The migration to outcomes-based performance

The past year has seen a number of significant changes taking place in workplaces around the world. The new world of work has seen many traditional HR systems, process, policies, and procedures evolving to keep pace with the rapid and ever-changing global employment landscape.

An example of this evolutionary process, the traditional performance management system (PMS), is perhaps one of those HR systems which has had to evolve the most due to Covid.

Many people are now working remotely from home, or indeed from other locations around the globe, and are no longer working under the ‘watchful’ eye of a supervisor or manager. This phenomenon has necessitated the need for a fundamentally different approach from managers towards managing the performance of their workforce in general, and their remote workers in particular.

Rather than focusing on employee inputs, managers are focusing on their employees’ outputs, or outcomes. This is what is referred to as ‘outcomes-based’ performance.

Last month I posted a Remote Work Tip – ‘Focus on the outcomes of remote workers rather than their activity’. I received more likes, shares, and views of this posting than any of my other not too insignificant postings. I interpreted this to be a sentiment close to the hearts of many, and it inspired me to write this week’s article.

Trawling through the myriad of HR related publications and periodicals I read and subscribe to, I came across an interesting article written by Samantha Chen. She conducted an interview with Sam Amirikia, the Chief People Officer at eWave, a digital transformation vendor with its head office in Australia.

eWave introduced flexible working hours as well as remote working with the advent of the pandemic. Employees got to choose when and where they wanted to work and were provided with the opportunity of breaking up their working hours into different segments or time slots.

"With a diverse team working across the globe, we've always supported flexibility in the work environment. The pandemic, however, forced us to streamline our systems, policies and procedures to ensure we were providing the best support and maintaining our high standards," said Amirikia.

"We began pivoting towards measuring performance based on outcomes, not just hours, which was key to redefining how a flexible work model should look," he said.

Furthermore, the solutions provider introduced a cloud-based business management system to make information available securely and remotely and implemented a learning management system to upskill employees remotely.

"We trust employees to use the policy responsibly to manage their work-life balance. We're invested in making workplace flexibility a successful model well into the future," said Amirikia.

"Whether you are a parent, working on extended projects, or simply enjoying your home environment, we're seeing these additional flexibility measures have increased productivity and employee satisfaction. That's a great outcome for our clients and our business".

The CPO revealed that to build a successful (and sustainable) flexible working model, cognisance needed to be taken of the 3Cs, namely, Confidence, Communication and Consistency.

Confidence

Confidence refers to having a strong conviction that everyone is still working together towards common goals regardless of the location. Building that sort of confidence within an organisation comes from creating trust.

"We put trust in everyone to show dedication and generate outcomes – and we trust in each other to show recognition and respect for the high-quality work we all do," Amirikia said.

Communication

Communication was a big adjustment for everyone. Even though some locations are returning to offices in a flexible capacity, face-to-face interactions have still changed for many. eWave made use of video conferencing platforms and has increased its communication channels such as instant messaging systems and a company-wide online message board so live updates can be shared globally.

The management is also keen on driving open and honest communication to reflect truth, one of its five company values: mastery, passion, action, growth and truth.

Consistency

Having consistency with these various touchpoints helps alleviate uncertainty. People know when to expect the next check-in or updates.

"With all of us experiencing some sense of uncertainty over the last year, this is one we can make everyone feel more comfortable and secure," he said.

What eWave did is to host regular team check-ins, and provided company updates such as company-wide newsletters, and organising regular social activities to bring people across locations together. The company also deployed employee net promoter scores to track trends and changes.

“Our moving to outcome-based performance has been key” concluded Amirikia.

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