Future of Work: How Hybrid Work Transforms Performance Management

Shushrutha Reddy

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6 min read

Unveiling the Power of Hybrid Work to Boost Performance Management & Achieve Success.

In the early years, employees are working for 80 to 100 hours per week, and in the later stage, it changes to 40 hours. And those days? Everyone has to log in at the workplace. Supervisors could check on their team members’ work and be confident that everyone was doing an honest day’s job.

The future of work highlights changes in how work is going on over the following ten years, which influences by technical teams, and generational, and societal developments. These days, managing performance and monitoring productivity isn’t quite so straightforward. Due to the pandemic, more employees are working remotely than ever before. Additionally, with a growing emphasis on work-life balance, many people (and even entire nations) are rejecting the idea of a 40-hour workweek and choosing to fit their work around their private lives, not the other way around.

Employees are segregated in both schedules and locations. But what does it mean for managers who want to keep leading high-performing teams without tying their success to dated metrics like “time spent at work”?

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Hybrid Work

First things first: the existing method of working is permanent. Many businesses found it daunting when the COVID-19 outbreak required employees to work from home. However, many organizations soon understood that they didn’t require workers inside the office building to continue progressing.

It was an eye-opening lesson that employees might have more flexibility without compromising the caliber of their job, especially for businesses that had previously disapproved of remote work. Utilize remote communication tools to their full potential for your hybrid workforce. Because of this, a hybrid strategy, in which employees will allow to decide where they perform at their best, whether in-office, at home, or a combination of the two-is probably here to stay.

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According to surveys, most workers overwhelmingly prefer flexible hybrid models, and over half of them would search for new employment if their current business didn’t adopt this strategy. In addition, 63% of fast-growing businesses have already adopted a hybrid workforce strategy, as per Accenture’s report.

Why is it so popular? Employers may face certain logistical difficulties as a result of a hybrid workforce, but a hybrid strategy is wise for the following reasons:

• Provides freedom and options: Employees can perform hybrid work where it is most comfortable and productive.
• Enhances the balance between work and life: Staff members can maintain a balance between their personal and professional life by using a hybrid method. It will be a major theme of attention for many employees and a crucial aspect of turnover and retention.
• Improves for teams: Instead of opting for an all-in-one format, hybrid work enables each team or department to choose the best path.
• Establishes the framework for the workforce: A hybrid workplace allows employees to work remotely, which is shown to have significant benefits for businesses, including the ability to hire the finest candidates regardless of where their physical location is.

That said, a hybrid workplace needs extremely different forms of coordination and communication and alternative approaches to people and task management. Performance management assumes a new dimension when teams work through an office or work from home while others spend their time between the two.

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How to Rethink Performance Evaluation in the Context of a Hybrid Workplace?

It’s no longer possible for managers to go down the office lane and see into workspaces to ensure that workers are paying attention to their responsibilities as teams transition to hybrid work models.

Higher levels of trust between leaders and their teams are necessary for hybrid work, as the organization focuses on the results rather than working hours.

This change may seem illogical for managers who habituate using the clock as a performance metric.

To help with this shift, we’re offering four measures that organizations can take to adapt their approach to performance management so managers can highlight employee performance without relying on punch-in time.

1. Set Clear Goals

Employees and managers must have a business concept of the exact objectives they are aiming for to evaluate performance based on outcomes rather than the quantity of time spent registered into the corporate system.

Clear objectives are the first requirement of goal-based performance management. Clear objectives benefit all staff (whether fully remote, hybrid, or always in the office).

But, this clarity is especially important for employees who don’t have face-to-face interaction, as it can leave them feeling detached and disconnected from their managers, their teams, and their work together.

Depending on the type of organization and each employee’s job, different measures could be used to evaluate performance. Leaders could check to see if employees meet predetermined goals or if deliverables are finished by a specific deadline.

