Employee Evaluations are part of every successful company – why? Placing importance on performance evaluations can help you recognize when employees need additional training or tools to be successful. They can also become a source of contention and frustration in the workplace. Employers can change the dynamic of evaluations. Utilizing them as a resource to gauge not only how employees are doing but also how the company is doing through the perception of their employees.

Did you read our Part 1 of our article series about the importance of employee evaluations? Check it out now!

Better Understanding of Employees Needs

Many times, companies place too much personal responsibility on employees without giving them the tools they need to succeed. Managers blame employees for poor performance. If an employee is underperforming, there’s a good chance that they’re a great employee who’s not been given the tools they need to do their job. It isn’t always physical tools that allow an employee to be successful; a tool might be levels of clearance, training, or a clear channel of communication. Performance Evaluations are the perfect time to discuss these probable issues and understand the needs of your employees better to perform at their best.

Reasonable Discipline Through Performance Appraisals

When you have regular employee evaluations, it becomes much easier to separate those who are trying to succeed in a challenging situation and those who simply don’t care enough about their jobs to put in the effort. Don’t discipline your employees for the mistakes your company is making. Have open conversations with them and make sure they have everything they need to be successful.

Discipline should not be implemented until a clear path to success is created and ultimately ignored by the employee. You don’t want to punish an employee for something they have no control over. When you do that, you’re creating disgruntled employees. When you create disgruntled employees, your entire workplace suffers.

Accelerated Performance Through Regular Recognition

On the flip side employees who do good work deserve recognition. There are employees who consistently go above and beyond expectations. They are the ones that managers depend on and generally take on more work than other employees. Many managers think these employees are OK and let these employees continue their workloads without complaint. However, this isn’t the correct approach. Without opening a conversation, it can be hard to tell if these employees are close to burnout or not.

If an employee is regularly exceeding expectations, that person deserves to know about it and be rewarded for it. Performance reviews allow you to talk about these contributions and to discuss what that person sees as fair compensation for a job well done. When you acknowledge someone’s contributions, they feel better about continuing to exceed expectations. Performance evaluations help your employees’ set goals and allow managers to re-evaluate workloads.

Improved Employee Retention by Creating a Pathway to Success

Evaluations can improve employee retention if done correctly. When your employees are given clear goals, open lines of communication, and reward systems that they agree to and participate in, they will be happier, more engaged, and more productive. These steps can lead to higher employee retention.

Employee reviews that are mishandled can also be very disruptive to your workplace . Of the more than 1,000 U.S. employees polled in Reflektive’s survey, 85% said an unfair job review would push them to consider quitting altogether. Of that group, more than half said they were either “very likely” or “extremely likely” to think about leaving the company. Therefore, creating a pathway to success is a better alternative to discipline – you need your employees to feel like their relationship with the company is cooperative and not based on fear.

Employee reviews are about establishing communication between employees and their management teams. Evaluations should emphasize rewarding people who perform well over disciplining those who perform poorly, and options for improvement should always be considered cooperatively without instilling fear of repercussion.

Engaged employees will stay with your company longer, and evaluations create clear expectations and opportunities to discuss whatever issues might arise in the workplace. When you handle performance evaluations with care, everyone wins.

In need of a hrms solution that supports you in conducting equal, comparable and fair performance appraisals? Check out our NovaSmart NG Evaluations Software supporting you in streamlining this process.

Managing hybrid teams: a recent challenge

With the rapid growth of remote working due to the health crisis and the return of on-site employees in recent months, managing hybrid teams is a challenge that many companies are facing. It’s not always easy to make sure employees feel comfortable when they are not all in the same place. Moreover, teleworking can affect employee well-being. Remote employees may feel isolated, lose motivation, and this sometimes even leads to burnout. As for employees who come back on site after a long period of home office, they need to be reassured and to gradually reconnect with the habits they had before.

Adopt a culture of well-being!

Wellness at work is at the core of your company’s culture. Your company must promote a culture of well-being to make your employees feel comfortable. Promoting well-being at work means making it a priority, a condition for the success of your company, just like the commercial objectives. Your employees will feel at ease, understood, and above all proud to participate in the success of their employer.

Our tips for ensuring the well-being of your on-site & remote employees: 

Train your managers

Once you have agreed on how you want to promote well-being in your company, the next step is to inform and train your managers. Take a few hours to explain to them the company’s wellness vision. Give them the keys to managing effectively while preserving the mental health of their teams. You can provide this training internally, but you can also go further and fund an external training course to learn the basics.

