Adapting Employee Performance Management in the Face of the COVID-19 Pandemic ()
Human Resource, Performance Management
1. Introduction
Performance is the work result in quantity and quality achieved by an employee in carrying out his duties according to his responsibilities [1] . Performance management practice is found under human resources management which is one of the core management functions in the workplace. According to [2] performance management (PM) as an applied, systematic, and structured approach
to the success of an enterprise, processes, systems, employees and organization, to ensure that goals and objectives are reached efficiently and effectively. PM is critical to the attainment of the organization’s strategic intent. It also helps employees to become more competent, engaged, and motivated. Furthermore, it facilitates organizational change; clarifies organizational goals; distinguishes good from bad; and helps organizations to make fairer, more appropriate administrative action in the process of protecting the organization from litigation [3] . Because of its pivotal role, there is a wealth of academic literature on performance management, originating primarily in organizational behavior and human resource management, but also in other fields, including psychology [4] [5] [6] [7] .
On the other side, employee performance management is described as an integrated process of setting up employees’ common understanding of targets to be achieved in an organization and aligning the corporate objectives with measures like skills, and competencies required for a job and the ultimate results delivered by them [8] . Measurement of employee performance is vital in ensuring that employees can perform the task that has been given by the organization [9] . Employee performance management can be used as a platform of human resource management where organizations may take decisions regarding employee rewards and compensation (mostly on an annual basis) [10] . Traditionally, there are four (4) key steps in an effective performance management system cycle, each of the steps tie together to create a path to employee and business success. Figure 1 illustrates the key steps in the performance management system.
As displayed in Figure 1, the four stages are explained as attributes of a good performance management system. First, performance planning is about setting performance objectives for the employees. It is best practice to actively involve the employee in the planning process. Second, the performance monitoring and feedback phase is ideally meant for monitoring purposes. This is where the goals set in the planning phase are tracked. Ideally, the intent of monitoring is to also enable the supervisor to detect any case of suboptimal performance, rather than finding this out at the end of the performance year. Third, in the development phase; as a result of active monitoring, areas of improvement can be identified.
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Figure 1. Performance management cycle. Source: Geneseo. https://www.geneseo.edu/hr/managing-employee-performance
This can be underperformance that should be corrected or areas of superior performance in which qualifying employees may be enabled to excel even further. This can be achieved in the form of training and development but also through challenging assignments and other opportunities for professional growth. The last stage is termed evaluation and in some instances appraisal and reward. This is where employee performance is rated. Rating performance helps to determine the added value of employees to the organization. This is usually done during the employee’s (bi) annual performance appraisal. In case of superior performance, the employee should be recognized for their outstanding performance (it could be through praise, a raise, time off, recognition items, a promotion, etc.). A rating of below expectations could mean the employee might not be in the right function or organization. The case of a continuous below-average performance could result in parting ways with such an employee.
Since the year 2020, the normal performance management cycle got considerably affected and disrupted due toCovid-19 pandemic. The novel coronavirus or Covid-19 was discovered in 2019 in Wuhan province in China (Gondauri, Mikautadze, & Batiashvili, 2020) [11] . Covid-19 outbreak was declared a public health emergency of international concern on January 2020 (World Health Organization, 2020) [12] . Due to uncertainties brought about by Covid-19, various organizations took decisions to cut down expenses like either delaying or waive off performance management process-especially the fourth phase (in the performance management cycle) being, appraisals; [13] Note that many organizations resorted to haltingemployees’ salaries in an effort to decrease expenses and protect the future of the organization, and thereby, take the chance of not rewarding and incentivizing their employees as per norm. All this has created the demand for a new approach to employee performance management. As a consequence, managers are now implored to adapt to a new way of managing employee performance. For example, Marygrove Awning Co. in Livonia, Michigan discarded most of the components of their performance management system because, as CEO Mike Falahee put it: “After all, how can we review someone who can’t do their job the way they’re accustomed to doing it?” (O’Connell, 2020) [14] . The outbreak of Covid-19 subjected organizations to a grand challenge of unparalleled proportions, one that forces them to dive into and directly manage unprecedented territory as they alter their workforce in technical, physical and socio-psychological ways not seen before in the current generation (Carnevale & Hatak, 2020) [15] . Therefore, this paper explores a shift in approaches and considerations to account for the unique challenges and circumstances presented by remote work, changing work dynamics, and the overall impact of the pandemic.
2. Literature Review
The impact of Covid-19 on HRM and employee performance management has received the attention of many scholars. For example, Bie?kowska, Koszela, Sałamacha and Tworek (2022) [16] investigated the role of Covid-19 oriented HRM strategies in shaping job performance through job-related attitudes such as work motivation, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment in a time of crisis occurring in the organization due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The study was conducted among 378 organizations operating in Poland during 2nd wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Their findings show that a combined set of “hard” HRM strategies related to the financial aspects and “soft” HRM strategies related to keeping employees’ well-being during the crisis gives the best results in shaping job performance through job-related attitudes and ultimately strengthening organizational performance.
