The Role of HR in Performance Management

In an ever-changing world of diverse business challenges, it has become vital for today's organizations to align every employee's role, skills & motivations to contribute to the successful implementation of strategic organizational decisions. To do that, however, it is important to track and assess the employees' work so that an environment can be developed where each employee can perform effectively and efficiently to the best of their ability and deliver the highest quality of work.

Zubair Bhura talks about "The Role Of HR in Performance Management." According to Zubair, Performance management encompasses a broader topic than just performance appraisals. Performance management aligns strategic decisions to measure performance with remuneration, promotion, disciplinary procedures, and extending the range from higher to junior levels among employees, constituting a whole new setup to empower performance in an organization.

1. Short-term goal setting & frequent discussions are more critical than longer-term goals and annual meetings. If employees are aware of their own performance standards, managers will find it easier to steer them in the right direction for effective realignment.

2. Defining managers' goals and communicating those with employees is the basic ingredient to foster a well-structured performance management system within an organization.

3. Frequent feedback is a con for top performers as they may feel micromanaged every time, which may discourage their morality that affects decision making- however, it varies from project to project.

4. People should be reasonably accountable for their job. However, consulting employees during the actual decision-making process is vital.

5. Each individual's circumstance is different, motivation factor varies, and categorization based on age shouldn't be done. We should first understand that and, based on that, alter our strategies with the ultimate aim of helping employees obtain ownership of their performance.

6. Performance management tools should have a well-defined rewards management structure, analyze jobs for each employee, establish KPIs, link each employee's professional worth to market pace, & create surveys to develop a frequent feedback loop to understand the setbacks faced by employees and improve them.

Zubair also emphasizes that all aspiring HR managers should study the language of finance as it is a core business language that enables HR professionals to interact with their long-term stakeholders and allows HR to transform from a mere professional position to an organization's proper business strategic partner.

Zubair Bhura is a Master's degree qualified senior HR professional with 10+ years of demonstrated Human Resources experience in Australia with a proven history of working with distinct ownership models and global/multi-national organizations spanning unionized & non-unionized environments including Retail & FMCG, Fast Food, Hospitality, and Customer Service, Aviation & Airlines specifically Ground Handling, Transport, Warehousing, and logistics.

He also provides support to senior business leadership teams during critical transformation and change projects, including new business ventures and diversification projects. He restructures while being the long-term Certified practitioner of the Australian Human Resource Institute, the professional body for Human Resources in Australia.

Connect with Zubair on Linkedin.

Show Notes:

(1:22) What motivated you to pursue a career in HR?

(3:00) Every organization has a performance management system in place, and the purpose of a performance management system is – goes without saying – to improve performance. Yet, often we find that it's not delivered. So what are the most critical problems with today's widely used performance management systems in your view?

(4:35) The business environment is turning more agile and fast-paced. Organizations are keeping near-term goals instead of longer terms. An organization's goals and values should be maintained in performance planning to ensure an individual's performance aligns with the overall organizational strategy.

(7:27) What are the necessities to keep in mind as a manager primarily to identify the drawbacks in employees' skill?

(9:07) Interestingly organizations like Adobe, GE, Deloitte, among other leading companies, are getting rid of the traditional annual performance reviews and getting rid of rankings. Instead, they have started implementing more of a frequent feedback loop. In your view, what are the advantages, and possible disadvantages of a continuous feedback process?

(10:32) How do you make people accountable for their performance? They should be just as much or even more interested and more responsible to improve on performance; otherwise, at the end of the day, it's their career, and their future is at stake. So how do you make people more involved and accountable for their performance?

(13:15) And do you see it's also a generational thing in terms of millennials, Gen Y's, Gen X sort of taking more ownership of their career? Since they are more loyal to the profession than to the organization, do you feel they're more open to taking ownership of their performance management in that sense?

(15:07) Can you advise some basic elements which are necessary for effective performance management?

(16:55) What is your favorite business book?

(17:42) Do you follow any HR leader/ CEO?

(18:10) What is the one piece of advice you would give to young HR leaders?