How to Incorporate Stay Interviews into Your Performance Management and Employee Engagement Cycles
Engagement + Culture, HR Insights April 26, 2022 0

How to Incorporate Stay Interviews into Your Performance Management and Employee Engagement Cycles

Stay interviews are a helpful HR strategy designed to increase employee retention. The interview assesses an employee’s happiness with the company, satisfaction with their role, and likelihood of being a flight risk.

So let’s talk about how to incorporate stay interviews into your performance management and employee engagement cycles, questions to ask, and best practices to maximize insights.

Benefits of Stay Interviews in the Performance Management and Engagement Cycle

Stay interviews are highly effective in showing your employees that you genuinely care about their happiness. They improve communication, encourage engagement, and enlighten you about what makes your employees tick.

Better yet, stay interviews also illuminate areas you need to improve to help you boost retention throughout the organization. Let’s look at some of the key benefits of stay interviews.

Retain your key talent

Losing employees during The Great Resignation is a concern, as is the highly competitive recruiting landscape. Incorporating stay interviews into your performance management cycle can help to mitigate attrition, reducing the number of key talent you lose and vacancies you’ll need to fill.

Promote engagement and teamwork

Stay interviews focus on sharing ideas. Management and employees want the same thing—for people to work together harmoniously and feel they have a future with the company. Stay interviews empower employees to have an active voice in setting processes for the company and engages them in better communication.

Inform enrichment opportunities

Given a chance to share openly, your employees will let you know what they’re interested in or feel they lack in training and education. In this sense, the stay interview may help you develop programs tailored to their interests or aptitudes.

Check in on your company culture

Stay interviews provide insight into the health and strength of your internal culture and how people are working together.

Identify problems early

Stay interviews focus on the positive, but issues may well arise that indicate areas of improvement. When stay interviews are conducted regularly, it helps HR identify potential problems early, allowing you to make policy changes before situations get out of hand.

Reduce the HR workload

Attracting, hiring, onboarding, and training are costly endeavors from just about every standpoint. The time and expense of doing so could be better spent on other tasks. Stay interviews help reduce the burden.

Reduce costs

Keeping employees is more economical than the alternative. Replacing a mid-level employee can cost upward of 150% of their annual salary, and productivity will suffer until the new hire is in place and up to speed.

How to Conduct Stay Interviews

Many companies wait to do their stay interviews when they have an inkling that an employee is thinking of leaving. However, there is no reason to wait until you sense unrest. There are many benefits to conducting regular stay interviews and incorporating them into your performance management and employee engagement cycle.

Here are a few best practices for conducting stay interviews.

1.     Identify your top performers but don’t focus solely on them

Most organizations know who their key players are. By the same token, you don’t want to make other employees feel that they are less important. Stay interviews may reveal rising stars you hadn’t considered, so ensure you’re giving everyone the same opportunity to connect. Some organizations incorporate 3-4 ‘stay interview’ questions into their performance reviews to ensure all staff have a chance to share.

2.     Make it personal

A stay interview needs to focus on the employee holistically, not just on their work. You want to know what drives them, what they’re passionate about, what they do outside of work, how they unwind, and what they look up to in terms of leadership. Even when taken from their personal experience, these aspects will tell you a lot about what they respond to in the working environment as well.

3.     Meet with the employee one-on-one

A stay interview is much more effective when conducted one-on-one. It tends to increase anxiety when the employee meets with several people. One-on-one stay interviews are more personal and encourage the employee to relax and share openly. If trained, manager could incorporate stay interview questions during quarterly or annual review meetings to ensure the conversation is balanced, and employees have an outlet to express their needs.

4.     Consider conducting the interview outside the work environment

To further reduce the nerve-factor during the interview, consider taking it outside. Lunch, coffee, or simply taking a walk outside are mood-changing, refreshing, and may help the employee feel more relaxed about sharing details.

5.     Listen and understand

Listening is a vital aspect of a stay interview. You’re initiating a discussion with your employee, but you’re really looking for feedback, impressions, genuine emotions. To make it work, you need to listen—only then can you provide helpful feedback.

6.     Solicit ideas and suggestions

Many employees will have ideas and insights on how the company can improve. Still, some will be hesitant to share that information directly for fear of retribution from their team leaders, colleagues, or you. Consider offering a way for them to submit anonymous feedback and let them know how to do it. Performance management software, like emPerform, allows you to create anonymous surveys that open the door for deeper insights beyond what’s said during the interview.

7.     Be consistent

When stay interviews are conducted regularly as part of the performance management process, employees will know they have a forum in which they can be heard.

8.     Follow up

Transparency and consistency are critical, so be sure to follow up on any insights gained. Look for trends in the responses collected of themes that would justify change. Your people need to know that you’re not just “going through the motions” and that they are heard. When action is taken, don’t wait for them to notice. Let them know that their input means something and contributes to the overall good of the culture and organization.

