businesses to setup effective goals and objectives on the bases of the employee capabilities, strengths and also ensures the employee’sgoalsand objectives align with the high-level organizational goals and objectives.
Employee Engagement:The traditional performance management processes lack adequate employee engagement which make them less productive and in some cases counter-productive. The PMS encourages more frequent discussion, reviews, feedbacks and evaluation which encourages both employees and managers to improve communication and engagements.

The modern performance management with PMS (Performance Management System/Software) help businesses avoid all of the above. The ability to digitalize the performance management process and automated data collection allow businesses to effectively execute their performance management strategies to achieve their high-level organizational goals and objectives.

PMS Helps Setting up Goals and Objectives

Setting up goals and objectives is one of the most important and crucial aspect of performance management process. PMS help business set up realistic goals and strategic objectives and scale them down to individual employee. This help businesses align all the resources with the high-level organizational goals and objectives. The goals and objectives are basically the criteria to measure the performance of employees, teams, departments, managers, and the overall business. Here are the three most common types of goals:

Purpose Oriented Goals: These goals define what performance target or success will mean for each individual employee, hence key performance indicators are set accordingly. The purpose oriented goals are monitored continuously. For example keeping customer happiness and satisfaction equal or above 80%.
Project Based Goals:These goals are set for a precise outcome of a particular project along with the timeline. These goals are set for the individual employees as well as for the project teams/departments. For example, the IT team should be able to launch new mobile applications within 3 months.
Employee Personal Development: The employee personal development or professional growth oriented goals define the performance level an employee needs to outgrow itself. Majorly these goals require employees to learn new skills & abilities and acquire new knowledge.

The goal is a long term achievement, however the objective is a short term measureable action/outcome required to achieve a goal. It is important that these goals & objectives are clearly communicated to the employees so they can set target for their performance and try to outperform themselves in the next phase. That is how the performance can be improved and optimized gradually over the time.

PMS Helps Implementing SMART Framework

SMART Framework is a modernized method to set up goals and objectives. The SMART goals tend to produce maximum results. The SMART is acronym, it stands for:

SMART – Specific: The goals should be clear, understandable and must point to a particular outcome.
SMART – Measurable: The goal should be able to produce the measurable data that can be tracked in order to measure the performance and progress.
SMART – Achievable:The goals should be achievable, mostly businesses aim too high, which results in demotivating the employees when they know they can’t achieve them.
SMART – Realistic/Relevant: The goals should be realistic and relevant to the employees and teams, so they can achieve them.
SMART – Time-bound:Each goal should be time-bound with a clear start and end date, so the employees know when they will be evaluated and in what time they will have to achieve them.

When employees get SMART goals they can focus on a certain thing and improve their professional and intellectual skills. Most of the time when the goals are not set properly the employees doesn’t feel growing, they are performing their tasks aimlessly, and when they look back they think they have achieved nothing. This results in employee turnover which is another factor that impact the performance of a team, department or sometime the entire organization. When employees start achieving their goals which also add value to their experience, skills and capabilities, they got motivated and try to perform better.

PMS Streamlines Performance Review Process

The employees always have concerns about the performance reviews, there are several surveys and studies which suggested that the manual performance reviews are not a good criteria to measure the performance of an employee. The manual reviews could be biased and the reviewer usually only consider the most recent performance or incidents to measure the performance of the entire year. Which is never accurate. The transparency and accuracy are some of the major causes that large enterprises have started ditching the traditional performance management and review processes since 2010. Here in UAE businesses have just started adopting PMS (Performance Management System/Software) that is why it is relatively easier for the market to embrace the change. Earlier it was just the large enterprises, organizations, government entities and multinational who had an effective performance management system in place, however, now a days, medium and small sized enterprises and private sector too is rapidly adopting performance management processes to maximize the performance and to gain a better competitive advantage.

Although the traditional performance review processes are failing, but that doesn’t mean the performance reviews are ineffective. In fact the performance reviews can help maximizing the performance by providing valuable feedback to the managers and the employees which help them boost performance and employee engagements. If done correctly with a proper performance management system the performance reviews can help businesses bridging the communication gap between the managers and the employees, it brings more transparency and produce highly accurate performance data. The main objective behind implementing a digital PMS (Performance Management System) is to improve the employee performance review process to promote constructive criticism and acknowledge the achievements of the employees. When employees are rewarded or acknowledged about their good performance and the areas of improvement are highlighted to them, they tend to get motivated to perform better. This way the employees start focusing more on their weaknesses and tend to put efforts to upgrade their skills, knowledge and even behavior.

Highly Effective 360 Degree Feedback and Reviews with PMS

The 360 degree feedback is one of the most important aspect of performance management. It is a modern method help boosting the performance by increasing employee engagement, motivation and by identifying the problems and obstacles which can impact the performance. The 360 degree feedback is a multi-dimensional feedback mainly collected from the managers, peers, customers, sub-ordinates, stakeholders and any other concerned person or manager. This provide a 360 degree view of an employee’s performance from multiple sources which reduce the inaccuracy and maximize the transparency. There are five major components of this performance management process:

Managerial Feedback: The feedback and reviews from managers are the traditional method of performance management process. This review included feedback from the supervisor or manager, and it can also include feedback from line-managers or higher management.
Peer to Peer Reviews: The coworkers can provide a very unique and precise prospective to the employee performance. More importantly the peer to peer reviews are a great process to evaluate the ability of an employee to perform in a team.
Customer Reviews:The customer’s reviews help businesses understand the performance and behavior of customer facing employees. The customer reviews could be taken from internal and external customers, stakeholders and any other relevant person who interacts with the employee.
Subordinate Feedback:The upward feedback and reviews are not common in traditional performance management processes however, they are critically important. It help evaluating and improving the performance of the supervisors, managers and senior staff.
Self-Appraisals: The self-appraisals are when employees review their own performance. The PMS provide a structured feedback mechanism that let employees look back at their performance and rate it. Usually the self-appraisals are biased, but they allow employees to see their strengths and weaknesses.

