Harjeet Khanduja, V.P of Human Resources, Reliance Jio | Writer | Speaker

Harjeet is an International speaker, writer, poet and an HR Leader. He is an alumnus of IIT Roorkee and INSEAD. He is currently working as Vice President HR at Reliance Jio Infocomm. He has received multiple awards including HR Leadership Award, Pride of the Nation Award, and Global Learning Award. He is among the Top 50 HR Tech Leaders and is a LinkedIn Power Profile.

Harjeet is a TEDx speaker, SAP HCM Solution consultant, Six Sigma Green Belt, White Belt in Executive Coaching, Assessor for Predictive Index, Champion in Tata Business Excellence Model, ISO 9000, ISO 27000, HIPAA, Value Engineering, Kaizen, and 5S.

Harjeet has been associated with Nasscom as co-chair of D&I committee, NMIMS as visiting faculty and Chandigarh University as Corporate Advisory Board Member. This Chicken Soup writer is published in leading HR Magazines. He writes regularly on LinkedIn and recites poetry on SAB TV.

How important is Performance Management in today’s high flux organization?

Organizations have changed with time. In fact, it is other way round, the time has changed the organizations. Pizza model of 30 minutes delivery has not just impacted food industry. It has changed the consumer behavior. Consumers don’t want to wait beyond 30 minutes. The definition of patience has got a time element to it. Uncertainty and Volatility of demand needed organizations to act smarter with faster speed.

Any organization is 70% delivery, 20% Sales and 10% other functions. Organizations were always creative with the performance management of salespeople. One, they were facing the customer. Two, the contribution was measurable.

This change shifted the focus of the organizations from sales to delivery. Now tail was wagging the dog. The sales capability was directly linked to capability. This forced organizations to review their internal processes, technology, and people.

At the same time, there is a dire need to be creative with performance management of delivery people as this is no more a funky stuff, it is top line revenue. Performance management is now as important as bread and butter for organizations.

Whose responsibility is Performance Management?

Performance Management of Salesforce has always been lucrative with monthly incentives and foreign visits. However, performance management for remaining staff was seen as a people development, retention and rewards tool. Performance management was never the favorite topic for Business owners because whenever they paid attention, there was an increment in the salary cost, with no concrete immediate outcome.

Picture in your mind, organizations like Ola or Uber. You will see for yourself, sales is no more a challenge. Delivery determines the sales. Delivery becomes the focus. The consumer behavior triggers the desired behavior required from delivery staff (drivers). The performance incentive plans are tweaked continuously on a real-time basis to get the desired behavior from delivery staff.

Performance management is so tightly integrated with the business that Business has no option but to do it on its own.

What are the key gaps in current industry practices in managing employee performance?

Some organizations are still sitting on the fence. They see the change as a service industry phenomenon. Performance Managing is no more about annual appraisal and four feedback meetings.

The external environment is changing at a much faster pace than ever before. The technology is available. The entrepreneurial mindset of the new generation is building new solutions every day. Experimentation with the Business model is necessary.

Most of the transactions go unnoticed without capturing any feedback. Even if feedback is captured, it is not passed on to the people responsible. The biggest problem is that the people responsible, many a times do not know that they are responsible for something which can affect top line of the organization.

Other than better pay or job roles, what are the main reason why people change jobs?

People leave for various personal needs which do not get fulfilled in an organization. It is important to understand that why people stay in an organization. People stay in an organization because of their complacency.

Once any personal need becomes so important that one starts getting deeply affected by it. Then it is never difficult to find a job. This need could be money, ambition, aspiration, work environment, workload, peer pressure, social standing or expansion of needs.

Actually, it can be anything. What you get in exit interviews is a cover story for easy release. What you get on social sites is the sheer frustration to justify oneself, not an actual reason.

What makes a really effective Performance Management Program?

Effective Performance Management Program has few characteristics

1. Making Employee Responsible: It starts with making employees responsible for their delivery. The best way is to put the employee in front of the customer and make employee responsible for own actions. This sensitivity itself does half the job.

2. Sharing Real-Time Feedback: More and more organizations are capturing feedback for each and every transaction and passing it on to the responsible employee on a real-time basis. The real-time feedback gives the opportunity to the employee to improve.

3. Recognizing Performance: A person with higher rating not only earns incentives but also gets more business. A person with a bad rating is treated objectively by a ruthless system. It transparently publishes the ratings to the customers and bad performer stops getting the business.