Best Practices for Stay Interviews

We’ve outlined many best stay interview practices in the tips above, but let’s summarize for brevity:

  • Listen first
  • Ask questions that address negatives and positives
  • Avoid questions that only require a yes or no answer
  • Do not dismiss an employee’s opinions, even if you personally disagree
  • Always follow up on changes you discussed in the interview
  • Schedule stay interviews regularly as part of your performance management program

Top 10 Stay Interview Questions to Ask

Every organization is unique, so HR should design stay interview questions to focus on what matters the most at that time. Below are some of our favorite and are sure to deliver great insights from your teams.

  1. What is working?
  2. What isn’t working?
  3. What would make your job even more satisfying?
  4. What gets in the way of you being successful in your job?
  5. What do you most look forward to coming to work every day?
  6. What do you sometimes dread about coming to work?
  7. When was the last time you thought of leaving the company and why?
  8. What should we change about the company or office?
  9. Do you feel you have the tools and resources to perform in your job properly?
  10. What are the top 5 things you need to feel happy and valued?

Stay interviews are an essential tool in the effort to retain employees and ensure your internal culture remains strong and resilient. emPerform helps you customize and manage the review process in a way that allows you to incorporate the necessary check-ins, surveys, and feedback needed to identify and retain a world-class workforce.  

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Improving the Employee Lifecycle with Effective Performance Management
Engagement + Culture, Performance Reviews March 7, 2022 0

Improving the Employee Lifecycle with Effective Performance Management

Employees are the most valuable asset a company has. With the current talent crisis reducing the pool of available workers and the exodus known as the Great Resignation, business growth is at risk. To ensure continuity, organizations must focus on retention and improving the employee lifecycle to accomplish their goals.  

Performance management programs are critical to supporting this effort. The ultimate goal is to keep employees engaged and happy, which requires more than just a decent salary and benefits. We don’t always know why our best talent leaves, and we can’t prevent them all from moving on. Still, there are strategies and tools we can apply to improve the situation and create a more sustainable lifecycle for employees at any stage of their journey.  

What is Employee Lifecycle Management? 

Employee lifecycle management has six distinct stages. Each area can be exploited individually to ensure an employee’s time at the company is positive and fruitful. A holistic and thoughtful lifecycle process results in higher levels of employee satisfaction, increased productivity, and better retention. 

Managing each of these stages requires clear goal-setting, repeatable processes, and systems for measuring success. A performance management program delivers on all points, ensuring consistency and continuity while providing the data you need to define success.  

Here are the six steps for effective employee lifecycle management, along with insights and tips to guide you through each of them. 

  1. Outreach 

Your employee brand, how you attract and communicate with potential candidates matter. The outreach stage is their initial engagement with your organization and will make a lasting impression. It’s your opportunity to build trust and establish the foundations of a mutually beneficial relationship.  

  1. Recruitment 

A structured hiring process builds on the trust you’ve already formed with the candidate. Build repeatable processes and consider outcomes to see how you can enhance future efforts. Using software to track tasks and activities ensures nothing slips through the cracks, and it also helps you identify areas that need improvement. 

  1. Onboarding 

The first 100 days on the job are easily the most critical—and the riskiest. It’s here where missteps are most likely to happen. By the end of this period, your new hire will know whether they want to stay at your company or not. Should they decide to go, it could cost the company up to three times the employee’s yearly salary.  

To mitigate this potential, your onboarding program needs to provide them with all the tools they need to feel supported and set up for success. While many companies see onboarding as something that takes place in the first couple of weeks after the hire, extending the process to encompass the first 100 days or more ensures the support continues until the new hire is fully comfortable in their role.  

Performance reviews (30-60-90 day reviews or new hire assessments), feedback, goal management, and surveys contribute to onboarding success as your hire, their managers, and your HR team will have the data they need to keep the process on track.  

  1. Development 

Training is undoubtedly part of development. But when we talk about development in the employee lifecycle, it’s more about learning and advancement. Development should be more than just an afterthought—it ought to be a part of your employee lifecycle strategy. Your employees are looking for the next stage in their careers. If you can provide the vehicle that gets them there, rewards will follow.  

Development improves retention, boosts employee engagement, and results in long-term benefits for the organization.  

Goal management is a vital aspect of performance management and employee development. SMART goals align employee interests with company goals, so you’re effectively encouraging them to explore the possibilities while maintaining a clear path to achieving the results you want.  

emPerform simplifies goal-setting, development planning, and career planning, ensuring your entire workforce is aligned to common objectives and that employees always have what they need to succeed.  

  1. Performance 

Employee performance is highly indicative of engagement levels and happiness. But performance is more nuanced than simply tracking one’s ability to do a job. It’s about quality, efficiency, aptitude, attitude, and effectiveness. If you view your employees as an investment, tracking employee performance is about nurturing that investment.  