The 360 Degree Feedbacks and Reviews are a great process to increase employee engagement and awareness. The employees can easily learn what is expected from them and how did they performed and what impact their performance have on the stakeholders. Furthermore the 360 Degree Feedback and Reviews serves as a bedrock for the training, counselling, and employee development processes. The PMS itself encourages employee engagement but the 360 Degree Feedback and Reviews are the best method to boost employee engagement. Employee engagement motivates them to perform better.

Implement Management by Objectives (MBO) Process with PMS

TheManagement by Objectives or MBO is one of the modern performance management process. The PMS enable managers and employees to make plans, set objectives, performance matrices and everything for the upcoming appraisal period. After setting up clear goals and objectives that align with the high-level organizational goals, the manager and the employees have multiple discussions or feedbacks to understand the ongoing progress. After that the manager and employees can readjust their performance goals and objectives to make sure they remain aligned with the high-level organizational goals and objectives, this is also called course correction. Furthermore the Management by Objectives (MBO) process allow the managers to constantly improve the performance and resolve any issues or problems that employees are facing to rectify them in time. This kind of performance management have higher success rate. The Management by Objectives (MBO) also increase employee engagement and raise their level of trust on the managers as well as on the employer.

The management by objectives or MBO is one of the best way to align the individual goals with the high-level organizational goals. The goals are set under the SMART framework so the success is rewarded and the failure is dealt as per the company policy, usually by more training and counseling or transfer, etc. The Management by Objectives (MBO) can be easily implemented all across the entire organization with the help of a PMS. This ensures the higher levels of success. When employees also got involved in the decision making process such as goal setting, evaluation, etc. they feel more emotionally connected to those goals and objectives. This raise their morale and motivates them to perform better. On top of that the frequent assessment also ensures the employees remain on track throughout the entire performance appraisal period which also amplify the success rate. The MBO is also a great process to maximize the communication and provider maximum understanding of the goals and objectives to the employees and it also tells them what is to be expected from them and how they should do it in order to achieve the goals. That is why MBO has higher success rate.

PMS Improves Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS) Process

The BARS of behaviorally anchored rating scale is a very common performance management process. The management set behavior examples, and anchor them to a numeric or measureable value/rating scale. This allow businesses and organizations to effectively measure both quantitative and qualitative aspects of the performance. However, most of the performance management processes only focus on the quantitative aspects of the performance. The BARS or behaviorally anchored rating scale is linked with multiple BARS statements that are according to a specific behavior which employee exhibit during a certain situation. These BARS statements act as a measuring tape to measure the performance of the employees. Several market studies suggest that the behaviorally anchored rating is extremely important for the overall performance management. Usually the employee behavior can have 40% share in the overall performance and the rest 60% is their technical competencies and professional skills. Each employee is evaluated against the standard associated to their job role.

The behaviorally anchored rating scale statements are refined several times to set standards for expected behavior against every job role. The BARS is a very effective process to clearly explain and communicate the requirements from each employee. When employees clearly knows what is expected from them, they tend to perform better to achieve their individual goals. The behaviorally anchored rating scale is not like other rating mechanisms, in fact it starts from 5 up till 9, where 5 represents the worst performance, 7 moderate and 9 best performance. Another great advantage of the behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS) is that it have different statements and rating mechanisms for different job roles, rather a universal rating or evaluation process. This can significantly increase the accuracy and effectiveness of the performance management process. The employees know exactly where they will have to improve their performance and what is expected from them in the next performance cycle. The only drawback of the BARS is that it require a lot of time and effort from the managers and executive administration.

PMS Allow Creating Precise KPIs to Improve the Monitoring Mechanisms

The PMS or performance management system/software is a digital tool, it has capability to integrate with any other third-party software, tool or database. Which enable businesses to effectively create KPIs or key performance indicators for each and individual employees, teams, managers, departments, and even for the entire organization. The KPIs allow the businesses to monitor the performance against strategic and high-level organizational goals and objectives. The KPIs enable businesses to implement a more effective data driven performance management process. The KPI also link the organizational goals and objectives with the individual action. The PMS or performance management system/software allow businesses to set up KPIs in a cascade format where the move from level to level until reached at the individual level. This approach is top-down and often also called pyramid KPIs structure. The SMART Framework works on KPIs too, each KPI should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. The PMS allow businesses to effectively create KPIs either by customization or using the in-built templates.

The KPIs can significantly boost performance by providing real-time monitoring capabilities. Furthermore the KPIs also help managers to explain employees about their goals and how their performance should be evaluated, this help them perform better.

