|
Back to Blog
Back to Office Guide for HR Leaders7/6/2021 Today, more than a year after WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic, we have four highly effective vaccines and 44% of the US population fully vaccinated. Encouraged by these positive signs, companies are now reimagining their work policies and thinking about bringing employees back to the office. Leaders expect half of their workforce back by July 2021.
So, how can you decide how many employees to call in and which ones to let continue working remotely? How can you draft new policies that balance in-office and remote staff? Which HR tools will you need to support hybrid work? We recommend the following practices: Follow government guidelines for employee safety So the first step in returning to the office will be to help your employees feel safe to be back. CDC has clear guidelines for workplaces with hazard assessment, ventilation, social distancing, and cleaning. You should follow these religiously to protect your employees. Create and communicate flexible policies You can draft a flexible policy that you can update as you go for in-office work and communicate that to employees in advance. But, do not let your employees choose their remote work schedules. That will create a diversity problem because single young men can come to the office all five days while women with children can not. Keep the focus on the big picture: Purpose Most people define their purpose in life through the work they do. Employees who feel living their purpose at work are happier, more productive, and likely to stay at the company. HR leaders have their work cut out: help employees discover their purpose and live it at work. Flatten the hierarchies for agility You can build on the productivity and efficiency gains of the remote work period by developing new hybrid structures that provide the same flexibility and agility to the office staff. It will empower managers to make decisions swiftly, and less red tape will keep employees engaged. Address employee anxiety Give your returning employees some time to adapt to new ways of working. And organize virtual get-togethers on team levels to help remote workers feel included. Humor is also a powerful tool to make employees feel at ease, unlock their creativity and productivity, and strengthen relationships. Deploy HR tech to support hybrid work When the world was under lockdowns during the peak COVID-19 crisis, HR tech kept businesses operating. These tools will play an even more extensive role in the new normal.
0 Comments
Read More
Back to Blog
The traditional performance review systems need to evolve. More organizations are getting flat, and the work more short-term and project-based. Companies such as Accenture, Gap, GE, Microsoft, Google, and Medtronic have ditched performance reviews and shifted to continuous feedback. One study estimates 70% of US companies are already following their lead.
This new reality requires updating your feedback and review systems. The feedback needs to become more frequent, best served by a 1:1, continuous approach. The reviews need to use multisource data, best obtained from 360° reviews. We recommend a new "middle ground" approach that gives you the best of both worlds. Use manager 1:1s to coach your employees in real-time and continuous peer feedback to increase employee engagement. Use 360° feedback to debias and reduce noise from performance reviews for better compensation and talent management decisions. Here's how: Use manager 1:1s & continuous peer feedback for development Continuous feedback creates a culture of ongoing and honest feedback conversations between managers and employees, and among peers. These conversations include coaching, praise, and what an employee needs to do differently. Here's why multinational companies have switched to this approach:
Deploy 360°s for unbiased performance evaluations For periodic evaluations focusing on employee's overall performance, you need more than 1:1 feedback from managers. 360° feedback gives you an employee's complete picture with inputs from peers, superiors, reports, and even outsiders. Here's why it's better than managerial reviews:
By bringing together the best of both worlds: continuous feedback and performance reviews, you can reinvent your performance management for today's times.
Back to Blog
A 1:1 meeting (also known as a 1-1 or 1-on-1) is a meeting between a manager and an employee. Unlike a typical group meeting where the purpose is status reports or to talk strategy, the purpose of a 1 on 1 meeting is to build rapport, coach, and give and gather feedback. It’s a personal space where that employee can open up about issues that might be holding them back and get help from you to develop their professional skills.
