Within the corporate space there has been a huge transformation of HR roles and responsibilities. Now the focus of HR is on evolving functional strategies that assist in successful implementation of major corporate plans. Better collaboration and alignment between HR policies and organisational strategies are emerging within the corporate ecosystem. The role of HR has magnified to encompass more responsibilities facilitating employees to improve their performance. This is achieved by creating an optimum work environment and by providing maximum opportunities to employees for participating in organisational planning.
Employees are given the opportunities to participate in the decision making process within the organisation. Therefore, the emphasis is on creating a collaborative environment in the corporate space through HR policies directed towards better employee engagement. HR activities, in present times, are all driven towards the making of leaders in organisations, who could lead with high performance. Fostering motivation in employees is amongst the major emphasis of HR responsibilities. The concept of Performance Management emerged against this backdrop as a tool to facilitate HR in creating leadership roles among the work force. In the organisational battle for leadership, the method emerged as an effective concept.
Diverse activities such as joint goal setting, continuous progress review, frequent communication and feedback comprises performance management. Furthermore, it encompasses activities such as coaching for improved performance, implementation of employee development programs and rewarding achievements. It is a comprehensive and a continuous process that follows throughout the career of an employee in the organisation. It is a systematic process that improves performance of individuals within the framework of the team, which in return improves the whole operational process holistically. High performance is achieved by communicating expectations and underlining achievable goals for the teams. The roles and responsibilities are defined within the competence framework through the process of performance management.
Recent developments show that performance management is a strategic and integrated approach to deliver successful results in the organisation by improving the performance and developing the capabilities of teams and individuals. The objective of performance management is achieving superior standards of work and quality performance. The process is employee intensive and HR functionalities such as job design, leadership development, and training and reward systems received equal impetus comprehensively and within a wider framework. Constant communication with employees is the primary trait of the process. Performance management is cyclical and ongoing in nature.
Performance management begins as soon as an employee begins working in an organisation, it helps the management to understand the capabilities and improve the employee as a resource. The performance indicators are determined in the first stage of the process that includes Key Result Areas. The selection process is devised with a comprehensive view towards these factors as implementing the right selection process ensures recruitment of right candidates. Performance management involves negotiating requirements and performance standards for measuring the outcome. Identification of training and development needs by measuring these outcomes is also under the ambit of performance management. Furthermore, programs and new strategies are to be devised reviewing the previous strategies for effective implementation.
Nurturing employees through performance management involves designing reward systems for effective compensation and reward system. The system follows a pervasive evaluation method of employee performance based on predefined performance plans. Providing career development support and guidance to employees is an objective of the process. The process includes performing exit interviews for understanding the cause of employee discontentment and finding out the underlying reasons of their resignation.
Employees are motivated through the culture of the organisation and engagement programs. Therefore, work culture of the company must be transparent enough. Employees should feel collaborated with healthy mindset of being competent to each other in an uncomplicated environment. The HR industry is focusing on methods and processes to bring out the best in employees and performance management materialised as the right tool to attain the objective. The process is connected to actions and behavior of employees moulding them in the right direction. It is the harmonious engagement of HR and employees for accomplishment of excellent performance.
(The Author Sidharth Agarwal is the Co-founder, Spectrum Talent Management, a well known firm and one of the most successful recruitment firms in the country)
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