To Build a Conceptual Framework for Performance Management of Employees for The Emerging Work Scenario

Abstract

Performance management systems are quite popular in usage for the management system of employees. However, its effectiveness has still not reached its maximum potential. With the changing work scenario, the requirement of the performance indicators is also changing. This research paper deals with developing a conceptual model for performance management. The need for the addition of qualitative variables other than quantitative variables has also increased which makes the measurement of performance difficult.

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

Employees play a key role in the success and growth of an organization. The performance of the company relies on the performance of the employees. Thus, it becomes critically important to measure the performance of employees effectively. Performance management is basically equating the goals of the employees with the organizational goals. The alignment of goals is done with respect to the key result areas based on the already established measurements, the company’s goal and plans, and the competency requirement. This research paper focuses on providing a framework for performance management indicators and parameters that should be used in the emerging work scenario. There are situations like covid-19 that have triggered the question of why the traditional check-in doesn't work. The employees’ work and professional life were affected and the requirement of changing the performance review system and making it more flexible with the changing global market. The focus should be on making the performance system more dynamic and flexible. The focus should be more on changing the result areas with respect to the changing work environment. The goal-setting process should be made flexible, understanding that roles are evolving quickly. Thus, this article attempts to overcome the pitfalls of traditional systems and develop a model for framework employee performance tracking and analysis in emerging work scenarios. The parameters that have been taken into consideration are goal planning and setting, setting up key performance indicators for each role, contextual situations, and factors that led to change in the work environment ( for example Covid-19 hit the global market detrimentally which compelled to move working in a more agile way.), development and growth opportunities for the employees, providing a real-time analysis on the performance metric in real-time basis, having a succession planning because of the presence of uncertainty and fear. This has made it mandatory for the strategic planning of business leaders way before the need might arise, being ready with grooming and training the potential candidates and finally analysis of the scores of every employee. All these parameters help find the performance report of the company and its employees, effectively.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

A. Remote Work: Capabilities and Approaches

Managers in various divisions frequently seek advice from HR specialists on topics including performance management, reward management, and appraisal. By providing measures of how employees utilize their work time and how they stack up against others on particular activities. It will be clear what information such monitoring software may supply after a fast review of remote working practices. The keystrokes, mouse movements, websites visited, screen captures, camera video, email usage, and even the content of phone conversations may be recorded every ten minutes by today's surveillance software. Other alternatives include deploying mirror displays, replicating a worker's home screen on another device, keeping track of how long an employee spends looking at screen content and providing managers with a minute-by-minute timeline. Also monitored by numerous programs are file transfers and the kinds of apps that an employee uses or has utilized. The environment in which people operate and the monitoring of places are both common components. Many of these software programs turn off inactive users and prompt them to log back in within a set time period.

Many managers use personnel classification and productivity ratings to automate the process of assessing staff performance. Numerous video conferencing programs, including Zoom, Skype, and Google Meetup, are used to continuously monitor personnel in addition to tools designed expressly for this purpose.

These tools also check to see whether employees are continually online (example: Slack, and Microsoft Teams). Because of this, it is now feasible to thoroughly and continuously monitor every working minute, both in the office and at home, thanks to the vast capabilities of separate or combined programs. However, constant surveillance has a significant impact on employees' work experiences.

B. Monitoring Employees: Cons

Close and erratic staff monitoring has been shown to decrease corporate citizenship efforts and have a detrimental impact on employees' self-efficacy (“voluntary helping behaviors; Jeske & Santuzzi, 2015”). Workers become less dependable and feel more helpless when they become aware that they are being watched. Intentions to leave are higher as a result, and morale is lower. Furthermore, a loss of team trust has been linked to a decline in contextual performance. When given complex challenges to solve or creative solutions to come up with, employees frequently perform worse, much like how performance is frequently hampered on such tasks when monitoring is stringent. Another problem is the possibility of non-differentiated, conformity-based performance goals being defined by some systems.

This could be particularly difficult for newly hired personnel or those who are unable to work as rapidly as previous employees. Diversity initiatives designed to hire people from a variety of backgrounds, skill levels, and circumstances are less successful since prejudice is more likely.