Here are 7 common areas that are often spoken of in 1:1 meetings with a manager: Poor communication: Oftentimes we’re too busy talking about strategy and ways to improve productivity that communication between manager and employee often gets overlooked. That’s why this space is important to create a space where employees and managers can establish a rapport. Lack of feedback: When there is a lack of feedback, it implies that the manager doesn't have a coaching relationship with their reportee. A coaching relationship is very important to ensure that there is continuous improvement in performance. Career growth and development stalling: The space for 1:1s is great to ensure that professional development of an employee continues to happen. This way they’re satisfied not only with their manager but also with the organisation that they work for. There's a sense the company as a whole is working for the betterment of the employee. Unclear purpose of work: Sometimes strategies keep changing at higher levels of the organisation and can cause some degree of confusion or an unclear purpose of work. The 1:1 space is great to clear that confusion by asking managers directly of what’s going on. Lack of trust and confidence in their manager: When there’s a lack of trust and communication between managers and reportees, reportees can develop low confidence in their managers. That’s why it’s important to talk and iron out these issues. Bottled up frustrations: Any frustrations regarding work or the company, can be discussed in this space as well. Interpersonal and inter-team conflicts: When many people work together, issues are bound to arise, and conflicts may occur which the employee may not be able to solve on their own. Thus, this space of 1:1s, is great to get that much needed solution. So whether you’re conducting the 1:1 or participating in it, these are the common areas of discussion that may come up. Here’s hoping you’re more equipped to conduct or feel more comfortable discussing these common 1:1 topics in your next conversation.
Back to Blog
The feedback that is constructive and ongoing helps in the continuous development of employees, as it acknowledges results, and encourages effort. By receiving timely feedback, employees gain visibility for their work, which allows them to take further responsibility knowing the effort put in won’t go unnoticed. Here are 5 ways, managers can provide feedback that makes employees feel seen and valued.
Check-in often and early on with your employees For feedback to be effective it's important to check in early on and often with your team. This helps employees feel seen and recognized and that their best interests are kept in mind. This sort of validation goes a long way and helps to establish trust. Here feedback is more likely to be accepted and behaviors can be rectified from a trusted source. Clarity of feedback is important When trying to provide effective feedback managers need to make sure the feedback is clear and concise. Sometimes to deliver some negative feedback we may tend to ‘sandwich’ it between two positive ones. This confuses employees and should be avoided. Feedback is a two-way process Effective feedback is that when there's a give and take. It’s important to make sure that when managers are talking to employees, they have the patience to also listen to what team members are saying so that they have a clear understanding of the situation and feedback can be more detailed. Make it private An effective manager knows to praise in public and critique in private. People are more likely to listen when they don’t feel cornered or personally attacked. So it’s important to always check someone in private. Followup Effective feedback that’s given must also be followed upon. That’s the difference between good and great feedback. After giving feedback, you follow up to see, have the right changes have been made, are your employees on track, or do they need some additional help. It’s also sometimes as easy as saying “You’re doing a great job, keep it up” which can help employees stay on track. Giving effective feedback is vital for every manager, and should be seen from a large performance-based view where it is given early and often in a clear manner. Providing feedback is crucial for any manager and helps to produce better results.
Back to Blog
You all will agree to this that the appraisal time is the most difficult time for any organization. The energy and brain it consume is another level. It gets so hectic to check the work and the growth of each employee of organization as this is the basis to decide appraisal. For this you need a right software that cut all your human efforts and make the task easier. For the same social performance management tool is the one that will suit your company and give the right system to it. It takes lots of efforts to check work and to treat everyone equally and give them chance to grow with their work. So better try to cut some of it with the software.
But if you haven’t used it before then here are some of the points to choose the right social performance management platform. 1. First of all identify the problems you and your company is facing. Make a list of it and on the basis of the problems decide which software will suit you more. You have to choose the software or tool that you can place easily in your organization and it will work for you in the best way you want. Checking work individually is quite tough as you can’t keep an eye on each employee and at the time of appraisal it becomes difficult to decide that who deserves how much. This software will rescue all the tasks. 2. Goal setting is quite an important part for any organization. Only a good performance management software could lead you towards the goal completion and know how far your employee can go. With the software you can monitor how much the employee has worked and how many targets have been achieved under the deadline. 3. The software help to check the employee performance individually. To pick the software make the list what all you want from the software then you can choose, if it is fulfilling all your needs. This means the system you have adopted should be reliable. Like it should set goals and targets, give time reminder, provide feedback and results and make a performance graph. That’s perfect! 4. Compatibility with the software is very important so that no disruption occur in the working. Also you should not take long time to get compatible and friendly with it. you have to choose the software that ease the task of employee not the one that makes it difficult for them to handle. |