Conclusion

The traditional performance management processes have proven to become ineffective in the modern business environments. Now a days’ businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE require a highly advanced technological solution for their performance management processes. The performance management system/software or PMS is a software tool that enable businesses to perform performance management tasks in a more intuitive and effective way. Rectify all pain points of the traditional performance management methods and allow businesses to include innovative and customized features to their performance management system. Moreover the PMS allow businesses to implement the modern performance management processes and methods to maximize the outcome of the performance management cycle. The PMS provide dedicated user dashboards for the employees, supervisors, line managers, senior managers, high-level management and stakeholders who can monitor and track performance of the individual employee, team, project, department or the entire enterprise at their dashboards.

The PMS ensures the management get a comprehensive view of the entire organization and each and every single resource. This provide them a better control over the progress and also enable managers to do course correction, make adjustments to ensure the high-level organizational goal is achieved at the end of the performance cycle. In this blog we have listed only a few advantages of the PMS or performance management system/software to provide our audience an overview of how the PMS can meet the performance management needs of the modern businesses. If you want to learn more or if you want us to help you building a modernized, intuitive and cost-efficient performance management system please 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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June 21, 2022

Beginners’ Guide to Appraisal System

The employee appraisals and performance evaluation is a challenging task. The businesses owner, stakeholders or high-level management always wants to improve employee performance, engagements and management. The modern world is heavily data driven. The digital technologies and IT is deeply integrated in our society and also in businesses. In Dubai or anywhere in UAE the markets are very competitive and customers are also very demanding. This means it is much harder for a business to stand out of the crowed. Businesses invest a huge amount in their assets, infrastructure, production facilities, customer care and workforce. But it doesn’t mean they can obtain a competitive advantage and attract more customers. That can only be achieved if whatever resources a business have, perform at the maximum levels. Businesses and organizations strive to maximize this performance by optimizing internal businesses processes, improving the HR, actively managing employee performance and making their organizational culture more productive.

The goal of every business is to offer high quality products and services to satisfy their customers. Businesses invest a lot of resources in establishing their facilities, infrastructure, workforce and IT. However, the one key aspect of growth is the employee and their performance. Because at the end of the day it would be these employees who will be utilizing those systems and facilities. Without proper optimization of the employee performance a business cannot achieve its goals and objectives. That is why businesses use enterprise performance management and employee appraisal systems. The performance appraisal system not only help monitoring the employee performance but it also help businesses in making policies and setting up strategies for future on the bases of performance data to gradually increase the employee performance and overall productivity of the business.

What is Appraisal System?

The appraisal system is a digital tool that helps businesses in measuring the employee performance against their goals for a pre-determined time period. These goals are previously set as per the employee job roles and the high-level organizational goals and objectives. The appraisal system also helps setting up future goals and objectives and it also helps in identifying the needs of improvements, training and employee development. The appraisal system provides businesses and organizations a very comprehensive framework to manage their employees’ performance which includes both their achievements and shortfalls. The appraisal system is a strategic framework which enables businesses to easily align their high-level organizational goals and objectives with individual level employee goals and objectives to make sure all resources worked in a same direction in achieving the high-level organizational goals and objectives.

Why a Business should use an Appraisal System?

The main function of an employee performance appraisal system is to build a good relationship between the business and the employees. It enhances two-way communication and provides a platform for the employees to easily communicate with their managers. The appraisal system provides a framework which not only built confidence and improve communication but it also increase clarity and help businesses and employees to set clear expectations from each other. In addition to that it motivates employee to perform better and help businesses and employees to effectively plan for future growth. It provides regular reviews and improved communication and relationship by enabling two-way feedback. Furthermore the feedback and surveys can be conducted to get top-down, bottom-up and peer-to-peer feedback. The businesses have to understand that the appraisal system is not a monitoring tool only. In fact it is a system which helps establishing and nurturing a strong relationship between employees and their management and keep them motivated and excited about their work to achieve the higher performance. That is why the appraisal system is absolutely necessary for the businesses to grow and improve profits.

Different Types of Appraisal System

The employee performance appraisal system is a very crucial tool for a sustainable growth. The appraisal system not only provides data for the HR purposes, but it also provides data which helps managers understand the strengths and weaknesses of their teams and individual employees. The appraisal process is usually an annual process but the performance or progress of the employees can be evaluated against a pre-determined time period. Here in Dubai or anywhere else in UAE the business owners and managers often don’t put much attention to the appraisal system. However, it can be very beneficial for any business to effectively optimize their performance by adopting some of the following appraisal systems:

1. 360 Degree Feedback

The 360 degree feedback is one of the most popular and very effective appraisal system. Every employee appraisal system have features to support 360 degree feedback. There are several components of 360 degree feedback which provide different point of views and is known for most accurate non-biased performance assessments. The feedback is mainly collected from the managers, supervisors, performance reports, peers, customers and any other relevant personal to the employee. These reviews can be designed to measure several competencies and overall performance as well as performance in a particular trait either professional, personal or behavioral competency. Here are some key components of the 360 degree feedback:

Self-Appraisal: Enables employees to evaluate themselves and give them a chance to understand their strengths and weaknesses. The appraisal system provides a mechanism to collected structured data which reduce the bias and increase the accuracy.

Top-down Appraisal: The top-down appraisal is a managerial feedback which allow managers and supervisors to evaluate their sub-ordinates and provide their feedback about their performance in various traits in both personal and professional capacity.