The following are some illustrations of objectives that various employees in various roles may have:

• Sales: The goals for sales are typically quite simple. Most objectives spin around achieving more clients.
• Customer service: A customer service representative may target the number of tickets they successfully resolve each day or each week, or they may aim to receive a specific rating on customer surveys.
• SEO specialist: Meeting a target number of visitors or increasing a certain percentage from the prior year may be used to measure performance in an SEO function.

Your performance goals will motivate staff more and allow managers to track and manage more clearly. Make sure to put your goals in writing for even greater effectiveness.

2. Use a Proven Goal-Setting Method

Although you might believe that employee objectives are straightforward and clear-cut, only approximately half of workers strongly agree that they know their duties and responsibilities at work. Additionally, ambiguous goals and rules at work are the last thing your employees need when the pandemic working has taken a toll on the staff’s mental well-being and contributed to an overall sense of uncertainty.

Use a formula like the SMART approach to fill in all the boxes of an explicit goal to ensure your objectives are clear and truly motivate action. The abbreviation is

• Specific: Clear and explicit goals should be set.
• Measurable: Make sure that your performance goals can be measured. Give the objective a number or other value so everyone knows what the team is expecting.
• Achievable: Verify the viability of your objectives. They must also be reasonable and doable; they shouldn’t take over the employee’s life.
• Relevant: The objectives of your organization should be a bigger context within which the goals set for each person make sense.
• Time-bound: Assigning a time range is crucial to defining clear goals. The other SMART requirements accomplish and objectives are kept from dragging out pointlessly. Every employee should have a unique set of performance objectives, frequently set periodically.

3. Tie Goals to Company Objectives

You should thoroughly analyze your company goals before establishing goals for your staff. When those objectives don’t contribute to the organization’s broader mission, assigning specific goals to people makes little sense.

Additionally, having a goal that is closely related to the overall business mission can inspire personnel in a significant way.

It is crucial given that 60% of all employees can only partially agree that they comprehend the values of their employer. Particularly remote workers claim they are less likely to be appreciated for their contributions at work.

Team members experience a stronger sense of empowerment. Connection when they believe they are making a difference for a greater purpose. In addition, workers who feel empowered and engaged tend to put in more effort to accomplish their objectives.

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4. Involve Employees in the Entire Process

There should be no top-down approach to performance management. The leader has to ensure that the team members live up to the standards. It should only happen with conversation.

Instead, goal-setting should include input from staff members. Organizations should ensure that direct reports have the authority to work closely with their bosses and have open conversations about performance. Many advantages are provided by this two-way street, including:

• Increased buy-in for goals, as employees directly designed them
• More realistic and motivating objectives, as employees can offer advice before targets are set
• Improved trust between managers and employees, as they collaborate closely to identify metrics
• Better ability to proactively recognize and address performance issues when workers are more aware of expectations.

After all, this process aims to assist people in achieving their goals, not just create them.

You can rest certain that performance monitoring doesn’t necessarily require snooping. Even though these surveillance methods are now more prevalent than ever in remote and hybrid work situations.

If you’re uncomfortable with that level of monitoring. Having open discussions with team members at one-on-one meetings is one of the finest ways to comprehend and enhance performance. Questions like:

• We set a goal of [date] for [goal]. Please provide me with a progress report. ?
• Are there any obstacles preventing you from finishing? [goal]?
• Is there anything I can do to support you more effectively as you work toward [goal]?
• Now that we’re this far into [timeframe], what are your feelings? [goal]? Do you still believe it to be practical, or do you believe we need to make some changes?

The sharing of honest comments from employees helps them feel encouraging. For monitoring and enhancing employees’ current performance and establishing more attainable goals in the future, honesty is essential.

Conclusion

Additionally, be sure to provide feedback rather than just asking for it. Employees better understand whether they’re on the right track. Feel valued for the effort they’re putting in as a result. According to research, a transition to hybrid work. It counts as a “disruption,” even if it is something that the employees want. This rise in the need for recognition is 30% greater at these moments.

Published: July 7th, 2023