The need for a paradigm shift from Performance Management to Performance Enablement for the modern workplace
By Hariraj Vijayakumar
In the past few years, the corporate world has witnessed an unprecedented exodus of employees. Companies across various industries now face a crucial question: How can they effectively attract and retain top talent in this increasingly competitive landscape? Is it time to re-evaluate, re-engineer, and redesign an outdated system that may no longer meet the needs and expectations of today’s workforce? However daunting this may seem, what if some organizations have already achieved unparalleled performance standards by implementing best-in-class performance systems?
Obsolescence of Existing Performance Systems
The current form of Performance Management traces its roots back to the 1970s when Peter Drucker introduced “Management by Objectives,” a goal-oriented management philosophy. In the current system, business leaders outline the organizational objectives at the beginning of the year, which mid-senior managers then break down into specific goals for each department. Frontline managers further dissect these goals to determine the key result areas for individual employees. Once this initial pseudo-alignment is established, employees are left to navigate their own paths to achieve their assigned key results. Managers may identify skill gaps and direct employees to relevant learning and development programs. This process culminates in the performance appraisal, including feedback discussions and formal year-end evaluations.
Over the past five decades, and particularly in the past decade, the workplace has undergone a significant transformation. Today’s workplace is distinguished by several key features: a multi-generational workforce, dynamic organizational structures, a greater emphasis on achieving work-life balance, a shift towards hybrid work cultures, and accelerated technology adoption. However, since then, performance management systems have experienced minimal evolution. While a few bells and whistles, such as 360-degree assessments, semi-annual feedback, and transparent appraisal systems, have been incorporated, the fundamental framework remains unchanged.
What is the Performance Enablement Approach?
The Performance Enablement approach is rooted in four fundamental piers: Transparency, Assistance, Suggestions, and Routine.
Transparency recognizes the importance of providing employees with clear and concise guidance and direction. Assistance emphasizes the need for highly customized, comprehensive, and contextual support that nurtures performance and fosters growth. Suggestions offer a powerful tool for improvement. Routine emphasizes cultivating positive work behaviour that lead to peak performance.
Below are the specific factors which prove the urgent need to shift from a performance management approach to a performance enablement approach.
Continuous Feedback for Purpose-driven Employee Engagement
The traditional approach of conducting annual or semi-annual performance reviews has proven inadequate in providing timely and actionable feedback. Modern organizations need to shift towards a more dynamic system of enabling continuous feedback and coaching conversations that empower employees to continuously improve, tackle challenges, and unleash their full potential. To drive purpose-driven employee engagement, organizations must enable each manager to recognize the unique context, circumstances, and career journeys of their workforce. By acknowledging and appreciating these attributes, leaders can build an environment where employees feel heard, valued, and supported in pursuing personal and professional goals.
Goal Alignment and Agile Goal Setting
Traditional performance management systems often rely on rigid and static goal setting, where objectives are set at the beginning of the year and remain unchanged throughout. However, this approach may be ineffective and counterproductive in an era where business priorities and market conditions can shift rapidly. With agile goal alignment, goals are not set in stone but are regularly revised and realigned to keep pace with evolving business priorities. This allows organizations to respond swiftly to market changes, emerging opportunities, and shifting customer demands. It also enables employees to adapt their objectives based on their evolving roles, skill development, and career aspirations.
Skill Development and Learning on the Job
Organizations today face challenges in effectively supporting their employees to keep up with changing skill requirements. Coaching and training interventions are often infrequent, limited in scope, and follow a one-size-fits-all approach. To ensure effective skills development, organizations must create individual development plans for employees. These plans serve as roadmaps for professional growth and outline specific learning objectives and milestones. By aligning individual development plans with organizational objectives, employees can track their progress while contributing to the achievement of broader strategic goals.
Customized and Contextual Guidance
In the traditional performance management approach, when skill gaps are identified in employees, they are often directed to generic training and development programs aimed at filling those gaps. However, these coaching and training interventions are usually infrequent, limited in scope, and follow a one-size-fits-all approach. Performance Enablement strategies consider the unique work context and challenge each employee faces. This ensures that the guidance is relevant, practical, and applicable to the employee’s day-to-day work. Customized and contextual guidance may be provided through various approaches like mentorship programs pairing employees with an experienced professional in their field, peer-to-peer learning, one-on-one coaching sessions with experts, etc.
The future is Performance Enablement
Performance Enablement addresses the shortcomings of traditional systems by emphasizing continuous feedback, agile goal alignment, and learning on the job and providing customized and contextual guidance.
This approach recognizes that employees are not static entities but dynamic individuals with unique strengths, aspirations, and development needs. By embracing this shift, organizations can
- a) Enhance employee engagement
- b) Improve adaptability
- c) Evolve new competencies
- d) Enable peak performance
(The author is Hariraj Vijayakumar, Founder & CEO, NWORX, and the views expressed in this article are his own)