Depending on the nature and intensity of the monitoring as well as the commercial and professional profiles of the employees, certain workers may be susceptible to close observation of all of their interactions and activities. The practice of ongoing video surveillance is troubling considering the fact that many people who work remotely do so out of necessity. Another issue is the potential for some systems to set non-differentiated, conformity-based performance goals. This could be particularly difficult for newly hired personnel or those who are unable to work as rapidly as previous employees. Because discrimination is more frequent, diversity initiatives that aim to hire people from a variety of backgrounds, skill levels, and circumstances are less successful (for example, working parents who are temporarily working from home). +9Given that many people who work remotely do so involuntarily, the practice of continual video surveillance is concerning.

C. Monitoring Employees: Pros

There are several approaches to determine the worth of monitoring software. It can be a tool to support team cooperation, communication, and aid when needed for managers and team members alike when teams are large and spread. While some elements will be very useful for managers, others will be better for groups of people and teams as a whole. By providing constructive criticism, supervisors may monitor their development and provide assistance as needed (Jeske & Axtell, 2015). They discover that some tasks need to be delayed or given higher priority.

Monitoring task progress information may also aid in assigning future assignments. With the right knowledge of the employee's position and performance context, these recordings might therefore be used as performance appraisal inputs. Similar to employees, managers may prize certain qualities that make it easier for them to manage a larger, more dispersed workforce (for example, attendance, tardiness, and team-based projects). Particularly when employees utilize a variety of devices, numerous software programs can be put on varied hardware. There are numerous benefits that apply to particular team members.

With the proper authorizations, they can assess their own development and compare it to others. In some systems, they can further control the managers' access to the data. Such progress tracking can with  provide employees a goal to work toward and a way to stand out as top performers, especially for highly repetitive, routine occupations where activities are easily recorded and measured. The line between monitoring productivity without regard to an employee's position at work, the complexity of their task, or the importance of their output and indiscriminately recording every employee's behavior is razor-thin. In such circumstances, confidence in management and teams may be quickly eroded.

“In order for employee monitoring to achieve the desired results, employers must find a balance between their own requirements (such as the desire to manage and document work activities and productivity) and employees' wishes to be appreciated and trusted by their employers.” (specifically productivity and effectiveness) (Bernstrm & Svare, 2017). The flip side of the coin is employee monitoring and surveillance, which leads us to this.

D. Concluding Remarks

It will be vital for HR specialists to assess their proportion of remote employees because many HR regulations designed for on-site work do not handle these scenarios or support managers.

In order to comprehend how these aspects, affect HR proposals, create new challenges, and reveal knowledge gaps, trends, and the manner in which technology is utilized to manage people and production must be regularly taken into account in HR settings. If HR professionals embrace a stance where they are continuously following change rather than acting as guardians of process, they can only equip employers to deal with new challenges to how we work, how we manage, how we access productivity, and how we measure organizational effectiveness.

It is critical to consider how well current HR regulations and procedures cover all the pertinent areas as more and more tools are adopted and created for use by businesses. Similarly to this, it may be necessary to periodically evaluate the factors that influence managers' confidence in and loyalty to their organizations. The monitoring alternatives chosen and the intended and unexpected effects these decisions have on how employees regard the company can be greatly influenced by the style of leadership adopted and the organizational culture.

Therefore, it will be essential to consider new challenges in order to assure the feasibility of any proposed policies. Similarly to this, by routinely assessing the efficacy of HR policies and practices, it should be simple to tackle any new difficulties that occur with the organization's choice of vendors or software for workplace monitoring.

III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A. Research On The Existing Framework

With the Human Resource taking importance in the business, the importance of having a management system for the employees has also increased. There have been alot of attempts to form an ideal model with relevant indicators for the performance management system. A good framework should be one that covers all the relevant and prevailing factors affecting the employee and their performance.

One research model taken into reference by Michail Kagioglou, Racheal Cooper, and Ghassan Aousad gave a  balanced scorecard (BSC) that is adopted by the performance measurement process (conceptual) framework (PMPF) with the addition of a number of features and perspectives. The influence of those metrics on an organization's performance can be investigated and analyzed in order to identify potential areas for development because it rationalizes the linkages between performance indicators and goals generated from strategy.

One more model taken into consideration was which focuses on utility of performance management. The system gets directly affected by the effectiveness of a performance management model in capturing the idea of performance assessed both financially and non-financially. It can be seen that systems have developed, become more complicated, and given the concept of performance a new dimension as a result.