Allow flexibility

Flexibility is a key word when managing hybrid teams. Allowing flexibility to your employees will empower them as they feel trusted, and they can adapt their personal schedule to their working time. Let’s take the example of someone who loves to dance salsa, but can only go to the 12-hour class. If you allow flexibility, the employee will be able to go and will feel much more motivated at work as they managed to exercise and do something they love. Flexibility can be about the hours, the way to organize your work, but also about working remotely or on site. As many employees come back to the office, you can give them the opportunity to choose when they come back and how much time a week. A gradual return to the office will allow them to find their bearings again.

Implement an Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

Covid-19 has impacted the lives of many people around the world. A lot of them are facing personal issues leading to high levels of stress. They do not always feel comfortable with the idea of sharing this with their hierarchy. Therefore, you can adopt an Employee Assistance Program. It is a voluntary, work-based program that offers free and confidential assessments, short-term counseling, referrals, and follow-up services to employees who have personal and/or work-related problems. EAP programs will help improve engagement, employees’ mental health and reduce absenteeism.

Provide your teams with a safe & comfortable work environment

With the current health environment, you need to assure  the safety of the employees who are returning to the office. This can be done by ensuring that barrier procedures are followed, or by regularly disinfecting work areas. Your employees will be relieved and less stressed about getting sick.

Providing a safe environment also means providing a comfortable environment. Employees in the office have all the necessary furniture to work efficiently, it should be the same for your remote employees. You should check that each remote employee has what they need such as a powerful computer, a keyboard, a mouse, a desk chair…

Offer wellness activities 

A good way to retain your talent and ensuring their mental and physical well-being is to offer them wellness activities. You can provide your teams with discounts or free activities such as gym memberships or dance classes. This way, you can also encourage your employees to go together, have a good time and bond outside of work.

Promoting well-being in your company is beneficial for your productivity as employees feel understood and motivated, but also for your employer brand. A company that cares about the well-being of its employees and that communicates on this topic will be all the more appreciated. Today, this is a major issue that goes beyond the company and can be perceived by your customers as a comparative advantage.

The Importance of a Transparent Workplace

Workplace transparency is at the core of a successful, positive, and performance-driven workplace. It describes an organization that makes an effort to share information freely, not leaving out the good and the bad. With integrity and honesty, employers can avoid a toxic workplace where information is shared behind closed doors. Employees can only speculate about what is actually going on. Transparent workplaces build trust and make employees feel like they are part of something bigger. The employer encourages ideas and feedback to be freely expressed in order to continually develop and value each employee’s strengths. This eliminates the risk of overlooking great minds and ideas that could fuel the company’s performance.

Overall, Transparency encourages collaboration, trust engagement and performance between employees and employers. It strengthens the wellbeing and motivation of your employees.

This is how you can reach a transparent work environment:

5 Ways to Reach the Goal of a Transparent Workplace

Define the Company Intent of Transparency

Define your goal of establishing transparency to be more strategic and understand the why. Clearly communicate to your employees what is expected and how it is being implemented. Build trust by leading as an example.

  Implement Regular Stand-Up Meetings

Most of the time, employees don’t know what their colleagues are working on. This can mean that the full potential cannot be realized because there is no collaboration or conversation between employees that can help solve problems. This form of lack of communication leads to loneliness and promotes the feeling that one’s own work is not noticed.

Daily or weekly stand-up meetings can counteract this process.  Stand-Up meetings focus on giving each employee a chance to share their work and communicate possible updates. This form of transparency promotes team communication and employee appreciation.

 Share the Good & the Bad

We tend – no matter whether in private or professionally – always share only the positive, so as not to create the impression that their own performance is inadequate. No one likes to admit to mistakes, but they are all the more crucial for further development and improvement in the future. Therefore, encourage openness about mistakes made and focus on what you have learned from them. Share how you are going to respond and move forward with the project or task for others to learn from it. Do not sugar coat the results, as this can only lead to an unnecessary repetition of mistakes by other employees that do not know about your learning curve.

 Break down the walls between departments

Departments are automatically separated by a certain barrier of different tasks, projects, team leadership and spatial separation.  However, this can lead to false biases, miscommunication and lack of or poor collaboration as there is no sense of togetherness.

There is no need to tear down the walls between departments, but cross-departmental team exercises can be done. Simple ways to integrate this are joint lunch or coffee breaks, if necessary, initiated by the respective team leaders.