Bottom-up Appraisal:The good appraisal systems also include a bottom-up appraisal or subordinate appraising the manager features as well. The subordinates sometimes can have a very unique and prospective which can help improving the management. Such feedback can have a huge impact on the performance and employee satisfaction.

Peer-to-peer Appraisal: The co-worker could sometime be the best evaluators. They have a very comprehensive and detailed feedback especially on skills and behavioral competencies. The peer to peer reviews are a great tool to accurately evaluate behavioral competencies as well as professional competencies and skills.

Manager Reviews:The performance reviews and feedback by the managers is the most traditional appraisal system. These reviews include feedback from the supervisor, line manager, or senior manager for an individual employees. The performance of teams, departments and groups is also evaluated by managerial reviews.

Customer Reviews: Mostly the customer reviews are feedback from the customers regarding an employee who is interacting with them. The appraisal system enables businesses to manage internal (users of product/system/IT, etc.) and external customers (your customers) separately.

The 360 degree feedback is one of the most important key factor in performance management and appraisals. It provide individual employees a clear picture of their performance and how their performance is impacting other stakeholders. Furthermore it encourages employees to focus on self-development and let them make improvements in the right direction. The 360 degree feedback also enable management to arrange and improve counselling, employee development, training and coaching programs. The 360 degree feedback increase engagement across the entire organization increase employee loyalty. A large number of local businesses, large enterprises and multinational companies are using 360 degree feedback to evaluate their employees in Dubai, UAE.

2. Management by Objectives (MBO) Appraisals

The Management by Objectives (MBO) is one of the best appraisal type to boost employee engagements. It involves individual employees in the planning process, it gives them value and make them feel important. This way employees feel more connected to the business and they focus more on self-development and improvement which boost their performance. The Management by Objectives (MBO) appraisals involves employees in the decision making and goal setting process. Which gives them confidence and a sense of responsibility hence they perform well with passion and happiness. That is why the management by objectives is an excellent way to increase employee engagement. The managers and the subordinates make plans, set objectives and make strategy to achieve those objectives which are highly aligned with the high-level organizational goals and objectives.

The objectives are validated using the SMART criteria. The SMART stands for Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time bound. All the objectives should be very specific and time bound so the employees know exactly what is to be expected from them and when it should be delivered. The progress towards objectives should be quantifiable so at the end of the appraisal period both the employees and the managers can measure the performance. Most importantly the objectives should be achievable. There are many factors which can make an objective unachievable or very difficult to achieve, such as limited resources, insufficient technical capabilities, insufficient time, etc. The objective should be realistic too, because non-realistic objectives negatively impact employee performance. For example, the business wants to reduce the delivery time by 50% which is not realistic with the current logistics strength. Such objectives will result in poor interest from employees and most of the time the employees don’t even make any attempt to achieve such objectives as the know no matter what they do they can’t achieve it.

On the contrary if the objective is to reduce the delivery time by 5% in the 3^rd quarter of the year or even by the end of the year. It will motivate the employees to perform well. As they would know this is achievable and realistic and with just a little more effort the objective can be achieved. That is why when the employees are involved in the process they can also provide their input and the management and employee both can agree to achieve a common goal by the end of the appraisal period. The managers and employees make plans, set milestones, and define timelines. Furthermore the employees and managers both monitor the progress and are free provide feedback, suggestion and even reevaluation can be done and the objectives can be revised accordingly to stay on course towards the high-level organizational goals and objectives. The frequent discussion about the outcome and the current progress allow managers and employees to take timely action and course correction to make sure at the end of the appraisal period the desired objectives can be achieved.

3. Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS)

Behaviorally anchored rating scale or BARS is a non-traditional appraisal system. However, it is massively popular among all types and sizes of businesses. It help businesses understand the employees in terms of their behavior and help them quantify the impact of different behaviors on the outcome. The behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS) is very effective in improving qualitative and quantitative performance and is very popular appraisal system. The most important thing here is that there is no rule book for this system, each BARS scale can be anchored with multiple behaviors or statement describing different behaviors that are very common among the employees. These statements are used as the measuring scale for the individual employees against their performance which is evaluated on the bases of pre-defined sets of standards that are also anchored with their individual job role. It is a relatively complicated systemand the managers and the appraisal experts should be very careful when creating different incidents and associating behavior to those incidents.

Furthermore the BARS is relatively difficult and time-consuming to create and implement. For each organization or business the BARS standards could be different which makes it very hard to take promotion and compensation decisions solely on BARS appraisal results. It also requires a lot of work and research to be done by the executives and senior managers. The behaviorally anchored rating scale appraisal system starts with identifying and creating most common incidents, which trigger a particular behavior of the employee. Then it requires a lot of efforts and testing to refine and fine tune those incidents and the associated behavior. Then the final standards and incidents can be formulate. However, the BARS is highly accurate in terms of performance analysis and it also provide a consistent evaluation which further help optimizing and improving the employee performance. The behaviorally anchored rating scare (BARS) appraisal system is used to improve the accuracy of the appraisal by focusing in most important and observable behaviors. It also help minimizing the bias and increase the fairness in the appraisal process which gain employee trust and also encourage them to perform well.

