Employee performance reviews are mostly meant to improve the work quality delivery of the employee. However, most employees do not see the review as relating to their area of work nor in line with their work quality. Research indicates that most performance reviews have been done based on the employee’s behavior and less on merit (Yalcin 2022). This review method has caused dissatisfaction among employees, and this was the case in the pre-pandemic times. Facing the difficult work environments that COVID has presented to companies, working from home has even caused this to be harder than it was. With almost 75% of the U.S. companies embracing the hybrid mode, the reviews based on observing a particular standardized behavior have been greatly affected (Yalcin 2022). Employees’ challenges due to the COVID strains on appraisals include the gap in familiarity caused by remote working, fewer observations to judge an employee without bias, and to have one review to rule on all the others. Employee reviews need to be done fairly to ensure that no employee is disadvantaged and rewarded for good performance.
Having a hybrid model at the workplace makes the workers in the office more familiar with the manager than those working remotely. As such, carrying out an employee appraisal based on familiarity is most likely to disadvantage the employee that the boss rarely sees. When an employee feels that the workplace is unfair, their faith in the workplace reduces, and their performance goes down. This factor is an internal one that, if not addressed, could have far-reaching effects on performance in a working environment.
External factors that could lead to poor performance in a remote environment include inadequate tools to complete the work in good time than being in an office. Handling family issues while remotely working also reduces the employee’s delivery. These factors give the group that works from the office a leg up over their peers who operate from home. Less appreciation and recognition may cause some employees to perform poorly. Therefore, it is vital to ensure that the appraisal and performance reviews consider all the factors surrounding the nature of work and the working environment. A proper appraisal method that incorporates behaviour and based methods, straight ranking appraisals, grading, and 360 reviews is necessary. Having a definite system and merit for handling employee performance ensures fairness at all levels, ensuring the company’s success.
Performance appraisals, in most cases, are followed by a promotion, a raise in salary, and another type of incentive, a warning letter or layoff. A company should put in place considerations for initiating these layoffs based on well-conducted performance reviews. This process has to be conducted with no bias as this would make the remaining employees feel insecure about working in the company, an issue that could affect performance as well. Besides following the legal requirements, there should be a criterion that includes everyone and bases the whole process on performance rather than managers’ preferences. The process should be fair and transparent to everyone in a way that restores trust in the rest of the team.
Conclusively, basing performance appraisal on one element of an employee’s work or attitude and behaviour is not a fair operation. The HR department needs to devise better methods, especially in the face of the pandemic, to ensure fairness in employee performance ratings. The kind of rating could determine the motivation employees bring to work. In some cases, poor performance is caused by unavoidable circumstances. Therefore, there is a need to take great measures in analyzing employee performance and handling their issues before rating them.
Reference
Yalcin Acikgoz, (2022) How to make performance reviews less terrible – especially given the challenges of supervising remote workers. The Conversation. Web.