The Factors Impacting Employee Performance in 2022

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The Factors Impacting Employee Performance in 2022 and Beyond
Organizations have been designing the monitory and non-monitory benefit programs around these areas however; the life and death situation through this pandemic changed the overall perspective.

The Factors Impacting Employee Performance: The last two years have been very tough for the world and most of the industries were negatively impacted directly or indirectly resulting in multiple challenges. However, the first quarter of 2022 seems to be moving towards a ray of hope.

While the organizations are still struggling to manage the work from home or hybrid working conditions, the global economy is coming back to normalcy. The organizations have adopted strategies to suit the changing environment and trying to sail through this difficult time.

The Covid pandemic has emphasized on the importance of the critical factor of any organization ie. its employees. For decades, multiple studies and researches have been conducted to find out what motivates and engages the employees at large and various thoughts and theories have been formed to achieve that. However, the unprecedented pandemic made everyone think beyond, think differently and break some of the conventional approaches.

No one can deny that employees are always the critical aspect of any organization but, the last two years were totally employee-focused and it’s not going to stop. The first and foremost topic in any organization was employee health and wellbeing during this pandemic. Employee performance, productivity took a back seat during this period and many organizations still continue to focus more on employee wellbeing than productivity.

However, to sustain the business and achieve a good bottom line, performance and productivity cannot be overlooked. Many studies have proven that more engaged the workforce, more the productivity, and hence, the approach towards engagement needs to be revisited in view of the post-pandemic situation.

Most employees require some motivation to feel good about their job and then perform optimally. It was assumed that most of the employees get motivated by monitory factors while many are motivated by reward and recognition elements.

Organizations have been designing the monitory and non-monitory benefit programs around these areas however; the life and death situation through this pandemic changed the overall perspective. It compelled the organizations to think beyond the conventional methods of engagement and productivity. Some of the aspects mentioned in this article were always in discussion but, never got front row and so much attention.

Organizational Culture

Organizational culture enables the means to achieve organization’s strategic objectives, attract & retain talent and sustain success. Ideally, it mirrors the organization’s core values and directly represents the leadership beliefs. As mentioned by Academy to Innovate HR in one of their articles, every organization has its own mix of these four organizational culture types – Adhocracy, Clan, Hierarchy, Market with one culture typically dominating.

The larger the organization, the bigger the possibility that there may be more than one culture in the organization. However, in recent times it has been seen that organizations are focusing more on the Clan and Adhocracy characteristics to bring in a more collaborative and open environment that is more people-oriented.

This shift may be or may not be intentional but, certainly, it is to get aligned with the altered requirement for better engagement. With the workforce being enlightened about many other engagement drivers, a people-friendly collaborative environment seems to be the choice of talent in the near future.

Flexibility

In the recent past, we have seen how flexible an organization can be when it comes to managing the employees and sustaining the business. Many organizations removed their own barriers of conventional thinking and took decisions that were more employee-centric.

A large workforce is still working from home and it seems that they are enjoying the flexibility they are getting with this arrangement. Working from home or working from anywhere is becoming a new norm. Hybrid working is motivating employees and can result in higher productivity due to increased engagement.

Empowerment

As a part of cultural transformation and work from home situations, many organizations chose to empower their next-level managers and even employees to reduce some of the administrative stress and quick decision-making. Empowerment always plays a big role when it comes to employee performance and productivity.

Empowering employees within the defined framework can make wonders as it kills bureaucracy which many times negatively impacts productivity. It also increases the morale of the employees and brings in a sense of belongingness. When employees feel they are part of the decisions, they are motivated more.

Reward and Recognition

R&R is not a new topic in any organization but, the methodologies have changed over the past two years. Technological solutions have been introduced by the organizations to run the show and they seem to be effective. New ways of rewarding and recognizing the employees need to be identified to align with the changing needs of the workforce.

In this time of ‘The Great Resignation’ era, retaining the current talent is absolutely critical. The conventional programs may not be effective anymore and hence, they need to be carefully evaluated to suit the changing situation.

Employee Wellbeing

The most important topic nowadays is employee wellbeing and their health. Almost every organization has faced the brunt of pandemic and realized how critical is to take care of their employees. Various benefits have been introduced by the organizations including Covid leave, medical expenses cover, EAP, meditation sessions, etc to support their employees during these hard times.

Due to the mental and physical stress employees have gone through, they are giving more preference to organizations that care about their employees’ health and wellbeing. Physical and mental relaxation does directly impact the performance and productivity of employees hence, such programs should be at the forefront of any engagement strategy.

Tools and Techniques

Performance evaluation of employees should not be considered as a tick in the box item. Bring in a culture where sharing constructive feedback becomes a practice and employees become more receptive to it. With the work from home or hybrid working where personalized meetings are not possible, the right tools and techniques can bridge the gap.

Regular and constructive feedback to employees will help them to perform better and will increase engagement. This also involves reviewing the current objective setting and performance evaluation policies and processes for better effectiveness.

In a nutshell, there is no one fits all solution but, organizations need to think differently as the pandemic has revolutionized HR practices in a very short period of time teaching us new ways of working every day.

Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the organization he is working for or has worked for in the past

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