 No Taboo topics

The best-known taboo topic is probably the discussion of employee salaries. This taboo has existed for a long time in many countries and companies. Reason? Unknown. Guess? To save costs. The open communication of taboo topics like salary, however, can lead tremendously to a better working atmosphere and prevention of discrimination. This strengthens the feeling of togetherness and promotes the recognition of similar achievements.

These 5 methods lead to a very good foundation on the way to complete transparency within your company and ultimately to more creativity, togetherness, honesty and overall happiness.

Do you want to improve your employee’s wellbeing? Check out our dedicated wellbeing website with many articles about this topic as well as how software can support your process.

Can poor financial wellbeing impact an employee’s mental health?

In a recent study, 39% of employees believe if their finances are in a bad state, it will negatively impact their mental health. Therefore, it will impact them at work negatively. Poor mental health has been shown to reduce productivity, increase presenteeism and absenteeism, which all effects the bottom line of the business.

Bad financial health will impact employees retiring. Results from a recent survey showed that 59% of employees do not think they are saving enough for the future. Therefore, it is highly likely that employees will not retire for longer. This will have a knock on effect for career progression and many other factors within the workforce.

Financial wellbeing is fast becoming one of the focus wellbeing points for many companies.  

What can companies do to help the financial wellbeing of their workforce?

To start your financial wellbeing policy, we suggest these 3 first steps.

1. Open up communication with your employees and find out how they feel about their financial situation. This could be done by a one-to-one chat or survey.
2. Make sure your employees are aware of the benefits your company has to offer and see if they are making the most of them.
3. Find free financial advice from governments and authorised bodies in your country.

Building a good financial wellbeing policy will take time. However, the benefits to your employees will be long-lasting.

The Reputation of Performance Appraisals

Performance appraisals can be a great tool to drive performance, growth and better results. However, some employers have misused appraisals in the past. Employees have been fired without warning for poor performance, evaluations have been based on personality traits rather than objective criteria, or simple company policies and procedures have not been followed. This has made employees uncomfortable with the process. Though, performance appraisals should be anything but a scary and stressful experience.

When carried out properly, performance appraisals should be an exciting event from which employees and employers can learn. It shouldn’t turn into a scrutinizing conversation where employees are told every little thing they did wrong, but should highlight how the work can be improved for the benefit of both parties. It’s about listening, understanding and showing empathy for the employee’s situation and feedback, while keeping the company’s best interests in mind.

By making the appraisal a positive experience, you as the employer automatically reduce unnecessary stress, improve your overall team’s performance in the days leading to the appraisal and enhance the wellbeing of your employees. Also, you will see a positive change to the team’s atmosphere with less fear, tension and anxiety building up.

Tips to Combat Unnecessary Stress Related to Performance Appraisals

We’ve collected some tips to help you take the employee experience from frightening to exciting when thinking about performance reviews. This change in mindset will not happen overnight – depending on the current situation – but is a gradual process that will show its effects on your company in the long run.

Be Compassionate & Understanding

Show your employees that you care and want to listen, not because you have to, but because you really care. Show them that their opinions and feedback are just as important as the employer’s. Understand their concerns and situation and try to find solutions that support your employee’s well-being and, ultimately, your company’s performance.

Communicate Expectations & Processes

Clear communication is important, whether in private life or at work. Without clear communication, employees cannot prepare for performance appraisals. Anxiety can build up due to lack of communication of expectations & concentration on their work will drop.  Let your employees know what is going to happen, explain the process, the objective and make them feel comfortable. Only when you communicate effectively will staff feel comfortable enough to give their feedback truthfully, as they have had time to reflect on their own performance.

Already implemented a performance review software? Check out our Nova Smart NG Appraisal module, that streamlines the process, clearly communicates expectations and allows setting objectives agreed upon by both.

Review Your Measuring Criteria

Stop judging an employee based on whether you like them or not. Focus on their performance, their integration into the team and their overall work ethic. Don’t confuse this with how many hours someone spends in the office, but focus on the quality of the hours they put in. Show them that you trust them to do a good job, even if they don’t work as much overtime as their colleagues. Define clear metrics to apply to each employee to keep your appraisals accountable & as objective as possible.

