
Amidst the uncertainty and the disruption of the normal business flow, along with an undefined strategic direction,most members of any organization are facing “uncharted territory” and learning as they go. This includes managing complexity and thriving through the disruption by weighing in a variety of factors and using the pandemic to their own advantage. HR Professionals are also being pulled in a new direction and are required to wear a strategic hat ranging from crisis response planning, to communicating business as usual, to maintaining some level of continuity in business operations. Nonetheless, soon enough, the focus will have to shift to restoring productivity and aligning performance with the new strategic direction. Scattered question marks will follow. How can we assess the performance of someone who is assigned a whole new list of tasks they’re not yet accustomed to? What about the indicators that have been changing since the beginning of the pandemic? Do we abandon the current performance cycle? Do we continue with evaluations as planned? In this age of transition and dynamism, and when agility is most needed, calibrating the performance framework may help in setting up a successful organization in the post-pandemic phase. Analyzing the following three questions based on your organizational context and the maturity of the present performance management process can provide the right insights towards better situational adaptability.
- Is your performance assessment process periodically set (for example, do you lead two appraisal cycles annually)
- Is the majority of your staff, despite the lock-down, still working?
- Do you tie compensation and succession planning to performance results?