If you ask the right questions and monitor the right metrics, you’ll see that investment grow and flourish. Every aspect of their engagement with your company has value and can be tracked.  

Employee performance management software provides you with a centralized tool from which you can manage and track all facets of the employee lifecycle. It is fully configurable to your organizational needs, helping you track what matters most without additional complications. 

6. Offboarding 

Offboarding is the final stage in the employee lifecycle. It could come at the end of a long and productive career or as the employee transitions or moves into a new position at another company. These segues are as critical as the initial phases of engagement and should not be treated as a negative.  

When employees leave, for whatever reason, you should use it as an opportunity to learn, grow, and improve. The insights you gain at this juncture could be massively valuable, even if the situation with the employee was not ideal.  

When employees leave happy, they will continue to sing your praises. They may refer their friends and colleagues or potentially return to work for you again. Maintaining good relationships reduces the potential for reputational damage, lawsuits, and financial loss.  

If you view your employee performance system as a cycle rather than a linear process, even closures will inform the way forward. In the effort to achieve continuity throughout the employee lifecycle, EmPerform delivers the data and insights you need to improve processes and enable better decision-making. 

Performance Management Begins Before Day One 

When employees have clear expectations from the start, they are more likely to give it their all and be 100% engaged in seeing things through. When they can visualize a path to success, receive regular feedback, are aligned with the company’s mission, and have a transparent rewards structure from day one, the benefits resonate throughout the organization.  

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Employee Performance Review Calibration
Performance Reviews February 23, 2022 0

Employee Performance Review Calibration

When done correctly and effectively, employee performance reviews and good performance management processes can motivate staff, drive results, align the entire company, and improve success and morale. However, inconsistent performance reviews that are confusing, subjective, and open to bias can throw a wrench into the entire thing – making the review process a negative and de-motivating exercise and leaving the company with untrustworthy data to use for decision-making. 

Performance calibration is a process where tools that collect quantitative metrics are set up and analyzed effectively to portray accurate performance data across the enterprise. In most companies, this quantitative data is collected using performance reviews. Performance calibration helps employees by providing consistent, clear, and realistic performance expectations and effective, unbiased feedback and scores across all groups. Performance calibration also allows companies to feel assured they can trust the performance data collected and lean on it to make decisions regarding the performance health of their talent.  

In this blog post, we will discuss the steps involved in calibrating employee performance reviews effectively so you can augment what you might already be doing and ensure you have consistency in your reviews. 

Step #1 of Calibration: Establishing a Baseline & Threshold for Performance & Expectations

The first step in calibrating employee performance is to establish a baseline of performance. This can be done by setting expectations for what you want employees to achieve and then measuring their actual performance against these goals. It is important to note that this process should not be rushed, as it will take time for your company and leaders to set clear and actionable goals and for employees to adapt to the new standards. 

Once you have a baseline of performance, the next step is to establish thresholds. Thresholds are the minimum acceptable levels of performance that must be met for employees to continue working at your company or for teams and the organization to operate successfully. Establishing thresholds can be difficult, as they may vary depending on the role or position within the company. However, it is important to have a clear understanding of what is expected from each employee to maintain productivity and avoid confusion. 

Step #2 of Calibration: Create a Plan for Monitoring Results

After you have set goals and established thresholds, the next step is to create a plan for collecting and monitoring performance results. This plan should include the steps that will be taken to ensure employees are meeting their goals and staying within the acceptable threshold levels. The plan should also outline how often employee performance will be reviewed and assessed and who will be responsible for conducting these reviews. Finally, a large portion of this plan is to establish and agree to acceptable forms of measurement or rating scales that will allow you to monitor the status of goals and performance without being de-motivating to staff. See also, rating scale guidebook. 

After the plan is set, regular touchpoints should be conducted to ensure employees are aware of how they are performing and for employees and evaluators to adjust any goals or thresholds as needed. It is important to note that employee performance management should not be a one-time event, but rather an ongoing process. By regularly measuring and calibrating employee performance, you can ensure that everyone in the company is working towards the same goal and meeting the same standards.

Step #3 of Calibration: Continuous Improvement

Once you have calibrated employee performance, it is important to continue to improve and refine the process. This can be done by setting new goals, establishing higher thresholds, or creating different plans for monitoring employee results. The goal is to make sure that employees are constantly challenged and striving to reach their fullest potential. 

Frequently Used Tools for Calibrating Employee Performance Reviews

There are a variety of tools that can be used to calibrate employee performance. The most common tool is the performance appraisal, which is a review of an employee’s job performance and typically takes place annually, with smaller checkpoints happening regularly throughout the year. Performance reviews should be crafted with content and tools to help avoid common appraisal biases that may result in performance reviews producing inaccurate results. It is useful for the company to decide on set goals, skills, or other performance criteria that will be used as a measure of performance, and invest in ensuring they are specific to each role, and defined clearly for employees.