B. Identification And Selection Of Critical Practices In The Performance Management System

Performance of employees are dependent on various factors which sometimes vary from individual to individual. Some get affected more by one factor than another. For our model, we have taken into consideration those factors which affect the vast majority of employees at large and not the individuals.

Recently the globe went through a pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war, and trade war, and with the recession hitting the developed countries, the influencing factors in this model are-

Goal setting, key performance indicators, contextual situation and factors, development and growth opportunities for employees in their company, real-time feedback, succession planning and analysis of the score.

C. Developing A Model Framework For The Emerging Work Scenario

Considering the frameworks existing, and the gaps they have, this paper proposes a framework for implementation of the effective and up-to-date framework. As explained in the previous section, there are seven factors that will affect the performance of the employees. There are a few factors like goal setting, key performance indicators, and growth and development opportunities that are common in the prevailing management system.

However, the new and important addition to these factors is succession planning, real-time feedback, and contextual situation and factors.

IV. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

V. KEYWORDS OF THE FRAMEWORK

A. Goal Setting

It is the process to think about the ideal future and motivate yourself to turn this vision into reality, to meet targeted objectives. It shows where you want to take your objective in order to make and perform changes. Making and setting goals is incredibly motivating not only for oneself but for the organization as well. Goal setting is classified into three types-

1. Outcome Goals
2. Performance Goals
3. Process Goals

Here our prime focus will be on process goals. How efficiently this process of performance appraisal leads to better advantages of the process and for the organizations.

B. Key Performance Indicators

According to Peter Drucker, "What gets measured gets done." Measurement is a crucial management tool since it enables us to assess the impact of our work, show its worth, allocate resources, and concentrate improvement efforts.

The crucial essential quantifiable indications of progress toward an anticipated objective are known as key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs establish an analytical foundation for decision-making, give direction for strategic and operational improvement, and aid in concentrating attention on the most important things. Setting goals (the intended level of performance) and monitoring progress toward those goals are also parts of managing KPIs. Managing with KPIs frequently entails focusing on performance improvement utilizing leading indicators, which are markers of potential future success, in order to later generate the desired effects shown by lagging measurements.

Good KPIs:

1. Give unbiased proof of your progress in accomplishing your goal
2. Measure what has to be measured in order to make better decisions.
3. Compare the degree to which performance has changed throughout time.
4. Can monitor governance, compliance, behaviors, economics, project performance, employee performance, and resource utilization. It can also track efficiency, effectiveness, quality, timeliness, and quality.
5. Contain a healthy balance of leading and lagging signs

VI. CONTEXTUAL SITUATIONS AND FACTORS

Initial phases consist of a job profile, which requires travel. To track their work. Give accurate work data and work data to day-to-day work. The performance reports are normally taken from the reporting head or manager, which is not so free from bias. Still, various applications are installed in smartphones for traceability and performance analysis. Another factor that had a major impact on the performance of the employees in organisations is working from home during the Covid time period. The new situational factors did have a large-scale impact on organisations and the economy. One sector which sustained the whole phase is IT, Software & Consulting. Work from home is an emerging work scenario after Covid-19 and is still in process. Performance appraisal in the work-from-home scenario has played an important role until now. So these factors also lead to major changes in the performance appraisal process and procedures.

VII. DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES

Several factors in upcoming work scenarios are IT, Educational Institutes, etc. Have seen major changes in technologies and processes of work. Working from home did reduce work in certain industries leading to the loss of daily wages of daily earning workers. So, they had to migrate back.  It also creates new possibilities and work scenarios like working from home. It helped to work freely and with the uttermost ease of work. Leads to the major use of technology and video conferencing applications like Zoom, Teams, etc. Initially, these factors may a have caused few problems in educational institutes and current problems like moonlighting as well. But the revenue and work did not stop even during peak lockdown situations. These factors lead to a greater and newer process and system of work but lead to difficulty in the traceability of performance appraisal as work was accomplished by the people from their respective homes. These factors arise with major challenges in performance appraisal change of procedure if any.

