Performance Management process... is it so difficult?

Author: Samruddhi Mulye

I’d wonder why few things in HR are treated differently from the rest.... so like generating payroll or organising an event for HR is ‘by-the-way’... Performance #Appraisals become a very serious job. It draws complete focus and attention from all the employees and to a large extent the company’s management as well. We’d think why getting people perform is at times so difficult or also an employee to deliver set targets does not garner complete focus and determination.  After all appraisal in true sense is the result of all the hard-work...something that gets tabulated in a matrix... that brackets your performance into terms like – ‘outstanding’, ‘very good’, ‘average’ & ‘poor’. So what makes appraisals so important and special – it’s the money that gets tagged along with it that makes #appraisals so important. The struggle is to get highest hike. Why is an ‘MBA program’ into an elite or premier I institute or some training program for ‘technological advancement’ or a ‘holiday – with – family’ and may be an opportunity to work in ‘different geography or build an enterprise for the company in an unchartered territory’ not that important or does not seem to be a great reward for an employee! There is money involved in this as well. The organisation is investing in the employee, working towards building a leader in you.

There is only one answer to this – it is the ‘culture’ that we have shaped. It is extensively focused on direct monetary rewards because we have chosen to shape it that way. .. we have failed in making employees see the bigger picture and a better tomorrow.

So here’s something I went through. This is year 2003 [I was about four years in #HR career by then]... and not getting into specifics of company name, industry or employee details... but just the crux and my learnings from this incident. Typical ‘Open Performance Appraisal’ system. With KRA’s that were set last year... you guessed it right, not reviewed through the year!  So, here’s the outcome first... the #appraisal letters are handed over to a set of employees [there were unions prevalent that time].  The increments given to these people were less compared to some other employees, probably the lowest in the grid. So even if we’d say that compensation related information should not be shared [else management will take strict action...!] – the discussion is bound to happen. Some happy expression... some sad.

Therefore the obvious questions from these people were ‘why such a low increment?’  The management anticipated some questions but the force with which it came was not anticipated. The increments were decided with no definite data points and rationale so again the answers to ‘why’ weren’t readily available.  The responses from the management were vague. Event / circumstances specific answers were given. For which there were counter reactions from the employees. In all the entire exercise was unplanned and the process made its flaws and fissures visible to all. All the increment letters given were retracted. Fresh letters issued with obviously different figures and then much expected phenomenal attrition. The Management cuts a sorry figure.

So, in all a simple exercise turned out to be a night mare of sorts for the organisation. While, many years have gone by... things have changed and improved for better but some basic learnings.. we never seem to memorise and practice about Performance Management... though I carry them with me wherever I go and whoever I meet to explain... it isn’t a success always but it is my strong conviction that – Performance can be managed only through culture and only Culture can drive performance. You do not need an HRIS or process with a manual to achieve a flawless PMS [although must say technology does simply and organise life for everybody]. Only know and understand your objective, your goal on a broader and organisational level. The fractions to achieve the bigger picture will fall in to place steadily [which set targets right in beginning]. Secondly.... know your people; gauge their emotions... see their problems. Increments are obviously not based on these but it only helps you creating a different perspective of non-performance. Lastly, keep it simple... stay connected with your people, talk to them often. Communicate your vision, ideas. Let them respond. Keep talking to them about their performance. What you like about them and what you feel needs improvement. Let them know. 

Rest the mechanical steps will fall in place automatically...! Let the culture be performance driven and let performance talk about your organization's culture to the world outside.


Author

Samruddhi Mulye
PlugHR Pro


 

Positive Words- Shots of Motivation!

                                              

It’s one of those days of the week when there is stagnancy, inertia in the air. We are caught up in a state of limbo and unfortunately these days are repetitive; the mundane routine is bogging us down. We’re constantly waiting for something to happen, something to transform, something to shift us forward in our lives or relationships. Life seems to be happening around us, but we can’t seem to get on the track we’d like to be on. What keeps us motivated, inclined to carry on the daily monotonous repetition? It’s having things to look forward to like vacations, holidays, days off from work, weekends, promotions, a big event coming up, and lot more.

There is an additional aspect which keeps us motivated too in a very subtle way, it’s the words we hear and announce out loud. Words are potent! When ideas fail, words come in handy. They really have the ability to inspire, motivate, and persuade but at the same time they are entirely responsible to discourage, dismiss and dissuade. Whether it’s building a team, mending a relationship or launching a product the right words spoken at the right time can transform the absolute scenario. There are few sentences which motivate us at any point of time whether its nike saying  “Just do it” or loreal telling you “ you are worth it”, for a moment they give you that zing and sway you to get going.