While the most common tool for calibrating employee performance is the performance appraisal, it is important to note that this process should not be limited to this one method. There are a variety of tools that can be used to ensure all aspects of performance and output are being considered. 

360-degree assessments and peer feedback are also great tools for calibrating employee performance. With this type of multi-faceted input, employees receive additional feedback from peers, managers, and team members. This helps to get a more holistic view of employee performance and can help identify areas in which they need improvement. 

Finally, the nine-box is a tool that is often used to calibrate employee performance. This tool is used to assess employee potential relative to the company or a group and can help identify high-performing employees as well as those who may need additional development.

Through calibration, you can ensure that your employees are meeting the standards of your company and helping to achieve its goals and are also motivated to perform within realistic thresholds. By taking the time to establish a baseline, set thresholds, and create a plan for monitoring results, you can make sure that employee performance is accurately calibrated and everyone in the company is working towards the same goal. 

emPerform Wins Silver Brandon Hall Award for Best Advance in Performance Management Technology
Other Blogs... December 15, 2021 0

emPerform Wins Silver Brandon Hall Award for Best Advance in Performance Management Technology

We are pleased to announce that emPerform’s employee performance management software has won a coveted Brandon Hall Silver Award for Best Advance in Performance Management Technology.

“We are deeply honored to receive this award. Our team considers the Brandon Hall Excellence Awards among the greatest forms of recognition in the talent management industry today. This award affirms emPerform’s leading position and empowers us to continuously pursue innovation in the field of talent management.”
 – John Smith, Director of Enterprise Business Solutions for emPerform

The entries were evaluated by an international panel of independent industry experts, Brandon Hall Group senior analysts, and their executive team. The judging was based on the following criteria: value proposition, innovation, unique differentiators, technical functionality, and overall measurable results. 

“We are delighted to be recognized by Brandon Hall Group for emPerform’s advances in performance management technology,” said Natalie Trudel, Marketing Manager for emPerform. “We sincerely thank all esteemed members of the panel for their evaluation efforts, we are appreciative of the validation this recognition gives our product within the performance management space.

Since our inception in 2004, emPerform has continued to add to its robust all-inclusive technology to give organizations an affordable and effective way to align, develop, reward, and retain a competitive workforce. emPerform strives to automate and streamline vital employee performance management efforts for all organizations, from online appraisals to 360° reviews, ongoing feedback, and reporting.

About Brandon Hall Group Inc.

With more than 10,000 clients globally and 20 years of delivering world-class research and advisory services, Brandon Hall Group is the most well-known and established research organization in the performance improvement industry. We conduct research that drives performance and provides strategic insights for executives and practitioners responsible for growth and business results.

Brandon Hall Group has an extensive repository of thought leadership, research, and expertise in Learning and Development, Talent Management, Leadership Development, Talent Acquisition, and Human Resources. At the core of our offerings is a Membership Program that Empowers Excellence Through Content, Collaboration, and Community. Our members have access to research that helps them make the right decisions about people, processes, and systems, combined with research-powered advisory services customized to their needs. www.brandonhall.com

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Discover how emPerform’s award-winning software can help your organization transform its performance management and employee engagement. Contact us to learn more and book your demo today

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Identifying & Retaining Top Talent During and After the ‘Great Resignation’
Engagement + Culture, HR Insights November 22, 2021 0

Identifying & Retaining Top Talent During and After the ‘Great Resignation’

There is something noticeably alarming going on in the North American labor market. 2021 saw record streaks of employee turnover and walkouts, the highest on record according to the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics.[1] This phenomenon is aptly named the ‘Great Resignation,’ and companies are keen to understand why this is happening and to avoid losing valuable talent.

Finding and hiring the best talent to ensure organizational continuity is still a focus for companies, but the focus on talent acquisition is now being shifted to retention.  HR leaders and CEOs need to do everything possible to continually assess flight risks and develop immediate plans to identify and keep key employees.

Who is at risk of leaving?

Research firms like Visier Insights have used data to understand the recent trends and help companies assess their potential risk for turnover. It turns out that “tenured, experienced professionals, and more women than men show a dramatic increase in resignations compared to the pandemic-ridden year 2020.”[2] Couple that with the findings from Gallup showing that 48% of the working population in the United States is actively job searching, and there is no wonder companies are worried about the effects of a turnover tsunami.

What are the real costs of turnover?

Rising resignations are a concern on multiple fronts, in particular the direct costs to companies. According to Gallup, the cost of replacing an employee is very high – up to two times their salary or more, depending on the position.[3] And the costs don’t stop there. There are also the indirect costs of lost productivity and the effects of increased workloads and having to hire third parties to complete work. At the same time, there are administrative processing costs. There are also costs associated with the impact on motivation and culture from losing team members and the intangible costs of losing the institutional knowledge of key long-term staff when they exit.