A study conducted by [17] concludes that the most relevant contribution of employee performance management during the Covid-19 pandemic is the improvement of extra-role behavior or organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). As per their study, OCB is an independent way of behaving that adds to the general proficiency of an organization. Instances of OCBs incorporate volunteering for exercises that do not involve formal work (e.g., proposing organization’s enhancements, making productive ideas); helping and teaming up with others (e.g., assisting colleagues and clients); supporting, recognizing, and defending organizational objectives (for instance, organizational loyalty, which means that the organization is beneficial to the outside world) [17] .
Furthermore, the authors noted that employee performance management assists organizations with clarifying objectives and strategic direction; in this way explaining the definition and obligations of each work. However, because of Covid-19, numerous organizations have been compelled to take an alternate route by realigning needs, product offerings and administrations, and accordingly, worker sets of expectations have changed. Hence [18] states that there are many possibilities that companies are thinking of the traditional performance bonus payouts and planning for delays in paying performance rewards by at least a quarter in order to tackle the performance appraisal expectations in this tough economic situation.
The scholar [19] argues that OCB is particularly significant amid a crisis, as workers are expected to concoct thoughts to assist the organization with getting by, and workers need to take extraordinary measures to utilize their gifts, abilities, organization and development capacity. Even more critically, Zhang et al. (2021) [20] research shows that during the Covid-19 pandemic, evidence-based performance management systems identify and emphasize these types of behaviors (like OCB) in addition to the formal tasks required by employee job descriptions, and actively measure, develop, and reward these behaviors. On the other hand, Aguinis (2019a) [4] recommends that in circumstances where remote work is exacerbated by emergencies, like Covid-19 and the absence of spontaneous interaction among workers, organizations need to depend more on outcome approaches (delivery), as behaviors are no longer easily observed or accessed, and are often more than a proper way to do the job.
Literature reveals that due to the effects of Covid-19, many Indian companies including Deloitte, EY and PwC have taken a decision to delay their employee performance management phase of appraisal, which thereby translates into delaying the next performance management phase of performance reward which has resulted in a delay of promotions, bonus pay-out or development of employees [21] . In the same vein, Forbes India has decided that in place of having a ratings-based system for all employees due to Covid-19, instead, the company opted to reserve performance appraisals for top performers and laggards only. The justification of this decision is in that instead of investing efforts in ranking miniscule deviations, it is more important to focus on developing the core strength of the organization. Facebook also suspended its performance reviews for the first half of 2020 due to Covid-19 pandemic [22] . It is evident that employee performance management has been instantly disrupted and pushed into survival mode. Many organizations are completely discontinuing their usual way of measuring performance, thereby, calling for the need to adapt to a new approach to employee performance. While many organizations have embraced a new approach to employee performance, the effect of this adaptation on the employee performance management process has not been examined.
The scholar, [23] asserts that practicing performance management in the workplace is beneficial to organizations in that it can safeguard organizations from legal risks. The author argues that whenever an organization is compelled to lay off staff because of monetary challenges, performance is one of the primary factors that result in layoffs. Without appropriate and precise performance records, decision-making may lack transparency, objectivity and become unfair. In a similar vein, [24] [25] posit that an effective employee performance management system increases Employee Engagement (EE) because employees have a clear understanding of performance expectations, which subsequently increases job satisfaction and reduces turnover intentions. Metaphorically, EE is prescribed as the antidote to the recent pandemic in the place of work and just a, similarly as the world is relying on a vaccine for survival, organizations rely on EE to stay in business (afloat). The authors assert that worker engagement is basic to keeping up with productivity at a time when working from home is the norm, and thereby, employee performance management can further supplement employee engagement. According to [24] , this can be guaranteed by practicing great employee performance management.
Although some of these challenges may have been in existence prior to the emergence of Covid-19; they have been amplified because of the pandemic. Therefore, it is important to explore performance management practices that cannot only help address pandemic-related employee performance management challenges, but also allow organizations to thrive post-pandemic. The current paper aims to achieve this through a systematic review of literature related to performance management in the workplace during the Covid-19 pandemic.
