The Covid Upgrade to Performance Management

One of the most difficult decisions organizations need to make this year is whether employees’ 2020 performance should be formally evaluated in the pandemic.  If performance reviews were to take place, how would they be conducted in response to this crisis while continuing to drive productivity and engagement in the employee ranks. How will goals be assessed? What should be done with the non-performers?  Will there be a budget for rewards? These are the questions an HR practitioner may be asking today considering that the traditional performance reviews could be distracting and irrelevant in the pandemic climate.

From the start, a number of companies, Google among them, decided to suspend performance reviews altogether leaving accountability for performance entirely to the employees.[1] By contrast, those companies that have done the difficult work of de-complicating their appraisal process in the earlier decade have fared better[2]. 

Kerry Norman, SVP of People and Operations at CHG Healthcare, noted that abandoning traditional annual performance reviews for front line employees a few years back served them well in the pandemic. The focus today has been on providing “just in time feedback.” 

"We want people to know what they're doing right and where they can improve, rather than waiting until it's too late to do anything about it." Norman said in an interview.[3]

The unpredictable nature of the pandemic forced unplanned shifts of roles and responsibilities on teams. The goals have changed and too much uncertainty disrupted traditional planning cycles. Additionally, employees were taking on new roles with no prior experience or training which required the ultimate flexibility and learning on the job. 

"Our people are now learning their skills can be used in ways they never knew existed, and they're helping in areas of the company that may have been foreign to them just weeks ago."[4]

When it comes to performance management, the pandemic has served as a catalyst and an accelerator for the much needed upgrade. The crisis validated the best practices already in play. Complexity, rigidity, opacity of the decisions, and judgement laden performance reviews needed to pivot to simplicity, agility, transparency and on the fly learning of the new approach It could not have come fast enough. 

Here are the much needed features of this change:

      I.         A move from individual goals to shared priorities 

     II.         Investment in team collaboration and frequent stand ups 

   III.         Manager’s frequent check ins 

   IV.         Focus on outcomes and impact, not goals 

    V.         Trust in employee’s best effort 

   VI.         Empathy with the personal context 

 VII.         Discussions of future opportunities and career horizons

In summary, the pandemic has validated the business case for the much needed upgrade to companies’ performance culture.  The multi-level crisis has compelled HR to step up and finally cut the cord and reimagine performance management for the post COVID generations.  As the author of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy wrote “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.[5]” 

[1] The Information:  Google Suspends Reviews as Virus Disrupts Operations

[2] HBR: The Performance Management Revolution

[3] SHRM: How Managers are Handling Performance Reviews during COVID19.

[4] [4] SHRM: How Managers are Handling Performance Reviews during COVID19.

[5] Douglas Adams, the author of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.