Should companies panic?

Regular employee turnover and attrition are part of organizational lifecycles. Companies expect a certain number of routine exits and plan accordingly. What is concerning about these recent trends and leaving HR and leaders scrambling to find solutions is how to avoid unnecessary or avoidable turnover.  So yes, companies should be worried and take the necessary steps to understand the underlying currents in their workforce. 

Why are employees leaving?

Typically, a large number of employees cycling in and out of jobs is a signal of a healthy economy. But since 2020, when COVID-19 changed the landscape of life and work, companies must now look more closely at why employees are leaving. The Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) summarized its findings nicely by saying that employees are moving on from their existing companies and jobs due to pay/recognition, work-life balance, and workplace culture.[4]

Overall, SHRM and Visier Insights list the following as key reasons why employees are resigning:

  1. Recognition: The desire for better compensation and recognition for work.
  2. Burnout: Being asked to take on more work or work faster and a lack of work-life balance, especially among employees in a leadership position.
  3. Workplace Culture: Overall employee experiences and issues that affect engagement and satisfaction.
  4. Desire to Learn: Opportunities to learn new skillsand for more training opportunities.

Added to that is the rising prevalence of remote work, where employees are no longer restricted to applying for jobs in their direct geographical area or physically going into an office.

In short, employees want to feel recognized and appropriately rewarded. They want to know their company cares about and acts to better their personal and professional well-being. They want to align themselves with teams and companies who share their values, and the rise in remote work means they have more options for alternative employment. Depending on an employee’s immediate pain points or options, any of these drivers can send your best talent straight for the door.

What can companies and HR do to avoid unnecessary turnover?

Companies cannot address all aspects of turnover by next week; however, they can take specific immediate actions to get the ball rolling. But companies must understand why employees in their particular sector and organization are staying and leaving and make a plan tailored to that information.

Look for the outliers in performance, engagement, and potential data:

Instead of relying on average scores and ratings from performance reviews, engagement surveys, or pulse surveys, companies need to look at the outliers in their data. These folks will be the ones of interest and will highlight blind spots. For years, companies have looked at ‘good’ satisfaction rates and given themselves a pat on the back. But now, and with many tenured employees eyeing options, companies need to get very granular and assess the performance, potential, and engagement of specific employees and groups to identify the most valuable team members, understand their risk of leaving, and actively avoid it where possible.

Having a centralized system for job-skill reviews and performance measurements, pulse & engagement survey data, and career assessments can help companies track the real-time measures and health of talent. This information will allow them to identify high-potential (valuable) staff more easily and work to actively retain them.

Check-in with staff immediately & regularly:

It seems obvious that the easiest way to gauge if an employee is at risk of leaving is to ‘ask,’ but many managers and companies still struggle to make the time and forge the channels for effective employee conversations. Some managers are not equipped to conduct effective discussions or have the mandated time to do so, and many companies still struggle to launch and assess vital engagement and satisfaction surveys. In addition, companies who have done away with formal performance and skills ratings are now finding it challenging to quickly identify their top talent and plan for skill and succession gaps.

HR should use this time to collect as much employee data as possible from surveys, performance reviews, and personal one-on-one interactions with staff. These touchpoints can reveal insights that will help leaders understand what is working, what isn’t, and what can be changed to avoid losing employees unnecessarily. If employees are looking for more training and skills, be prepared to offer it. If employees find it challenging to manage their workloads, consider restructuring or investing in resources. If employees are demanding flexibility, consider unwinding legacy policies to see what can be accommodated, especially when it comes to remote work. If employees find they are not adequately compensated for their work, revisit your compensation structure. Your competitors are likely doing all of this.

Look at culture & rewards:

Companies cannot typically do anything about employees who have already left; however, they can ensure they don’t repeat any of the same mistakes with new employees. They can also work to ensure existing employees see the changes they are asking for. For example, revisit compensation and rewards structures and be prepared to align them with the market and what employees deserve. Recall, it costs double an employee’s salary to replace them, and it is much easier to keep an existing employee than it is to find a new one. Next, listen to what employees are saying about perceived culture and teams and empower managers to actively find solutions.

In terms of physical policies that can affect culture, COVID-19 forced many employees to get situated working from home, only to be called back with sometimes little transition or reason by companies. With many companies accepting hybrid or completely remote work options, the employees who gained an appreciation for working from home may consider a rigid in-office policy a reason to look for work elsewhere. Determine the perception of workspace and place and revisit your policies addressing underlying concerns that may render rigid policies unnecessary.

