performance management and COVID-19 pandemic

With the pandemic managing performance of employees were 100% virtual and its does not have supervisors, leaders or managers to supervise the employees and what kind of a guidance needed to employees to perform well where the biggest issues were faced by the organizations with the recent pandemic.  So, the traditional performance management was not valid with the changed environment.  So many organizations took steps forward to re calibrate their performance management modules according to new global context.

 The covid -19 pandemic took the world by surprise in early 2020, and the economy has continued to face a substantial downturn, which has implications for working situations. (Prassl et al,2020) The world has faced several global economic crises in recent decades , but the current crises has affected the introduction of digital technologies in all areas of human activity more profoundly than any before. ( shkalenko and Fadeeva ,2020)  Voluntary precautions against Covid 19 , as well as mandatory government restrictions , have forced companies to increasingly offer employees the option of working at home , and thus a large number of people exclusively working from home have integrated existing technologies into their daily work routine (Beland et al, 2020) . Digital transformation has been going for decades now, but the pandemic has accelerated that transformation. While some organizations have adapted very quickly to this digital transformation, and others have not been able do their routine work in the digital platform. E.g. Testing laboratories, calibration laboratories. However, transforming to a digital platform have been a major challenge to the organizations in term of managing employees.  The impact of such decisions should be carefully considered at a time when a group of employees and never thought they would have to work in their homes. The main challenged faced by the heads of the organizations or the divisions was how the employees of an organization who were ready to report for duty at 8 am in the morning and go home at 5 pm in the evening   were on their way to work from home. If so, the newly implemented performance management tools must increase the productivity of the company as well as the efficiency and the motivations of the employees as well.

Organizations expect digital transformation to increase productivity and efficiency, which should give them a competitive advantage over their market respondents (Influence of the covid 10 pandemic; Lisa Nagel, Vial, 2019). To achieve this goal, organizations are encouraging their employees to work in new ways, using technology while taking on more autonomy (Influence of the covid 10 pandemic; Lisa Nagel). Digital transformation leads to a work transformation, which involves reorganization of work and ultimately changes the way people work (Anderson-Connolly et al,2002).In this context , the acceptance of new technology as part of the daily routine is essential ( Monami and Jamous ,2017). Technology acceptance is considered one of the main success factors of new technologies ( e.g. Molino et al ,2020; Scherer et al ,2019;Taherdoost, 2018; Venkatesh et al ,2003). Acceptance and implementation of new behavior due to new technologies can take a long time under normal circumstances ( e.g. Baturay et al ,2017; Gelbrich and Sattler ,2014).  Many organizations had to implement new technologies as part of their routines. However, COVID 19, caused this adaptation to be implemented faster than under normal circumstances (Influence of the covid 10 pandemic; Lisa Nagel).

Because personnel contact with other individuals correlates with the probability of contacting COVID 19 , a regular working day in no longer possible for many employees (Influence of the covid 10 pandemic; Lisa Nagel, Beland et al ,2020). Voluntary precautions against COVID 19 , as well as mandatory government restrictions , have forced companies to increase offers to work at home, which has increased remote work substantially( Beland et al, 2020).

Remote work productivity mainly depends on the type of work and the employee mentality. There are some organizations which cannot apply remote or working from home system. As mentioned earlier testing and calibration laboratories. Sample analysis or calibration cannot do at home. So remote working is best for certain job roles ( for example where the role has high levels of autonomy and work is appointed into discrete   tasks) . Individual personality and working styles also make certain individuals more suited to remote working. (Employees with high level of intrinsic motivation can adapt better to remote working) (IBEC For Irish Business).

Productive performance management should be able to create the working environment suitable to employees to perform well to obtain the company goals more efficiently and easily. Employee performance should not be measured by a year – end capability bonus.  Since this is new senior management should measure the implemented performance management tools in an ongoing basis instead of waiting till end of the year.

Many employees who work from home offices are currently organizing their working hours more flexibly, which can be viewed as adapting to the new situation. As a result, Von Gaudecker et al (2020) have observed a general decline in total working hours. In addition, employees and superiors are not present in the home office, which could lead to greater autonomy – an important predictor for job satisfaction (Influence of the covid 19 pandemic; Lisa Nagel, Finn,2001; Fried and Ferris ,1987; Hackman and Oldham,1975; Naqvi et al ,2013).

 Reference :

 Adams.Prassl et al,2020; Bick and Blandin,2020;Coibion et al., 2020.

Molino et al ,2020; Scherer et al ,2019;Taherdoost, 2018; Venkatesh et al ,2003.

Beland et al, 2020;Spurk and Straub ,2020;Sturz et al ,2020.

Lisa Nagel, Finn,2001; Fried and Ferris ,1987; Hackman and Oldham,1975; Naqvi et al ,2013.