Our next-level breakthrough is to develop a performance management (PM) system that firmly addresses the difficulties that managers have had in assessing employee performance in the work-from-home setting. A conservative estimate of our data suggests that 50% of the companies who have consulted with us have an ineffective PM system in place. We surmise that their PM system is ineffective because employees are not ‘buying into the system’ – there is not enough commitment or dedication to record and analyze the performance of employees maybe due to the lack of access to the right tools, which we have. We combine the best methods, practices, and technologies that allow for a flexible and efficient PM system, and we even customize the PM system to the needs of specific clients.

Our stakeholders consist of the entire organization, from CEO down to the lowest rank. We’ll help them set performance goals, identify barriers to performance, address those barriers through developmental interventions, coaching etc. and finally evaluate performance accurately and objectively in order to identify individuals deserving of rewards or recognition. Our foremost stakeholders are the HR departments – open the door for us to convince the CEO of the validity of our system, and we’ll do the rest. Our success has come from getting the buy-in from HR who in turn solicits the buy-in from their CEO. We basically sell to HR so that they can sell to the CEO.

The main challenge again is to figure out how we can get companies to buy-in to our system, specifically by getting the commitment of their HR departments as they will be the ones implementing the system due to their administrative role. Furthermore, we want them to endorse it to the other leaders, employees, and executives within their organization. How do we convince HR teams of the value that our PM system provides and how it can contribute greatly to their organizational performance? It is not just to reward people who perform at a high level, but to align the performance and behavior of individuals towards their company’s goals and strategies. HR teams try to do this, but they only get minimum compliance. It’s too tedious for managers or supervisors, because it takes time away from their work even though the PM system actually contributes to their work. They run individual performance evaluations that don’t empower their employees to be better. Employees need to see the value in investing in their personal growth and in building skills and experience, otherwise they will never buy-in to what we’re offering.

Post-Potluck Response: This exercise validated the pain points of HR departments – they are overwhelmed with operational work on top of strategic work. There’s a question of relevance because some of the work they’re doing is not making an impact in the organization. While I have faith in what we’re doing, my biggest fear is whether people will see this as relevant to them. The beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder – if the stakeholders dont have the right mindset, they might see our solution as relevant to them. We need to find a relevant solution to the workforce right now, such as addressing WFH teams. There’s a paradigm shift that they need to make, if we are making this solution, we need to equip HRs with the mindset not of control but of promoting growth on all levels.