4. Human Resource Accounting or Cost Accounting Appraisals

The human resource accounting or cost accounting appraisal is a very simple appraisal system solely based on the monetary gains an employee yields for the business or organization against the cost to retain the employee. It is very straightforward system but it can overlook a lot of other performance indicators. That is why the human resource accounting or cost accounting appraisals are always used to improve the overall evaluation process rather being used as a sole appraisal system. The modern form of human resource accounting or cost accounting appraisal not just include the monetary gains VS cost of retention but it also includes several other benefits an employee is offering such as average service value, quality of the service, interpersonal relationships, and the skills of the employees and many more. The main reason to use human resource cost accounting appraisals is to accurately measure the cost and value an employee brings to the business and the financial implications of their poor performance.

The human resource accounting or cost accounting appraisals are very popular and effective among the small businesses and startups where the performance of a single employee could have huge impact on the overall business’s success. It is also a very effective appraisal system to identify the gaps between the current package of the employee and the market while also accurately measuring the monetary and non-monetary value an employee is bringing to the organization. Furthermore the businesses can utilize the human resource accounting or cost accounting appraisal for certain functions or group of employees where the progress and performance is easy to quantify in terms of revenue or financial gains. Actually it is very difficult for the HR to accurately measure the value an employee is bringing to the organization and the impact of their poor performance. However, for certain job roles such as sales, marketing, supply chain and a few other can be easy to assess with human resource cost accounting appraisal system.

5. Psychological Appraisals

The psychological appraisal system is a future-focused appraisal method used to identify the hidden potential of an employee. That is why the psychological appraisal system is very unique because it measures the employee’s future performance rather than their current or past performance. Although the psychological appraisal system is only used by big businesses, large organizations and multinational corporations, because it is expensive, time-consuming and slightly complicated. That is why the psychological appraisals are always done by a qualified psychologists. These psychologists conduct a variety of tests and could have several discussion sessions with the employees to understand their cognitive abilities, intellectual and personality traits, emotional quotient, interpersonal and leadership skills and a variety of other skills. The findings are then shared with the experts and senior managementidentify the potential of the employees and make plans for their future growth and leadership roles.

Appraisal Systems You should Avoid

We have mentioned only most popular and effective appraisal systems this far however, there are certain appraisal methods that a business should avoid. Mostly these appraisal systems were popular in the past, however, now they have been proven to be counter-productive and can have serious negative effects on the employee performance.

Stack Ranking Appraisals: This is most controversial but still commonly used performance appraisal system. When ranking employees against each other and forcing managers to stack them in performance tiers, it could have negative impact on the employees, especially the employees placed in poor performance group got demotivated.

Forced Choice Method: The forced choice appraisal system provide the reviewer with only a limited number of options, usually just binary – true or false. The reviewer is forced to make a choice, which completely discard the discussion about circumstantial evidences or exclusivity of the situation during the appraisal period.

Essay Appraisals: In this system the reviewers/managers are provided with open-ended questions or asked to write down a performance analysis in form of an essay. This system doesn’t provide quantifiable reporting data which make it extremely difficult for the HR to make comparisons or use it in their decision making process. Furthermore the writing abilities of the reviewer and the personal bias can also reduce the accuracy and in fact it can harm employees too.

Field Review Appraisals: This is a very old appraisal system and it requires someone from the outside of the employee’s department, usually from the corporate head office or the HR who observe employee for a certain time period to evaluate their performance in terms of professional and behavioral competencies. However, it is very obvious that employee’s behavior gets changed under the knowledge of observation and it is also very difficult for the reviewer to completely understand the context, and actual behavior of the employees.

Rating Scale Based Appraisals: A simple or graphical rating scale is used to review the performance on a scale of 1 to 5. The reviewer is asked to rate the employee against pre-defined traits such as capability, timeliness, leadership, and various abilities. The biggest drawback of this system is that it only measures performance at the time of the rating and doesn’t completely neglect previous performances and sometime even context too which cause dissatisfaction amongst the employees and demoralize them instead of improving their performance.

The employee appraisals and performance management is very tricky and reviewers and managers could easily get it wrong. Sometimes despite the reviewers excellent ability to implement the appraisal system correctly doesn’t also produce desired results and that is because the system itself is incapable. These are some employee appraisal systems that each business should avoid. However, the stack ranking is somewhat applicable for the modern consultancy firms, law firms and such business models.

Conclusion

Employees are a most valuable asset of any business. It is absolutely necessary for business to establish and nurture their relationship with their employees to ensure a long term success. Every business have a vision and that vision helps them lay down the goals and strategies to achieve their vision. The high-level organizational goals and objectives later scaled down to the individual goals and objectives. Each employee is hired for a particular job role. Their job role defined the expectations from them. Similarly their goals and objectives are also relevant to their job role, skills and capabilities. It is extremely important to keep your employees motivated and ambitious. The employee performance can make a huge difference, whether it is your customer care, your sales team, production department, HR or strategic planning department and higher management. Everyone has to be driven to perform well in the direction of long term organizational goals and objectives.

