Companies that are undergoing significant change have unique requirements when it comes to performance management training. Whether the company is undergoing change as a result of fast growth, Covid-19 or other reasons, their challenges will be different, and possibly greater than those under normal circumstances.
For fast growing companies, their changeable talent requirements will be one of the biggest struggles as their needs differ so dramatically between the different stages of growth. In the early stages the company typically simply cannot afford the high-end talent that they will require in later phases. In the growth stage the organization needs staff that are flexible, creative and adaptive. Experience may actually be a disadvantage in this phase.
The sudden emergence of Covid-19 has highlighted the importance of a flexible approach to performance management. A one-size-fits-all model may no longer be relevant, or certainly not as relevant as it was in the pre-Coronavirus era. Many managers are now asking whether their approach to performance management training is still relevant, or if they need to substantially adapt their model to the new normal under these times of Covid-19.
For an organizations’ leaders to develop and thrive management will need to spend time helping them to re-imagine their goals in the light of the organizations new strategies which have been developed to adapt the organization to the new environment. Ideally, everyone within your organization will trace the path from their individual goals all the way up to the wider strategic company objectives. Without this managers simply have a group of individuals trying to achieve the wrong things, leading management teams to deliver poor performance.
Forrester Research recently conducted surveys into the impact of
Covid-19 on employees and performance management. The results are disturbing, especially when it comes to the potential impact on organizational performance. Fifty-three percent of respondents to the Forrester survey said that they are afraid of the virus and sixty-seven percent say that the regularly stay informed about it. While forty-five percent of respondents believe that work life will be disrupted by the virus into the future, even worse is that almost thirty percent are afraid to go to work for fear of contracting the virus.
Covid-19 has also had a significant impact on the structure of work. Remote working utilizing virtual tools and platforms is now the de facto standard workplace environment. Companies may be required to develop a completely new approach to performance management if they are to successfully align performance management with these new remote working practices. As with the modern approach to
performance management training, coaching will become more important than ever. At the same time, remote and virtual coaching skills will need to be developed by managers, and this in turn may require additional training for them.
Similarly, changes to an organization due to the impact of things like Covid-19, acquisition, mergers or international expansion can all have a significant impact on performance management due to a change in talent profile. In the case of international expansion for example, the organization may employ people from a completely different culture and with entirely different employment legislation. A one-size-fits-all approach to performance management simply will not work in this environment. A flexible and adaptive approach to performance management that is culturally sensitive and reflects the different legal requirements in the new jurisdiction will be necessary.
The same can be said for changed circumstances brought about by mergers and acquisitions. The acquired or merged company may have its own culture that differs significantly from your company. Similarly, it is likely to have a very different strategy. All of this needs to be aligned so that the new organization is working from the same page.
A major part of the success of the new models for
performance management training must be communication. Managers will need to be flexible enough to allow team members to adapt to their new working environments. They will also need to provide additional support in the form of coaching and mentoring. At the same time they will need to gradually move to holding employees accountable for their results. Similarly, they will need to learn what channels each employee prefers for communication. Some will prefer email, as it may be the most efficient way to communicate. Others may prefer video, while some may simply prefer phone. Each manager will need to learn the best ways of adapting their communication styles in order to facilitate this.
Although more frequent conversations between managers and employees sometimes provide an
improvement in performance, this is also linked to how much performance management training the managers has received. In order for the manager to hold meaningful conversations with the employee they need to be able to give the employee clear advice such as “This is what you will need to do and achieve in order to be successful”. In order to be able to do that the manager needs to be able to identify what the employee is particularly good at, particularly weak at and understand what are their personal goals.
Companies that rely on a traditional model of performance management will struggle to achieve the necessary alignment and adaptation needed for a successful transition. The traditional approach of end of year performance reviews simply lack the speed and flexibility required to support significant change.
Performance management requires more modern models that are the key to achieving improved performance within organizations undergoing significant change. These models rely on a combination of formal end of year reviews and informal check-ins to ensure that everyone is consistently aligned with the organizations more wide-ranging goals and strategy.
The most important pieces of structure in the modern approaches to performance management are continuous two-way feedback and coaching. Both of these elements will become more important than ever as employees seek to understand how successful performance is defined under these changed circumstances. Success in the old era may not remain to be seen as success in the era of remote working under Covid-19. Managers must first seek to understand and define what success looks like now, and then communicate that clearly that to their employees.
Similarly, goals may now need to change drastically. The wider environment is unrecognizable to the external environment in which business strategies were originally planned. As business strategies adapt and change, so too must the performance management plans that cascade down from these strategies. Everyone’s KPIs and OKRs must be re-evaluated within this context. Are they still relevant? Do they still reflect the new strategic goals and objectives?
The organizational culture will eventually be reflected in which model of performance management is engaged. Using a more modern, flexible and adaptive approach can help the company to become faster and more adaptable to a changing world. For companies that are dramatically affected by the impact of Covid-19 it is essential that they build a culture that will support high performance under challenging and changing circumstances.
In summary, organizations need to be sure that they have all of the essential elements in place to support employee performance. The right technology for communication, new management training, systems to allow remote data entry so that performance data can be easily entered, tracked and analyzed. All of these foundational elements must be fully operational if management are to expect a high level of performance to be achieved by their employees once more.