“I trust you!”stands number one in my list, when you listen to your boss, your spouse, your friends, people around you say that, swiftly there is a sense of confidence in the self, there is a need to fulfill the expectation of all the people who trust you, It instantly creates a self belief and an urge to be trusted all the time.

“Never give up” you fail, you stumble, you make blunders in life, at that stage if there is someone to back you up with these words, what do you do, you instantaneously react to the situation. It works vice – versa, just tell this to someone with utmost conviction and they will thank you all their lives to be by their side.

You are stuck, you are anticipating, you are procrastinating, “Make it happen” “Just start” “you can do it” these are the words you want to hear to help you rise and take that leap. In the midst of striving to reach your goals, to achieve those difficult targets, time when you are telling your strained muscles to stop, it is lines like these which leave an impact.

Praises, acknowledgement, and appreciation of all manner forever makes a person feel superior. But there are definite sentences which create an aura of motivation around us; something as effortless as “you deserve it” “Keep it up” “you rock” just builds a sense of achievement and a willingness to work towards maintaining that achievement comes automatically. Incentive theory of motivation works for most of the people, people are motivated to work because of the pay cheque that they receive every month, but the idea is if words akin to that pay cheque are used to encourage the employees the drive to work harder increases drastically.

In every course of life, we got to find our own motivation, be it positive self talk, plain conversation of encouragement, music that races with your heartbeats, movie that makes you get on the track and run, a superman or batman that inspires you to be your own superhero. Ultimately, we got to be our own cheerleader, accept ourselves and expect more from ourselves. 

So, Stay motivated, Stay inspired and make a difference in the lives of people around you with your words and actions.  

Cheers!

10 ways to measure employee enagagement...

With changing times as Personnel Management became Talent Management, employee wellness has becomes the focus for any HR Manager. Organizations too have realized that though employees are governed my labor laws but ultimately they are major stakeholders in its organic growth. This paradigm shift has brought a major challenge of keeping employee motivated and engaged within the organizations. More opportunities and technologies have resulted in competitive strategies to have more happy faces around.

However like physicists say ‘ No machine can have perfect efficiency’ likewise hitting a perfect 10/10 can be a  farfetched dream but still there are ways to measure your engagement quotient and timely action can make just turn around stuff.

Best and the most well known is to analyze your exit reports and keep a tab on that deadly attrition factor. Resignations not only adds to ones blood pressure but replacement too come with added cost .So why not channelize the energy and finances on more productive side which can help keep the      attrition counts stay low and engagement high.

Remember what made college better than school? Well college didn’t have any uniform. Truly burden of strict policies such as reporting time sometimes can be highly annoying. Employee are truly engaged if they come on time because they love being at office not because they have late marks counter on.

Do your employees doze off or try to bunk those open forums addressed by the CEO or founder? So next time make sure it’s more interactive. They deserve to know where the organization is heading and let them feel like a family only then they would give their best to you.

How about the last appraisal process? How many reminders did you send to the managers? Do they believe in the appraisal process or is it just another formality for them. Processes can give us some very critical information’s about the employee motivation.

Once somebody suggested about having a ‘Smilometer’ , which can help us tracks smiles in day. Indeed more laughter and friendly behavior on floor suggests that it a happy place to work and smiles are always infectious J

My personal experience says an engaged and motivated employee will always. The feeling of pride to be associated with one’s dream company is too good a motivator and also helps spreading the feeling around.A happy employee would love to refer more of his friends to join the gang.  So you know when employee referrals are low what needs to be done.

Mostly HR faces challenge of maintaining salary confidentiality and more employees are stressed and frustrated every discussion boils around their favorite topic. If they are monetarily satisfied and happily engaged there are no reasons for you to worry on your strict and confidential information to go public.

Have you noticed who all regularly miss annual day celebrations or office parties? It’s similar to avoiding a dinner because your don’t like the host. Do I need to say more?

Trust in management and feeling of belonginess plays a great role too. If an employees is participative and know that his ideas and efforts will be well appreciated and acknowledged, he would be well bounded with the organization values and philosophy .However this comes with due course and here timely and right communication channel is very important.

 Keep a tab on informal and ‘online and social media’ discussions. Technology has opened many avenues for official gossips. Understanding employee psychology and behavior helps to understand their needs and leads to timely actions and further improvements.

