Employer's Biggest Strength - Building a Performance Driven Culture.
Hello there! Hope you're having a wonderful November and would have an even better December! I read a post on one of the Social Media Sites about these two months or rather these last 45 days being the 'Plot Twist' Days that you have wished for in your life and well that's really intriguing isn't it, that what if life takes a turn in the snap of a day? Give it a thought, but for now let's get back to reality (:-p)
October - November - December: During these months which belong to the last quarter of 2017 or the second last quarter of F.Y. 2017-18 is when organization's are getting on with the strategic plans for the coming year in terms of business, product lines, people management, revenue and everything, so that it can be effectively implemented when the managers have set a date for it. Hence, keeping this aspect in mind, I'm writing this post to share about few of the strategic activities which will help organization's (of any size) build a performance-driven culture or rather enhance the existing one in place. Here are they:
1) Identify the Type of Employees Currently Present:
Identifying the type of employees means, identifying their degree of performance and then segregating them into parameters that are: Outstanding-Performer, Effective-Performer and Under-Performer. When the HR Team and the Top Management Employees will have an idea about the kind of employees that they have and their ability / efficiency, there can be better measures taken through employee engagement and learning-and-development to enhance the employee performance based on their caliber. After the measures have been taken, it is also important to review their performance on the basis of ROI for factual proof and also so that the Talent Team will know what type of employees to hire in future.
2) Make the Best Use of Technology:
Access to Technology and its related applications have grown immensely. Building a 'Communicative Platform' where every employee has access to the company's know-how's and they can contribute to it by sharing their thoughts on matters related to the company, with providing recognition to them for their contribution will motivate employees to give more to the organization. The thought-sharing should not be limited to department-wise, as in, a HR team member can provide certain creative ideas to the Branding team and so on. In this way, there will be over-all upliftment of the employees as well as the employer.
3) Set 'Average' Standards - Not Literally!:
The idea behind this strategy is that, when performance standards are set, it needs to an average i.e. the mid standard of extremely high performance standard and effective performance standard. In this way, the under as well as effective performers will look forward to improving themselves on achievable standards, the performance can than be rewarded accordingly. If the criteria is too high, there are more chances of employee grievances and attrition as well, which will add up the hiring costs of the organization.
4) Go for a 9 x 9 Matrix for Performance Management:
A 9 x 9 Matrix puts a candidate into a grid which matches his / her level of performance (on X-Axis) and his / her potential to perform better or take on more responsibilities. While the Bell-Curve Method analyzes the current performance of an employee but the 9 x 9 Matrix analyzes the future prospects of employee performance and hence the organization can also take collective measures to enhance the employee's performance and make it a better performance driven structure.
5) Burn-out Sessions:
This is actually a fun activity - 'Hello Weekend Burn-Out Session'. In a jist, these sessions are conducted in a room where the employees have to leave out their 'employee image' (put the ID Cards and all work related stuff outside) and join in together, sans their designation or seniority levels, to have a 'burn-out' session which involves fun activities like Zumba Dancing, Games, Discussions about the Week's Performance and the Coming Week, Creativity sessions and things like that, so that the employees are recharged before they leave for the weekend, enjoy the weekend and come back on Monday with a view that they are looking forward to achieving all their goals. PS: This same can be turned into a 'Hello New Week Burn-Out Session', with the same drill, instead it being scheduled on Monday Mornings.
6) It is not just an HR's Responsibility any more:
When any such performance enhancement strategy is to be implemented, please understand that it is NOT just an HR's look-out to do all the things that are related to employees, it has to be done collectively with the involvement of all the line managers and business head also. This will ensure that the employees are aware about their manager (also) taking measures to motivate employees to perform better or remain consistent with the performance.
So these were few of the measures that I feel would work really well for inculcating a high performance driven culture. These activities should be treated as on-going continuous processes rather than short acts / projects so that this concept of performance driven culture becomes the biggest strength for any employer!
Share and Comment down below if you have more of such ideas about building an effective employee performance culture, and, thank you for keeping up with my blogs!
Much Love, Positivity and Gratitude.
- Binal R. Chitroda
(#TheHRConnect)