However this is not an easy task. That is why businesses use a performance appraisal system. The system help them track and monitor performance, provide business intelligence data and a better understanding of the employees’ strengths, weaknesses and obstacles that might be preventing them to perform better. This information is vital to improve the workforce and achieve higher efficiency, performance and productivity which drive profitability and help generating more revenue for the business. RSI Concepts is a leading customized employee performance appraisal system development company in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject or want our help to build you a high-quality appraisal system? 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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March 4, 2022

Boost Employee Efficiency with a Performance Management System

The businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are using some kind of methods and techniques to evaluate the performance of their employees. Mostly use manual reviews and traditional appraisal methodologies. However, the biggest problem with manual methods is that you will end up with biased reviews, incomplete forms, or unquantifiable evaluation data, mainly based on assumptions. Such reviews are usually made on the bases of events that occurs very recently, for example in case of annual reviews, a supervisor will have more impact of a negative event or poor performance in last month comparing to an excellent performance in the second or third month of the year. Hence the moderation for manual reviews is extremely difficult. That is why businesses are now turning over to the digital performance management systems. The modern day employee appraisal systems or employee performance systems are very accurate, produce quantifiable results and help management processing the data into actionable reports.

For any business’s success it is crucial to utilize its resources efficiently and more effectively to maximize the outcome. That is not just a matter of implementing a performance management system or making a strategy, in fact it is a continuous process, enabling all business functions at their maximum potential and achieving maximum efficiency is a long journey, it could take years. That is why a business needs an employee performance management system which collect and analyze business intelligence data and performance matrices. Such data is very helpful in making decisions, and making improvements. In this blog we will cover how an enterprise performance management system can help boosting the efficiency of the employees.

See More: What is the difference between employee KPI and KRA?

Set SMART Goals and Objectives

The very first step of performance management is setting up goals and objectives. The goal could be anything, for example, if a customer service center wants to reduce the complaints by 30% in the year 2022. That could be the goal. It is quantifiable and it is clear. Then the business can built strategies to achieve that goal, for example, the business can plan to hire more technical staff, or they can also held training program for existing staff to boost their performance, or they can simply create KPIs, to monitor employee performance, this will encourage them to perform well hence their quality of work will be improved which will result in less complaints. Similarly a business can set various types of goals, such as cost reduction by 5%, improving conversion rate by 10%, generating 30% more leads, etc.

There are high-level goals which are organizational goals and objectives. Then the department heads and managers sit together to set their goals in accordance with the high-level organizational goals. Then these managers and head of departments sit with their department’s managers, supervisors, team leaders, etc. to set their goals and objectives to achieve the goal of the department which will ultimately contribute to the organizational goal and objectives. Similarly individual goals are also set. That is how the goals and objectives are defined. The goals and objectives should not only state ‘what’ has to be achieved but they should also provide a guideline or strategy to ‘how’ the objectives can be achieved or should be achieved. For that a standard is widely used which is called SMART. The SMART criteria is basically a framework to set goals and objectives:

S – Specific: The objectives should be very specific, clear and to the point.
M – Measurable: The objectives should be measureable, so the employees and management both know what the success is and what is expected from each employee.
A – Achievable: The objectives should be achievable and both the employee and managers should be agreed on the objectives. Forced objectives are less likely to be achieved.
R – Realistic: The objectives should be realistic, the high-level objectives should be communicated with employees, so they know what and how their contribution will add up to the high-level goals. The employee should be able to achieve those objectives with their existing skills and resources.
T – Time-Bound:All the objectives should be time-bound so the employees and managers both know when the result should be delivered. Each objective should have a target date or time frame.

The goals must be clearly communicated to each individual, then the employee goals are set in a way that the employee understand and agrees that they will be able to achieve them. Forced objectives tend to negatively affect employee performance. Unrealistic objectives or too much expectations from the employees will build a sense of distrust, employee will lose self-confidence and they can easily give-up by thinking that they won’t be able to match those high expectations. However, the clear, quantifiable, and achievable objectives not only boost employees’ morale but will also encourage them to perform well and will definitely boost their performance. Some businesses also set milestones in between the start and end date of the objective. Which is also very helpful to keep track and continuous monitoring of the employee performance and also help businesses to take actions to do corrections to improve employee performance.

See More: Importance of KPIs to Improve Employee Performance in Dubai, UAE

Prepare a Performance Plan and Strategy

The performance plan is a very collaborative process it help businesses build strategies and set a plan of action for the next year. As the goals and objectives are already set. The planning stage involves communicating the high-level organizational goals and objectives to different business departments, teams, individual employees. The employee performance management system aid businesses in implementing a top-down strategy which is important to effectively communicate the goals and objectives to each management and administrative level. At this stage the employee engagement is very important. When employees have their say in the planning and strategy formation process they get motivated and passionate about their goals and achievements. Here the employee performance management system can be very helpful in setting up KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) and other evaluation matrices.

Which will later measure and evaluate the performance of each employee and key-player with regards to their goals and their achievements. The performance management system can also measure and evaluate the contribution of each employee, team, department, or manager in achieving the high-level organizational goals and objectives. There are several other behavioral and technical competencies that can impact employee performance, which can also be accurately measured and monitored with the performance management system. However, there are certain external factors which the business cannot control such as employee’s personal problems, health issues and any other private matter, so such parameters are also excluded. The review and feedback can be used to account such problems, which can then be taken forward as per the company policy.

The performance plan and strategy covers each and every minute detail which could hinder employee performance. Hence the business can get a deeper insight regarding all action points which are quantifiable along with other non-measureable factors such as behavioral, environmental and cultural aspects of the organization with the help of reviews, feedbacks and improved communication between the employees and their supervisors or managers. The performance management system is capable or recording all these quantifiable and non-quantifiable aspects of the employee performance which can help the management to improve their strategies, plans and organizational culture to ensure better performance for the next year.