VIII. REAL-TIME FEEDBACK

Once the performance indicators have been chosen, static analysis can be done either using software programs that can gather, process, and analyze real-time performance indicators in real-time or utilizing annual, semiannual, or quarterly data from financial reports. Given that the company must make a significant investment in this part of the performance management system, it is possible to outsource it because there are organizations on the market that specialize in real-time data analysis. The employee after being analyzed should be given feedback so that they can work on their effectiveness, work on their flaws, uphold and appreciate their exceptional capabilities and enhance their performance.

IX. SUCCESSION PLANNING

The process of identifying the crucial jobs within your organisation and creating action plans for people to fill those positions is known as succession planning. This kind of planning guarantees that you have the right people in the right jobs today and in the years to come by taking a comprehensive approach to current and future objectives.

Long-term succession planning increases the organization's capacity overall by:

1. Identifying any prospective openings in crucial roles;
2. Choosing crucial qualities and abilities required for business continuation;
3. Concentrating on personal growth to meet future business needs.

A succession plan identifies the people who have the abilities and potential to fill these upcoming responsibilities as well as the performance appraisal demands in the future. The Succession Planning Toolkit provided by Professional & Organizational Development will assist you, but we also urge you to speak with your designated HR consultant and/or HR administration during this process.

Succession Planning contains a number of worksheets that guide you through the succession planning process. We have divided succession planning into three phases with distinct steps. You'll discover examples of templates and advice for:

a. Ensuring that succession planning closely aligns with business objectives and strategy;

b. Recognising the significance of involving senior and executive leaders in the process;

c. Identifying essential skill development in detail;

• Assessment Phase

Step 1: In the next 1 to 5 years, identify important business challenges.

Step 2: Determine the crucial positions that will be required to maintain business continuity.

Step 3: Determine the institutional knowledge, competencies, and skills that are essential to success.

• Evaluation Phase

Step 4: Think about high-potential workers.

Step 5: Choose the skills people will require to succeed in roles and address recognised business concerns.

• Development Phase

Step 6: Gather the knowledge that people have before leaving the company.

Step 7: Create a talent pool that can fill important positions by implementing focused career development initiatives.

X. ANALYSIS OF SCORE

You can learn how to enhance tests and instruction, determine grades or the passing score on the test, ascertain whether the test was too easy or too difficult, and assess the effectiveness of training by looking at student performance. For instance, if a lot of the scores are poor, this may be an indication of the pupils' motivation and capacity for learning. They might also suggest that the test was too challenging or that the instruction was poor. Now that you have access to several data types from both common and custom tests, you organise and summarise them to make them useful. Data can be seen visually via graphs and charts like a histogram, frequency polygon, or scatter plot, as well as by the organisation of data in tables like a frequency distribution. Data summaries and descriptions are created using statistical techniques. Looking at the measures of central tendency is one method of summarising a set of scores (mean, median, and mode). Examining measures of variability is another way to quantify the degree of score variation (range and standard deviation).

XI . PERFORMANCE REPORT OF COMPANIES AND EMPLOYEES

Every report must be discussed face-to-face with the employee. The conversation should take place in settings that allow for a casual, unhurried, and private interview. It is strongly advised that the interview take place when the employee is initially handed the report. At the conclusion of the interview, the rater should ask the employee to sign the report in order to have their acknowledgment that the report was read, not so much to get their approval of the rating. The rater should note "Employee refuses to sign" in the space designated for the employee's signature if the employee declines to sign the report. The rater must let the employee know that an appointment will be set if they want to talk to the reviewing officer about their rating. The rater will then schedule a meeting between the employee and the reviewing officer and let the employee know about it. The rater should be consulted to address the issue if the evaluating officer believes there is merit in making any modifications as a consequence of this conversation. The employee, the rater, and the reviewing officer must all initial any adjustments that are made at this point. According to departmental regulations, the employee may formally contest the rating if they so want.

Conclusion

Performance management is the process of evaluating and improving employee performance in an organization. It involves setting goals, measuring progress towards those goals, and providing feedback and support to employees to help them improve their performance. There are many factors that can impact the effectiveness of a performance management system, including the use of quantitative and qualitative indicators, the flexibility of the system, the development and growth opportunities provided to employees, and the presence of real-time analysis and succession planning. The research methodology for this paper likely involved reviewing existing performance management frameworks and models, and using these as a basis for developing a new conceptual model that takes into account the changing work environment and emerging trends.

References

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Copyright

Copyright © 2023 Medha Mahto, Kousik Mandal . This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.