Employee Engagement is need of the hour. Today keeping talent motivated and happy is important so that focus on organizational growth is undeterred. Important is to understand that every organization and individual is unique. What works with one might not click with others .But the beauty is to manage complex human brains in the most simplified manner.
However we all know that nobody is married to an organization but being engaged is no less than that !!

Wish you Happy Engagement J

 

HR Lessons from Life!!

Why have you chosen HR as your field??

Mostly asked question during my jobs interviews. No matter how I answered the question but had never given the real reason. The reason was that I have learned it at various stages of my life though the realization only came when formally studied it during my MBA…

 

Born as a first child in the family was welcomed with open arms however my overwhelmed parents were not sure how to handle the crying bundle of joy. And then my grandmother with her age old experience pacified me by feeding and singing a soothing lullaby. My first lesson - analyzing the situation and problem solving and second lesson came hand in hand – nothing can beat the experienced .No wonder why I always loved her so much. Then gradually with time as I grew so did my lessons. Every time I was scolded or praised I understood the theory of negative and positive reinforcements. When my wishes were categorized as acceptable or not acceptable in a way my parents were teaching my Maslow’s need hierarchy.

Every time good merits were awarded both in school and back at home ,theory of motivation made place in my mind. Further boarding schools and college taught me team work &conflict management .Moreover  limited pocket money was probably a lesson on budgeting and resource management .Working and handling student associations and strict wardens not just helped me better my people management  and leadership skills but also handling difficult people ;)

Now comes the most interesting and exciting lesson which indeed has been very close to my heart. As time flew and my parents started to look for a prospective groom. Not to mention I am happily married person but husband hunting is unbeatable. Three years and after dozen of meetings I finally got the right fit .The whole things sounds so much like recruitment where the focus should always be to get the right candidate and not compromise on quality for that leads to smooth functioning of the system.

Life always has been an amazing teacher, whose age is as much as you but infinite experience. Every day is a new lesson and maybe I chose to imbibe the HR ones….how about you??

 

 

Running in Loops is Easier

In context of Mind-Body-Spirit, running is a contest between you and fatigue. Commonly fatigue is perceived as a physical problem you envision like rise in blood acidity or a lot of muscle tension, no doubt these are the causes of the tiredness but functioning of the brain plays a significant role in feeling drained out or energetic.

If your brain believes that your body is struggling it starts taking measures and defensive approaches that hampers your performance.  So actually, it is not that always your potassium levels are high but most of the times it is all in your head.

External factors affect running on a huge scale like running in a straight line or a loop. It is by far easier to run in loops as it provides the change factor that in turn motivates the runner. Looking at the same path, running the same course stagnates your performance and makes it highly monotonous. The monotony of running in the long straight line without being able to see the destination will eventually affect the person psychologically.

When a person begins to run in a loop, he is aware that he has to arrive at at the same point where he has started from. This creates a sense of known and awareness that are direct confidence boosters so he can judge accordingly the distance he has to cover and control the fluctuation in energy levels, while straight lines give a sense of unknown. You cannot see the finishing point that essentially drives and motivates you to reach at that point. 

Meeting our targets is the most motivating factor to get out and run. Loops create a mirage and make the distance look lesser to cover. Mind perceives the distance as an achievable short-term goal.

Ultimately, one needs to find out what works best for that little chamber of neurons to stay activated and send the signals to the body to run better. Whether it is focusing on a destination or enjoying Eminem on highest decibels.  

Slowdown can get you more garbage

So three months into slowdown now, have you started getting brilliant people easily in your company. I am not surprised if your answer is no. If I ask, have you seen clear sign on better performance from new, improved employees who are joining now and your answer is no, I am not surprised again.
There's something so fundamental about attracting & engaging talent that market conditions seldom play significant role here. You have to answer one simple question, "why should someone join your company" and this question remains valid as long as the number of workplaces in the world do not shrink down to one.
So in absence of this answer, it would remain a challenge to attract & engage talent. Do not mistake attracting & engaging talent with hiring, so may still be able to hire. But its highly expensive to run the company with just hired employees and not the "attracted & engaged" ones. The behavior of engaged employees is very very different from the hired ones and most of the time when you are complaining about your employees its this difference that you are talking about.
So lemme add a few pointers about how you can try to build attraction:
1. Its a no brainer that if you can contruct a clear strong core purpose around your business existence, nothing attracts better. NGOs, Revolutionaries use this always.
2. You can be bigger than your competitor thus can offer people learning, training, handholding, bigger team, clear growth path....or you can be smallere than your competitor thus can offer them flexibility, multitasking opportunity, nearness to top management, less hierarchy etc.
3. You can be easy to reach office, fewer day's work office, no-office, fun office, open office, food at office, green-office, garage-office, but it must be attractive for one reason or other.
4. Again a no-brainer, talented people would expect you to know your numbers right and if your numbers seem too less for even their ambitions, they may not get attracted. When was the last time you got excited because someone was a chasing a business idea that could get as big as Rs.10 Lakh.
These are just thought triggers, point is, you must find answer to "why should someone work for you" to be able to attract talent. Is that enough? I am not sure, but its the essential. Till then keep hiring :)