Most employees do not expect a perfect atmosphere but want their fundamental fiscal, physical, mental, and professional needs met. COVID-19 pushed companies and leaders to pivot and make unprecedented decisions about their teams and policies. The ones who acted with a purely business mindset without regard for employee well-being and satisfaction will have more work to do to remedy the cultural damages done, but it isn’t impossible. Culture cannot be transformed overnight, but it starts somewhere and usually acknowledges that it should be a priority.

Employees will continue to leave their jobs searching for greener pastures, and companies will continue to battle to attract and retain top talent, but COVID-19 has changed the nature of employee retention altogether. Companies that can easily identify their top talent and invest in actively developing and retaining them will see the greatest results. Also, HR teams who continue to push for effective performance, engagement, and development practices will help ensure this data is woven into corporate decision-making moving forward.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm

[2] https://hello.visier.com/stop-the-exit-report.html

[3] https://www.gallup.com/workplace/351545/great-resignation-really-great-discontent.aspx

[4] https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/summer2021/pages/reducing-turnover.aspx

Change is Here! Engage & Develop Your Top Performers
Announcements + Updates, Performance Reviews September 22, 2021 0

Change is Here! Engage & Develop Your Top Performers

There is no question that performance management is changing, in fact, 84% of human resources professionals agree that the industry is rapidly altering its processes to suit current needs. With annual performance reviews and appraisals falling out of fashion, companies have begun to adapt by enabling more opportunities for open communication and providing regular feedback and coaching to their team members.

With these changing trends, it is vital for organizations to revisit how they assess, develop, and engage performance. According to a recent State of Performance Management Report, performance reviews and discussions are taking place remotely, and processes have become more digital and technology-oriented. With these changes in mind, organizations are stepping away from traditional and outdated processes, and transitioning to modernized and streamlined solutions.

Make a change for the better with emPerform. Our user-friendly, flexible & affordable standalone performance management solution contains the tools needed to automate all aspects of your performance management program. With our team of experts ready to guide you at every step, you can re-tool performance reviews and engage your entire workforce in ongoing & valuable and valuable performance discussions – from anywhere.

Watch the NEW tour video and explore the many tools and options available to you in emPerform for complete, automated & modern performance management.

Ready to make a change?

Contact us to see how we can help you transform performance management to better align, develop, engage & retain a world-class workforce.

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Employee Performance Management in Healthcare
HR Insights, Performance Reviews September 16, 2021 0

Employee Performance Management in Healthcare

Employee performance management has always been a priority in healthcare. Client care is at the heart of this industry, and employee performance and compliance are just a few of the standards that determine organizational success.

Many healthcare organizations were starting to get their ducks in a row where performance management is concerned—but then COVID-19 hit, and everything was put on pause as they responded to the crisis. The immense competence and dedication shown during this time is nothing short of miraculous. 

But with this high-intensity environment comes great potential for burnout, which could easily lead to a systemic crisis if not managed adequately. Employee performance management in healthcare has never been more critical. Renewed focus in this area will help organizations thrive and become more resilient for whatever they may face in the future. 

Performance Management Concerns in Healthcare

Healthcare is a unique niche when it comes to its workforce. Organizations often have multiple locations and diverse, distributed employee groups that require tailored development and review strategies based on individual needs. Additionally, there are multitudes of accreditation bodies in the mix that mandate competency, regulatory compliance, ongoing skill assessments, and continuing education. Finally, most staff are on their feet all day, making documentation and regular performance discussions challenging to mandate and track.  

Now that we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel where the pandemic is concerned, HR in healthcare is refocusing on streamlining and automating performance management. 

Here are some of the trends we are seeing:

1. The need for quick and effective physician reviews. Front-line leaders need to be on top of their game. Concerns must be addressed quickly and regularly so your best people can continue to deliver their best work. Ongoing multi-disciplinary reviews and upward feedback are necessary to keep essential leadership focused and on track. More healthcare organizations are instituting a culture of frequent and timely feedback and check-ins to help identify blind spots and address performance issues before affecting client care. Feedback and performance journals and reviews also allow organizations to set goals, recognize a job well done, and track milestones along the way. 

2. Agile goal and development planning has always been an allusive ‘unicorn’ for many organizations in healthcare; however, with the onset of COVID and the massive shift in roles and priorities, this concept quickly turned from being a unicorn to becoming a necessary reality. Workers across all departments have had to abandon goals, alter development and training, and re-prioritize tasks for the organization to efficiently meet patient, family, and regulatory demands. For the most part, organizational goal planning and tracking have not kept up with the dynamic nature of work, and employees are left unclear of actual expectations and at a loss when it comes to recognition. Organizations in healthcare are quickly turning to a more agile and flexible goal management model that allows for easy and ongoing updates to employee expectations, development needs, and results and a more flexible approach to overall performance tracking.  

