Thinking of dropping your performance reviews because of COVID? Don’t. With the uncertainty of the pandemic, performance reviews are now more crucial than ever. Workers are affected by COVID, whether they have returned to the office or not. Performance reviews have the power to reassure employees and give their work life a semblance of normalcy. However, both logistics and equity issues mean you can’t treat performance reviews the way you usually do. Here we’ll look at why pandemic performance reviews are necessary and how you can use a Human Resource Information System (HRIS) like Pypa HR to conduct performance reviews.
Many companies are thinking of ditching their performance reviews because of the pandemic, mistakenly believing that performance reviews aren’t worth the effort in the current circumstances or that doing performance reviews will only place more stress on already stressed out employees. However, we at Pypa think they’re wrong. Here’s why:
Many employees will be feeling disconnected from work due to working from home. A performance review is a great way of dealing with this, helping employees feel like they are part of an organization and that they are being listened to. Maintaining good employee engagement is important to ensure employee retention.
If you’ve had to lay off some staff during the pandemic, your remaining employees may be in need of reassurance that their jobs are safe and that they are valued by the company. Some employees will also be worried about their performance while working from home and a performance review is the perfect thing to reassure them that their work is up to scratch (especially in this changing environment).
A performance review comes up at least once a year in a usual work year, making it something that workers have come to expect. Keeping your performance review during the pandemic can help give your employees a sense of normalcy (and actually be comforting), as something that normally happens at work.
COVID has affected the finances of most businesses (including probably yours). This may mean you can’t afford to reward your employees for their hard work in the usual way with a pay rise or bonus, making it extra important that you show your appreciation for them in some other way—by doing a performance review.
There’s no one way to do a performance review during COVID—though in many places, technology and the ability to review remotely is essential. Also important is being willing to treat your employees with empathy and take into consideration the extraordinary circumstances of living through a pandemic.
Your immediate problem with doing performance reviews in a pandemic is how to do them remotely. You could just use Skype and Zoom, but a better solution is to use a HRIS like Pypa HR. This not only allows you to complete performance reviews remotely, but also to schedule them and store results (and automate performance review forms). A cloud based, mobile optimized, HR solution is even better because it can be accessed from anywhere, on any device. Pypa HR has a variety of options for performance reviews, including peer review.
No one’s work year has been normal with COVID, so why would your performance review be? Measuring performance by your normal metrics during a pandemic is both cruel and useless, as good performance in pre-pandemic times is completely different to during the pandemic. To avoid overly focusing on elements like productivity, focus on the people. There are certain ways you can do this:
Not all employees have had the same opportunity to work during the pandemic. Parents, especially working mothers who have done much of the pandemic childcare, may not have been so available or productive as people who have no children. People who have personally been affected by COVID will be in the same boat. It’s vital for your organization’s commitment to equity and diversity to take these factors into consideration. But how do you do this?
Performance reviews are still an essential part of your work year, even in a pandemic. The benefits of increased employee engagement, wellbeing and normalcy outweigh the difficulty of doing a remote performance review. However, even this can be overcome—by utilizing a HRIS like Pypa HR, focusing on people, and having procedures in place to prevent bias, you can conduct performance reviews that are every bit as good as in pre-pandemic years and cement your company culture and employee wellbeing for years to come.
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