Combining Performance and Well-being: are you ready?

Who remembers their last performance review? Or to have had the responsibility to evaluate the members of his team? The performance review period in a company is a process that some employees hold on their minds for several weeks before moving on to the next file, because it raises concerns about the fairness of the process, because of its inherent subjectivity, and to the impact it has on the feeling of perceived recognition.

Several trends are emerging regarding employee performance and workplace well-being that could eliminate these concerns:

1) Put performance ratings on the back burner;

2) Swap “performance management” towards “employee development”; 

3) Manage performance through strengths. 

In this context of COVID-19, many companies are waking up and realizing that we must care about the well-being of employees. Also, neuroscience studies have shown that performance evaluation increases stress more than work motivation (Doucet et als, 2019). Another study estimated that by the end of 2020, almost 20% of organizations will have abandoned performance ratings (Doucet et als, 2019).

Are you ready ?

If your company is considering turning to these practices, it must put other mechanisms in place to ensure that employee performance is maintained and improved. In fact, not every type of organization can adequately implement these practices. Companies and employees must be mature and there must be interest on both sides. The process must be done step by step, and not skip any. Also, it should establish practices offeedbackand ongoing recognition between managers and employees, focus on training managers ascoach, and on a culture of growth. Companies that have a high capacity to transform have a greater chance of success.

The negative side is that no one currently knows the long-term impacts of these practices. However, it remains at the discretion of employers to be part of themomentumin an agile approach towards innovation and the well-being of their employees.

Citation: Doucet, O., Giamos, D. and Lapalme, M.-È. (2019). Can we manage employee performance and well-being? A literature review and some research proposals on innovative practices in performance management. Ad Machina, 3(1). doi: 10.1522/radm.no3.1106