3. 360˚ peer assessments create a culture of unified accountability and shared success. These factors are a critical concern in employee happiness, as a strong culture aligns teams to the overarching mission of providing the best possible client care. HR pros are leveraging 360° multi-rater assessments more than ever to give organizations in healthcare access to real-time, boots-on-the-ground feedback and insight, helping to identify hidden opportunities and mitigate issues before they become ‘situations.’ 

4. Defining and tracking core values ensures that shared behaviors, standards for quality care, and interdepartmental priorities drive organizational success. At a fundamental level, some of these core values are compassion, empathy, honesty, culture, community, excellence, integrity, and learning. Still, each organization—and often individual teams within the organization—will have its core values. Track performance and behaviors at a granular level is a considerable advantage, especially during these challenging times, and allows HR in healthcare to weave core values into daily behaviors and interactions.

5. Empowering employees in being a part of their career paths is a strong trend today. Many healthcare workers have gone above and beyond over the past year and a half. In many cases, new aptitudes have emerged, revealing leadership qualities or parallel skills that add value to the organization. As these attributes are acknowledged, leaders should have the flexibility to develop and nurture those skills adequately. Giving employees a say in their futures strengthens the unit, reduces attrition, and improves outcomes for all stakeholders. 

6. Moving online with cloud-based software is a significant trend. Many organizations shifted to remote work during the pandemic, and most will continue to support this practice for employees that can and wish to do so. Remote access to shared software tools enables collaboration, oversight, and clear communication for distributed teams and field workers, such as home healthcare workers who might not be able to visit the office regularly. Cloud access and software integrations that support ongoing performance monitoring ensure all employees are connected and that coaching, feedback, and performance discussions are always top of mind – from anywhere. 

7. Understanding drivers of engagement and performance requires adequate reporting and proper tracking tools, such as surveys. Companies in healthcare are using surveys to gauge employee satisfaction, engagement and gain insights on new hires. Surveys can be anonymous or named, depending on the objective, but in all cases, they are an excellent way for healthcare organizations to get the data they need to assess satisfaction and drivers and to make better organizational decisions. 

8. Identifying and developing the right talent to step into different roles is essential to business growth and innovation. Talented employees with leadership potential need to be identified and nurtured into their roles over time. Failing to do so is usually the company’s loss, as top talent tends to move on to greener pastures. In times of crisis, it’s easy to overlook such details, but considering the staffing crisis the healthcare industry faces today, this is now a critical priority. Succession planning tools, like the nine-box talent matrix, help identify talent within the organization and offer ways to plan for critical succession gaps. 

9. Ensuring merit and bonus budgets are optimized and allocated fairly and properly helps organizations reward and motivate performance and retain skilled talent. When employees feel valued and engaged, they are more likely to stay. However, in today’s highly competitive job market, companies have to be sure you pay staff what they are worth. Proper compensation and bonuses tied to performance connect results to rewards—a highly motivating factor that will keep teams focused on doing their best work. A compensation management tool takes the personal bias out of the equation, ensuring that all employees are treated fairly and feel valued. 

emPerform offers a suite of cloud-based tools to help healthcare organizations automate and streamline all aspects of performance management to identify opportunities, nurture talent, and make data-driven decisions. In the effort to grow and thrive in these challenging times, effective employee performance management reveals critical blind spots that would otherwise be overlooked. 

Since 2004, emPerform has been working with both small and large organizations in healthcare to re-tool performance management, drive value, boost engagement, align expectations, and remove the complexities and barriers involved with nurturing and retaining top talent. Reach out today to set up a call. We’d love to learn more about your team and show you how we can help. 

Back to the Office: Four Tools HR Can Use to Ensure Employee Performance & Well-Being
Other Blogs... July 29, 2021 0

Back to the Office: Four Tools HR Can Use to Ensure Employee Performance & Well-Being

As the pandemic starts to wind down, many companies are or are starting to think about bringing employees back into the office. After more than a year of working remotely, suffice to say, this is going to be as big of a pivot as it was to switch to remote work in the first place.

While many employees will continue to work from home, others expect to navigate a hybrid environment. Ultimately, the biggest concern is making sure your employees are happy, well, and enthusiastic about whatever may come, so this should be your priority.

Back to the Office Statistics

Here are some interesting statistics from CNBC on returning to work:

  • About half of the companies surveyed will adopt a hybrid work environment.
  • One-third of companies say they will prioritize in-person first.
  • 70% of Americans were working remotely as of April 2020.
  • Currently, about 56% are working from home, and 61% say they prefer working from home.
  • 70% of companies say they will have employees back in the office in some capacity by this fall.
  • 77% of employers favor a hybrid model through next year.
  • 28.8% will use a staggered or phased approach.

As there is no protocol around the process, employers need to take a measured but decisive approach. Employee wellbeing and satisfaction are the highest priority. Your people, after all, are your most valuable assets.

Productivity and performance must be optimized, but care must be taken to consider how adjusted schedules might impact teams,  goals, and morale.