Highlight the Employee’s Growth Potential

Nobody wants to hear only negative aspects about their performance. This is sure to demotivate the employee and will not lead to the desired result. While it is of course important to highlight behaviour and performance that does not meet the company’s expectations, there is always the question of how you start the conversation about it. Shift your feedback approach from general statements to highlighting specific aspects. Move away from “You did this” to “I noticed that…” by:

• Describing your observation: “I observed that…”
• Explaining the effect it had on you, “This had the effect on me as if….”
• Formulating your request to change and mentioning strategies to get there, “I would wish that…”

Create a Save Space to Talk About Mental Health

Create a safe space where staff can talk freely about how they feel and what they are struggling with. This will help you build the trust and honesty needed for a successful and effective performance review. Ask them how the pandemic has affected their work and personal lives, and you can find out the reasons for their performance, which will give you the opportunity to make appropriate changes.

Do Not Make Comparisons

Comparing the performance of the employee with the performance of another employee in the team is a no-go. You cannot compare an apple with a plum just because they both grow on trees. They are completely different individuals with different roles, growth possibilities, tasks, responsibilities and results. Comparing employees will only lead to a negative atmosphere in the office, where employees start competing and acting self-centered.

Increase the Feedback Frequency

A child is praised when they finish their plate, in school work is constantly assessed through grades, why should this regular feedback suddenly stop in professional life? Feedback is an important part of the learning process. It is the only way employees can find out if they are doing a great job. Moreover, feedback offers many opportunities to motivate oneself and to do a better job.

Therefore, it is important that this regular feedback is not swept under the table. Managers must take time for their employees regularly. Especially as home office work becomes the norm and employees get even fewer signals whether what they are doing is OK. You don’t have to schedule 45-min conversations every week. About 10 min. per employee every week is quite enough. This regularity of feedback also takes away the fear of quarterly or half-yearly performance reviews, as these are already part of the employee’s normal working week.

Do you want to improve your employee’s wellbeing? Check out our dedicated wellbeing website with many articles about this topic as well as how software can support your process.

1. Employee Surveys

Employee surveys are a great tool to gauge wellbeing. Choose how regularly you would like to send these surveys out, monthly, quarterly, annually. The more frequent will give you more of a pulse on how your employees are feeling. Take the time to research and test questions and feel free to adapt the survey.
There are many ways you can send out the survey, but digitally is more secure. Another benefit of a digital tool is that you can organize the data you receive in a more informed way.

2. One-to-ones

Encourage line managers to carry out one-to-one appraisals. Include an assessment of mental wellbeing in the appraisals. Watch for any patterns or trends in the feedback provided by employees.

3. HR Data

Take advantage of the HR data you already have. Track things such as absences, reasons for absences, and employee retention to give you insights into the happiness of your employees.

4. Management Information (MI)

MI is another great resource of data for companies to use to understand their employee’s wellbeing. Looking at data such as age, gender, and claim trends can help inform and develop your health and wellbeing strategy.

Using these methods will give you a good insight to measure if your employee wellbeing strategy is working. The main put is to keep communication open within your company ethos.

Here at Novative we have many tools to enhance your employee wellbeing strategy and to measure the success >>

Payroll & Employee Happiness: two related concepts

Recent studies have shown, 47%, or nearly half of respondents, cited pay as the primary source of motivation at work. In the context of the health crisis, well-being at work is at the forefront of everyone’s mind and financial well-being is a major contributor. With the arrival of Covid-19, many households have been impacted financially. According to figures from the U.K. Office of National Statistics (ONS), nearly 12.5 million people reported that their household was financially affected due to the coronavirus between March 20 and June 7, 2020.

Receiving one’s salary on time and without any errors during the Covid-19 period has been a relief for many employees. The financial well-being of employees must imperatively be a priority for human resources. It is one of the pillars of happiness at work. 

The key elements of a good payroll

In order to ensure an accurate payroll, payroll managers must consider a multitude of factors. Discover the 3 pillars of effective payroll management: 

Compliance

Good payroll management involves compliance with payroll rules and standards. Payroll legislation is highly regulated, and it is essential for payroll managers to pay close attention to it. Payroll is also a function that is regularly reformed or updated. It is, therefore, necessary to regularly monitor the payroll in order to adapt it to any legal, conventional or internal change within the company (compliance with tax rates, social contribution rates, withholding tax, etc.). An automated payroll software will help you to integrate changes quickly and globally for all users concerned.