Got the guy...Induct him Boss!!!

Having gone through number of functional induction presentations, I thought it might be a good idea to just write about what we want to achieve through this induction. So here's my view....

Objectives of functional induction

1. To reassure the new member about her decision of joining the team.
2. To introduce the member to other members in the team.
3. To connect the member to History and Decorations of the team
4. To pictorially depict departments delivery commitments to company.
5. To describe department work flow.
6. To describe work styles and things that matter.
7. To apprise of frequently faced challenges.
8. To suggest names of team members who can be approached for initial handholding.

Apart from this, member should be taken through demands of her role, work relationships, KRAs and intial training if need be.

Please note that induction can be interesting or boring, based on how the presentation is made and delivered. Do not hesitate in taking professional help from designer to put together a great ppt. This is also the first time the new member would be judging you, so be the Boss :)

The Economic Times High Flier talks of plugHR

The Economic Times on 25th December featured plugHR in its "High Flier" section while talking about "Out of the Box Successes". Article also highlighted the entrepreneurial spirit and courage displayed by plugHR CEO in letting go the high paying job opportunities in order to chase his ambition of creating something on his own out of scratch.

Here is the article copied and pasted below verbatim:

PLUGGED GLORY

Working in the telecom sector, post a degree from Symbiosis, specialising in marketing, basically means that your life is set for the next decade or so. And when other leading MNCs come to you and offer you a better job on a platter, would you jump to take it or ponder over it and refuse the job offer so that you can start something on your own? Prashant Bhaskar decided he rather take a chance then sit in a cubicle and work under someone. “It was during my early tenures, many CEOs and HR professionals expressed the need of grappling with the task of hiring and holding people. I realised that while hiring had got enough attention, there wasn’t much help available around holding people. It seemed like an untapped business opportunity and I got down to creating products around this,” recalls Prashant Bhaskar, Founder & CEO, plugHR. Starting something completely out of one’s skin seems like a difficult job. Though Bhaskar could have opted for any job he wanted, he decided against it. He says working under someone else doesn’t really allow one to innovate, take risk and attempt exceptional rewards. Does Bhaskar miss applying his educational knowledge at work? He disagrees, “Education is never a waste. I do not regret not taking those high paying jobs as I felt that I served my ambition.”

Dangerous Indifference

Yesterday's editorial touched on how everyday indifference of friends & family concerning dangerous inclinations of young minds can be blamed for such minds eventually crossing line. This was in context of Haneef & Kafeel, whose slide to extremist mindset is said to have happened over a period and no one in known circles stepped in to rescue young boys.

Indifference is well known to us. Right from poor roads, to lost playgrounds, to flooding cities, to dengue infested localities we've got a lot from it.

Why it figures here on a board that normally talks organization matters is because indifference hit organization big time. Often things about someone unhappy with boss, someone leaving organization (or taking interviews), someone bullying newcomers get known to staff members much earlier. Members normally consider it part of worklife and rarely attempt to counsel the colleague around organizational advantage. This responsibility is easily left to HR or CEO or immediate supervisor, who normally are not networked enough to have knowledge ahead.

What all fail to realize is that in the end its the part of their own ecosystem and any adverse development for ecosystem will sonner or later catch up with them. So in case of a great sales performer leaving the company, colleagues get affected by loss of performance of company (may be strengthening of competitor), lower profits, lower bonuses for all, additional pressure on existing staff etc.

So is there a way to beat indifference in real world organizations? Yes, just like there are communities, societies, groups that have beaten it in other walks of life. But ofcourse it requires effort.

A few things organizations can do is to create community groups comprising of employees across functions around focus area like " workplace improvement", "destress group", "employee retention group", nasty boss management group", "troubleshooting group" and as many as need be. Involvement with such groups would enhance ownership sense within employees and would show them the way to handle issues at their level itself.

But then what will HR do? Thats for some other day..... :)