Four Tools to Inform Your Back to the Office Plans

With these points in mind, here are four tools HR can use to ensure both employee performance and well-being are balanced and considered when shifting back to the office.

1.      The Check-In

Check-ins have been essential throughout the work from home era. It’s a way to get employees talking about what concerns them and a way for HR personnel and managers to gain a deeper understanding of how they’re really doing. As back to the office approaches and as you move through the process, use more frequent check-ins to ensure goals are on track and employees are adjusting well. HR can revise their performance management processes and workflows to ensure managers and employees are meeting frequently to discuss progress and provide valuable coaching and acknowledgement so employees know they are heard and valued.

2.      360˚ Reviews

Use 360˚ reviews and peer feedback to create a culture of joint accountability and shared performance expectations. Wherever your company is headed, it’s vital that you take your employees along for the ride. When employees know their opinions matter, they are more likely to look outside themselves and engage in productive dialogue that benefits the whole. 360°s are a powerful took for ensuring employees not only know that their actions and output have an impact, but they can also serve to identify trends or concerns in behavior or output.

3.      Use Surveys

Ask, ask, ask! Leverage user survey tools like pulse surveys, satisfaction surveys, and feedback to gauge the temperature of general sentiments, encourage ideas for new ways of working, and assess overall employee wellbeing. If you don’t ask, you won’t know, and it’s more important than ever to understand where your employees’ thoughts and energies are going. Surveys are an excellent way to check in, understand their needs, and receive feedback on how company decisions affect your people.

4.      Incorporate Values

Corporate value statements ensure internal and external stakeholders understand the priorities and behaviors that drive organizational success. Over the years, we have seen many companies adopt value into performance management programs and reviews to act as a unifying thread across all employees and to set standards of behavior and focus. This year, we are seeing this trend take off like gangbusters. Now more than ever, companies must ensure that hybrid staff and dispersed teams embody corporate values in everything they do. HR must ensure employees and managers understand what values mean and establish measures of accountability so that values are upheld every day – regardless of physical location or role.

emPerform: The Right Software at the Right Time

The right technology makes short work of managing even the most monumental changes. As we begin to cautiously emerge from a time of great uncertainty, we take what we’ve learned and carry it forward.

Over the past months, we’ve done a lot to flow with the changes that came our way. Most people—most companies, too—are better for the experience in many ways. But if there’s one thing we know for sure, it’s that we can’t for a moment overlook the value of our employees and how important it is to ensure they feel valued and heard. The better we hear what they have to say, the more meaningful the road ahead will be, and emPerform supports those ideals.

emPerform offers the capability and flexibility to adjust and revisit goals, monitor and track progress, and give employees and managers one central location to track achievements, results, and opportunities. emPerform supports all critical back to the office activities, including online surveys, pulse surveys, satisfaction surveys, performance reviews, 360 reviews, feedback, check-ins, and much more. By automating these critical functions, you’ll have all the data you need to make in-time decisions that work for everybody and the insight you’ll need to navigate back-to-the-office programs and their impact on not only performance, but employee wellness.

Most importantly, you’ll have more time to focus on what matters most—your employees, their happiness, and their wellbeing. Get started today, and give your workforce a voice in your future.

Tips for Keeping Employee Performance On-Track During the Summer
Engagement + Culture, Performance Reviews July 8, 2021 0

Tips for Keeping Employee Performance On-Track During the Summer

 

The sun is shining – so should your talent! Summer is a great time to unwind, enjoy the weather, and take time off from work to relax with friends and family. What sounds better, right? Although many employees deserve the much-needed vacation days, businesses and HR teams still have to worry about meeting goals and hitting numbers. A research report quoted by Forbes shows that productivity can decline upwards of 20% during the summer months. But should businesses really worry? Absolutely not. If performance expectations and discussions are happening before, during, and after the summer months, there is no reason why businesses and employees can’t enjoy some care-free days in the summer sun. Read More

9 Reasons You Should Be Using The Nine-Box
Engagement + Culture, Performance Reviews June 11, 2021 0

9 Reasons You Should Be Using The Nine-Box

9 Reasons You Should Be Using the Nine-Box: Download Your eBook

Is your company on the lookout for better ways to analyze performance and potential talent data?

Download Your Free eBook: 9 Reasons You Should Be Using the Nine-Box

Effective talent identification, succession planning, and development planning are challenging for many organizations. It involves analyzing a lot of data to make critical decisions that affect many individuals and the company’s future.

In this eBook, we explore the top nine reasons why your company and HR team can start using the nine-box as a powerful tool in effective talent identification, employee development planning and so much more.

Download Now

Engage Employee Performance & Development Year-Round with emPerform!

Book a live demo to learn more about emPerform’s interactive nine-box talent matrix, included with our award-winning performance management software.

Book your live demo of emPerform.