Accuracy

Who doesn’t look forward to their paycheck every month? Many of us do! And when it doesn’t meet our expectations, it can quickly lead to frustration and conflict. Every month, we need to pay bills, and many people organize their budget around payday. That’s why it is necessary for payroll to be accurate, precise and on time! It is also increasingly important to make payslips easier to read and understand. In France, since January 1, 2018, the payslip is generalized to all companies and has been simplified. To create a bond of trust with your employees, you can also offer them help to read the payslips. The goal? Familiarize your employees with payroll in order to avoid potential conflicts. In the digital age, a payroll software will allow you to calculate salaries with accuracy. It is also an excellent tool to provide your employees with a secure and accessible space for their payslips at any time.

Security

Data security is a current and major issue. Personal data must be protected, even more so in a digitalised world. As for salary data, it is considered more sensitive and must be handled with care. You must ensure the security and confidentiality of your employees’ data and documents by respecting the relevant standards. At Novative, security is a priority. Our information security management system is ISO 27001:2013 certified. This certification attest to our high level of security and rigor in managing the data entrusted to us. The data is stored in a secure center.  Our software also has a set of measures to strengthen the confidentiality and security of our customers’ personal data: encrypted data, two-factor authentication, specific access rights for each profile…

How does payroll contribute to employee happiness?

Reputation

Payroll has an impact on your company’s reputation. It is up to you to make sure that impact is positive. If your company has a reputation for paying employees on time, accurately and being available for any questions or comments, your employees are more likely to trust you.

Motivational Lever

Payroll is a powerful motivational lever. Your employees will be more motivated and engaged in their work and tasks if the payroll is accurate. It can be beneficial to set a specific day in the month (the 1st, 5th, or 25th of the month, for example) because it is an unchangeable variable that will make it easier for your employees to manage their budget.

Accessibility

Accessing payroll data at any time and being able to view and download your payslips easily from your computer or phone has become an indispensable asset in any business. The dematerialization of payslips has several advantages:

• Time savings by eliminating time-consuming tasks
• Storage and traceability
• Modernity
• Reduction of the ecological footprint
• Savings

Flexibility

Flexibility is one of the HR trends of this year.  Flexibility in the hours, in the way of working but also in the pay! Be flexible with your employees and show them that you trust them. With the complexities of today’s environment, your employees may need an advance on their salary or need to change their payday. Today, offering flexible compensation is not as complex as it used to be with all the tools HR has at its disposal to automate and track each employee’s payroll. 

Managing employee payroll is not always an easy task as many factors must be taken into account. With the development of technology, there are now powerful tools that will save you precious time in each payroll cycle. You can now optimise your payroll by automating the processes and covering all these specificities. 

The Effects of Bad Employee Wellbeing

There is a huge loss both from employees and employers when employee’s well-being is not being prioritized, and these figures show this.

The Benefits of Good Employee Well-being

There are many benefits for your company adopting a proactive employee wellbeing approach.

Less Sick Leave and Absenteeism 

A well-rounded approach to employee wellbeing means employees are less likely to take sick leave and will return from leave more sustainably.

Higher Performance

Employees who are not constantly on sick leave means they are present more to achieve goals. Aligning employee and company goals is mutually beneficial. Working together positively and perform to their optimal level.

Increased Staff Retention

A company that champions a positive view of their employees and well-being will, in turn, benefit from employee loyalty. More and more employees want to feel part of a company’s success and want to develop with a company.

Boost Employer Brand

A positive workforce will reflect in your employer brand. 

Where do you start with a Good Approach?

Put staff well-being as a priority in all areas of business

Create an ethos of your employees being able to speak to you and be open. Let them feel they can talk openly without fear of stigma

Communication is a key factor in mental health, offer all communication methods for your employees, ‘open door’, FaceTime, or chat with whatever they feel most comfortable with.

Flexible working is a major bonus to employees, it also gives them more of a chance at a better work/life balance.

Make sure employees know what is expected of them at work, and what is involved in their job role.

Always check in and ensure employees are comfortable with their workload.

Employee development is so important to make sure your company is focusing on this, to help your employees feel like they are growing and contributing.

Ensure your company has a diverse and inclusive workforce.

Have policies in place to protect your employees from bullying and harassment.

Employee Well-being and the Pandemic

The pandemic has had an impact on people’s lives, both professionally and personally. Some may have been affected by the illness directly and need to time to get better (such effects such as long COVID-19). Loved ones may have been lost. Employees may have been furloughed and feel nervous about coming back after a long period absent. There are also those who have worked throughout the pandemic and might be close to burnout.

Employee – well-being is at a critical point, implementing some small processes, to begin with, can make a huge difference to keeping your employees happy. In the long run, you will find these processes will be beneficial to both the employee and your company.