It is extremely essential and business critical that an organization must measure and quantify employee’s performance and productivity on a regular basis. Ensuring performance and productivity in the workplace is a serious process and it must be executed with proper process and systems. Recent Gallup survey revealed that over 75 percent of employees are disengaged and not focussed on their deliverables. These employees are majorly distracted with their smartphones, social media, personal emails and the work – life balance. This lack of interest and involvement often leads to low or average productivity. Measuring your employees' performance and productivity provides you an insight into their talent, competence and skills.

Setting Benchmark and Expectations

Assessing and measuring your employees' performance and productivity and discussing your findings with them, gives an unique opportunity for employees to understand that the company expects them to do better and care about their progress and growth. You also ensure a proper alignment of achieving individual goals that are aligned with company goals.

In addition to providing feedback to an employee about his performance, one can understand what are the gaps in terms of process, training, communication among team members across the organization.

Studies have shown that employees who are able to see a direct correlation between their productivity and organization goals are far satisfied and therefore more engagement than those who don't see how their work affects company goals.

There have been innumerable conversations around the globe on measuring productivity and performance in a remote working setup. Every organization has its own goals that need to be accomplished and every individual contributes to those goals in their unique way through the role they play. 

Given the fact that individuals are working from home, under pressing existing performance expectations and culture for many, it is critical to realize that not just new organizational requirements, but the disrupted personal lives of employees are also bound to have an impact on performance.

“Timeline and expectation setting are two important elements of performance that must be mutually agreed upon by both managers as well as employees, keeping scope for flexibility, factoring in the environment employees are functioning in and the business need.”

It’s vital that we keep an eye out for emerging performance management trends while researching efficient tools to streamline existing processes and improve productivity levels.

These 5 tools help employees and the management navigate rough roads and ensure that employee productivity and performance is at peak in the new normal:

The 5As Approach to Goal Setting:

This performance management tool and objective process need to be collaborative. Goals should be set jointly — and should be assessable, aspirational, aligned, accountable and agile:

• ASSESSABLE: Goals always need to be quantifiable, so as to reflect once achieved.  
• ASPIRATIONAL: An aspirational goal encourages employees to test themselves so as to develop and ultimately drive high performance.
• ALIGNED: The goals need to be aligned with business objectives and ultimately reflect in the mission and vision of an organisation. ACCOUNTABLE: Employees need to be informed as to the accountability for the goal itself, and they need to understand if the goal is individual or common for other team members.
• AGILE: Goals should be short term and reviewed regularly so that they remain meaningful and relevant. Additionally, goals need to be flexible so as to accommodate other priorities and responsibilities. 

Real-Time Feedback:

Real-time feed­back possesses   several benefits, including increased retention, improved recruitment, better performance and an increased ability to handle change. Today, sharing real-time feedback is relatively convenient, with the advent of tablets, laptops and smartphones. Additionally, with the use of performance management software, feedback can be shared amongst peers and managers seamlessly.

Personal Development Plans (PDPs):

PDPs is a very powerful tool that help employees and managers benchmark their performance and map against each time stamp. Every manager and employee should create SMART PDPs that can be updated and reviewed online throughout the year. This encourages employees to regularly monitor their progress against their KRAs and companies benefit from a workforce that comprises of a sense of direction. PDPs are most significant now more than ever because during the Work from Home period, it’s very easy to lose focus and goals in larger scheme of things. 

A Well­being Scheme:

The pandemic created an uncertainty like never before. Employees are concerned about their future, jobs and several other personal aspects such as health and family. Employees can’t be productive when they face burnout, owing to various forms of stress.  A forward thinking organisation is pre-prepared and places measures to cater to employee wellbeing. Some companies do this in the form of flexibility; some have wellbeing coordinators. Many companies indulge employees in regular workout/Yoga training sessions with external nutritionists and psychologists. Others encourage employees to take up an activity/sport/hobby which they have given up earlier. Additionally, several companies have encouraged employees to take up online courses to sharpen their professional skill sets.

Engagement, Wellbeing and performance management software:

One aspect which the Covid pandemic has forced us all to adopt is our inclination to go digital. Human resources too has had to adapt to the digital wave to keep itself relevant as a function. Employee engagement is one critical function which all the companies have prioritized in this lockdown. This has created the need for a software/ tool to digitize three key aspects of HR: employee engagement, wellbeing and performance management. Employee engagement, performance and productivity are interlinked and closely monitored aspects therefore, it makes sense to manage performance and employee engagement on one platform. This has given rise to some cutting-edge softwares which manages and maps employee engagement and performance. Employee engagement software helps managers and employees to discuss wellbeing and engagement issues during their frequent one on one conversations. With this software, you can gather employee feedback, analyse it and truly understand the company’s engagement levels. Getting a handle on employee engagement will inevitably have a positive impact on the overall productivity.