See More: Employee Performance Management is a small part of Performance Management System

User Friendly Design and Intuitive UIs

With user friendly tools and intuitive UIs (user interfaces) the performance management become as simple as it can be. The management and individual employees both gets their own set of tools and features which help them track and assess their performance and the performance of their subordinates. The biggest advantage of the performance management system is that it can automatically collect, organize and even analyze the performance data and make everything available on fingertips. The visual and graphical interfaces allow the management and employees to easily and quickly understand their performance data. The performance management system also provide a tons of tools which simplify the performance management process, such as sharing questionnaires digitally, getting responses and data in digital formats and customized reporting and analytical tools to simplify the data. Comparison tools, reminders, communication tools, and automatic data sharing and integration makes everything much simpler and easier for the management as well as for the employees.

More Flexibility and Convenience in Performance Management Process

A performance management system provides more flexibility, control, and bring convenience to the employee performance management process. A good quality performance management system includes a wide range of tools and templates that help the management to easily build and implement their strategies and plans. The primary goal of the performance management system is to adopt to the on-going changes within the organization and let the management take full control of the process by effectively integrating the strategic changes with the existing strategy and plan. The performance management system allow the businesses to adopt to a more flexible approach towards reviews and communication or one-on-one sessions with the employees. The review cycle and timing can be configured for the entire year with flexibility to make changes at any time during the year. The managers have simple dashboard where they can set a discussion within a few clicks. The entire performance management process requires a lot of data collection which involves a lot repetitive tasks as well, the performance management system can automate such tasks and make the process more simple and convenient for the management as well as for the employees.

See More: Appraisal Methods in Performance Management System

Effective 360 Degree Feedback Tools

The 360 degree feedback is always at the core of any performance management technique. It is a bit more traditional kind of appraisal framework but it is very effective. The performance management system makes it more effective by simplifying the feedback collection process. The 360 degree feedback include the feedback from the management, supervisors, peers and other people who work around an employee. Mostly the feedback is taken anonymously and the data is shared with the management. The performance management system enables the businesses to improve the data quality of the feedback. It provides a variety of pre-defined questions with quantifiable feedbacks, such as rating scales and happiness meter and much more. This allow the business to evaluate each employee and generate measureable results which can be later used to assess the performance of the employee. The performance management system can also minimize the biased reviews and make the process more transparent. Furthermore the reports can be extracted in a user friendly format which can later help the management to plan employee development plans and the same data is also very useful for the HR department.

Employee Engagement and Self-Evaluation Tools

The performance management system allow businesses to program an alert and reminder configuration in the system which keeps reminding employees about the goals and objectives on a frequent pattern. Furthermore the employee performance management system also allow the managers to keep modifying the employee goals and objectives at any time they want. This features help aligning the employee performance with the high-level organizational goals and objectives. Employee often lose the sight of their goals and objectives while focusing only on their job roles and primary targets or what they believe is more important so constant reminders are very good at increasing employee engagements. The performance management system also allow the management to get real-time performance data which enables them to improve the communication with the employees. Once the employee start achieving their short-term goals, they become more passionate about their long term goals.

Monitoring employee performance towards the milestones and sharing the data with them can boost their morale and encourage them to perform well. The real-time feedback and better communication allow the management to address any problem as soon as it arises and also help them satisfying the employees. Which further increase employee engagements and help improving their overall performance and work efficiency. The self-evaluation tools also help employee to critically think about their goals, objectives, their performance and their contribution in the high-level organizational goals. This enables the employees to take more control and ownership of their performance and help them understand where they are lagging or where they need to improve. These tools also help employee to improve their personal development and give them a sense of importance which encourages them to perform better.

Improve Employee’s Personal Development Programs

For any business having a skilled, experienced and highly efficient workforce is critical for growth and success. That is why every business have employee development or personal development strategies and programs. Mostly the managers rely on the reviews to plan and arrange trainings for the employees. However, a performance management system provides a deeper insight to employee strength and weaknesses. By analyzing the employee performance data, the feedback and reviews, the managers can have a better and more effective performance meeting and discussions with their employees, which help them to make more effective personal development plans. Furthermore the business can also asses and evaluate the training programs and their effectiveness by simply continuously monitoring employee performance. When the employee have a better chance to communicate their personal development needs, and when they feel more productive by tapping into the development programs their performance and engagement increases. Several researches have shown that the employee’s personal development and learning is the key driver of employee performance, and retention.

Setup a Better Reward and Recognition System

Everyone like when they are appreciated. Employee perform very well when they know they will get adequate appreciation, recognition and reward. Only a paycheck is not enough to motivate your employees to deliver their best work. It is not only just the financial incentives, in fact the rewards, recognition of the hard work and appreciation by the management is more effective than the monetary rewards. An employee performance management system enable businesses to effectively implement their reward and recognition strategy by proving the continuous performance data, in-built analytical and comparison tools and other such features. The main objective is to establish a system or scheme to effectively deliver all the rewards, recognitions and appreciations in terms of monetary, non-monetary and psychological payments when the certain level of competence and performance is detected. These reward and recognition system help aligning the employee goals with the high-level organizational goals to encourage them to focus on the areas which are more effective and helpful in achieving their individual and also high-level goals.

