Performance review – and regular check-ins with the team – have traditionally relied on in-person meetings. However, the hybrid working model eliminated many opportunities for spontaneous conversations, quick desk visits and informal updates.
So how can HR leaders tool up the workforce so that updates and goal progress can still be captured in one place and in real time?
The conversation around hybrid work versus full-time office presence continues to take place across organisations.
While some major corporations, such as Amazon, have pulled back from remote working, calling for a full five days in the office presence, others continue to work out how best to accommodate the needs of the business and the workforce.
An article in Harvard Business Review showcases an experiment with Trip.com of different working patterns. The six month study randomly assigned employees to either a traditional five day office schedule or a hybrid model with three office days per week. Analysis of performance reviews over the subsequent two years revealed no significant differences in productivity, performance grades or promotion rates between the two groups.
It's clear that no single working model fits all organisations or roles; there is a balance between job requirements, tech availability and individual preference and circumstance. Even within the same organisation, different departments may adopt different work patterns.
It takes commitment to work this through but, get it right, and you’ll create a better employee experience, a talent retention uptick and an assured productivity level.
However, it does mean that the performance management tool used by a single organisation needs to be capable of adapting to – and being of use across – different working patterns and across all work arrangements. That is, organisations need a readily accessible platform that serves hybrid, in-office and remote workers equally well.
Enhancing the employee experience of performance management is important – and requires additional thought and action to get it right when not everyone is in the office all of the time. Think about how goals are set, collaboration and feedback are encouraged and progress is tracked.
This is more than simply setting objectives. All team members want to understand how the work that they do contributes to their team’s and the organisation’s objectives.
Be sure that your performance review platform allows for a clear visualisation of how individual goals roll up, cascade down or travel across to others’ goals.
Building work relationships may take longer when there is reduced in-person meeting and ad hoc opportunities to request or offer feedback. Without these foundations or a tool to help, feedback on progress or simply how an individual is doing may not be captured – be it from team members or managers.
Find a performance tool that enables quick and easy requests for feedback against a specific objective – as well as giving feedback that wasn’t prompted. Store these within the system for later review.
Also, include something novel within your performance review platform to really make the difference. The giving of kudos is a relatively recent action that has moved from the social to the work environment. Performance tools, such as Talent Performance, now include a range of ‘cards’ that can be ‘given’ as thanks or in recognition for the difference others make to the team or for a job well done.
It’s useful for managers and team members to have a ‘scratch pad’ to add thoughts and topics for discussion between check-in meetings – regardless of whether this is in-person or online. Furthermore, progress needs to be visual.
Talent Performance allows team members and managers to see not only a written update on progress, but a percentage completion score and chart – as well as whether reaching the goal is ‘on track’.
Performance management platforms, such as Talent Performance, offer the solution for the different working patterns organisations now have in place. These include:
A hybrid world of working is here to stay.
To read how Northamptonshire Police approached this, read our case study.
When you are ready to explore this further and make sure your performance platform accommodates all working patterns, send us an email and let's arrange a call.