Improve Team Collaborations

Any business knows that the most effective behavioral trait an employee can have is their team collaboration and support for the collective goals. Whether it is a high-level organizational goal or a departmental goal or even the goal of a team or individual employee, the team collaboration is extremely important to achieve that. The team collaboration ensures seamless workflow and increase the bond and communication between the relevant team members. Hence it help improving the overall performance of the entire business. The performance management system integrate various communication tools and track various behavioral competencies which can provide data about the team collaboration and it can also include feedbacks and reviews which are directed toward analyzing the behavioral competencies of an individual employee. This data can be used to analyze an employee’s and entire team’s collaborations and provide management a chance to improve it. A better team collaboration always result in higher performance by the team itself and by the employees or team members also. Modern day performance management system can also include integration with social media and such apps to aid the communication and collaboration between the team members.

See More: How Performance Management System helps in Customer Journey improvement?

Data Analytics and Customized Reporting Tools

Since the performance management system is collecting a tons of data from all around the organization. It is crucial to analyze it and compile actionable reports that can help the management to take timely actions or upgrade their strategies to ensure they will achieve their performance goals. The employee performance management system provides intuitive dashboards with visual and graphical data presentations and much more which simplifies everything for the management. Whether the higher management is analyzing and monitoring the performance of the entire business or whether it is an individual employee who is monitoring and analyzing their individual performance, and everyone else in between gets respective data analytical tools. For example the higher management can monitor the real-time performance data from several business functions such as production, sales, supply chain, etc. The dashboard is highly customizable which provide them easy comparison and further makes it easier for them to zoom-in or zoom-out on the performance data.

The automatic data analysis are very helpful and important for the decision makes. For example if the production is performing 20% better and the sales is performing 30% less than the immediate need arises is that the business will going to require more storage or they will have to put more workload on their distribution network and sales to keep the production line running. Such features not only help businesses to improve their performance but also help them to take actions and update their strategies for the future. The employee performance management is a continuous process and with each year the employee performance gets better. The performance management system provides businesses a chances to compare their previous year’s performance data and more such features which help them to refine their next strategy and performance plans.

See More: Why Performance Management System is a Necessity for Companies in Dubai

Conclusion

For any business it is extremely important to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of the resources they have in hand. High performing workforce is one of the most precious asset a business can ever have. In order to improve the employee efficiency and their capabilities business keep monitoring their performance. The performance monitoring help businesses to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each individual employee and provide them a road-map to improve the overall capabilities and performance of their workforce. The performance management is not an easy task, it is a very complex and quit lengthier process. The annual performance reviews are not sufficient and almost all established businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE have other strategies to monitor and track the performance of the employees on a bit more frequent manners. On top of that the transparency and accuracy of annual appraisal reviews is also questioned.

That is why businesses often use an employee performance management system which provide them a detailed insight to the employee performance, their behavioral and technical competencies and help them identify the areas of improvement. The performance management system also help aligning the organizational goals and objectives with the individual employee goals and objectives to ensure higher efficiency and profitability. RSI Concepts is a leading name in customized employee performance management system providers in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject of want to enquire for our performance management system 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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Choosing a Performance Management System A Buyer’s Guide

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: Do you need a Commercial Off-the-Shelf Solution (COTS) or a Customized Software?

Why Custom Software Development is a Good Choice for Performance Management System?

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: How to Choose the Right Custom Software Development Agency in Dubai, UAE?

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: Features of a Good Performance Management System

Feature for Setting Effective Goals and Objectives

Features to Digitalize and Automate the Performance Management Process

Features to Increase Employee Engagement and Satisfaction

Features to Enhance the Communication

Features to Improve Feedback and Review Processes

Features to Set Clear and Accurate Metrics to Measure Success

Qualitative Metrics

Quantitative Metrics

Efficiency Metrics

Feature to Track and Monitor Organization’s Performance Metrics

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: System Integration

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: Maintenance and Scalability

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: Data Protection and Privacy

Performance Management System Buyer’s Guide: Cost and Long-Term ROI

Conclusion

Employee Performance Management Process with PMS

What is PMS?

The Pain Points of Traditional Performance Management Process without PMS

PMS Helps Setting up Goals and Objectives

PMS Helps Implementing SMART Framework

PMS Streamlines Performance Review Process

Highly Effective 360 Degree Feedback and Reviews with PMS

Implement Management by Objectives (MBO) Process with PMS

PMS Improves Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS) Process

PMS Allow Creating Precise KPIs to Improve the Monitoring Mechanisms

Conclusion

Beginners’ Guide to Appraisal System

What is Appraisal System?

Why a Business should use an Appraisal System?

Different Types of Appraisal System

1. 360 Degree Feedback

2. Management by Objectives (MBO) Appraisals

3. Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS)

4. Human Resource Accounting or Cost Accounting Appraisals

5. Psychological Appraisals

Appraisal Systems You should Avoid

Conclusion

Boost Employee Efficiency with a Performance Management System

Set SMART Goals and Objectives

Prepare a Performance Plan and Strategy

User Friendly Design and Intuitive UIs

More Flexibility and Convenience in Performance Management Process

Effective 360 Degree Feedback Tools

Employee Engagement and Self-Evaluation Tools

Improve Employee’s Personal Development Programs

Setup a Better Reward and Recognition System

Improve Team Collaborations

Data Analytics and Customized Reporting Tools

Conclusion