3. Conceptual Review
3.1. Covid-19 Concepts and Protocols in the Workplace
This unprecedented outbreak of the pandemic has required millions of people across the world into being remote workers, inadvertently leading to a de-facto global experiment of remote working or working from home (WFH) [26] . WFH was mainly born from the observance of Covid-19 protocol, termed “social distancing.” According to [27] , social distancing is one of the main non-pharmaceutical interventions that can help slow down the spread of diseases, like the case of COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, many organizations by opting for social distancing switched to remote working or [28] . The concept of working from home is not a new concept at work. WFH or better known as telecommuting was first introduced by Niles JM in 1973 [1] . As effects of Covid-19, WFH has become the norm for many workers, with 76% of companies requiring all or most of their employees to work from home as of May 2020 [29] .
It is highlighted that before the advent of Covid-19, remote working has mostly been generated from a context in which remote working was only occasionally or infrequently practiced, and was only considered by some, but not all or most of the workers within an organization. Now, supervisors and supervisees work remotely from each other, and this is rather a challenging position for organizations, as the employer expects maximum delivery on objectives. But due to Covid-19 protocols of social distancing, there is no close supervision on employees. This, therefore, calls for new methods and approaches in employee performance management.
3.2. Managing Remote Work
The advent of Covid-19 brought the realization that the traditional process of employee performance management is no longer applicable to pandemic conditions. The workplace found itself being forced to manage employee performance in a new and different approach. One may view the approaches being embraced by organizations as necessary radicalism. [13] suggest that in managing remote work managers should consider the following in order to protect employee performance. First, the workplace should adopt performance choice boards to provide flexibility in that employees should be allowed to opt either higher or lower even medium performance expectation without stigmatization. This will further lead managers to have open conversations about remuneration. Second, managers should adapt precise performance conversations by clearly communicating performance expectations. Goals and objectives must be assessable as possible. Third, Managers should stay in constant touch with supervisees to enable and support their performance deliverables. The management support includes an enabling working environment through provision of resources. It is our view that remote work or WFH arrangement solidifies the existing relationship between HRM and Information Communications and Technology (ICT). For a successful and sustainable performance conversation between supervisor and supervisee, ICT stands to be an integral enabler. The same applies to the use of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) for virtual meetings or virtual performance management and or project meetings. Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) remains integral to a successful management of remote employee performance.
4. Research Method
4.1. Research Question
What adaptations have organizations implemented to effectively evaluate and manage employee performance in remote work environments in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic?
4.2. Methods
This study relied on secondary data collected through systematic review of empirical literature related to employee performance management during the Covid-19 pandemic. Key words such as effects of Covid-19 on HRM, employee performance management (EPM), HRM and adaptations during crisis situations were used as a guide to search for articles on Web of Science (SSCI) search engine. Inclusion criteria were: (a) peer-reviewed papers in scholarly peer-reviewed journals; (b) empirical papers that report on effects of Covid-19 on human resource management; (c) English language, (d) articles published from 2020. Exclusion criteria were (a) reviews and theoretical/conceptual papers; (b) reports and non-peer-reviewed papers; (c) languages other than English; (d) papers published before 2020. Data was analyzed through content analysis.
The funnel diagram below (Figure 2) offers an illustration of categories of articles used; this helps to guard against publication bias.
5. Findings and Discussion
The study sought to gain an understanding of the effects of Covid-19 on employee performance management. Data showed that Covid-19 has brought many
challenges and protocols into the workplace. First, many companies world-wide implemented hiring freezes and layoffs. For example, as of March 2020, 42% of companies in the U.S. and Canada have frozen or reduced hiring, while another 28% are considering doing so [30] . Even though, some employees around the world were able to keep their jobs, they however faced pay freezes, bonus cancellations and pay cuts. Globally, 29% of employers implemented pay cuts, 42% implemented wage freezes, and 37% implemented bonus cuts [31] . The pandemic further exacerbated employee stress and burnout. In the US, 45% of employees reported that they were exhausted in May 2020 (Eagle Hill Consulting, 2020) [32] . Table 1 illustrates the adaptations on EPM due to Covid-19.
The adaptations in EPM as depicted in the table above were all necessitated by Covid-19 pandemic. The impact of the pandemic has not only affected employee’s performance but also the ways organizations operate. For example, cancellation of recruitment and hiring processes has significantly interrupted organizations operations, especially the ability to satisfy their staffing needs. The International Labor Organization [33] has indicated that COVID-19 will adversely impact the employment scenario both in quantitative and qualitative terms. The ILO further notes that the pandemic has forced organizations worldwide to modify their human resource approaches and practices in a shockingly short period of time (Aurelia & Momin, 2020) [34] . In this situation, transitions and changes that one would presume to unfold in months are now unraveling in days.
Furthermore, due toCovid-19 many organizations could not implement state-of-the-art performance management systems, like in the case of Indian based Deloitte, PwC and EY [17] . The fact that so many organizations choose to downgrade, postpone or suspend performance reviews indicates they place little value on employee performance management, and it may suggest they do not view it as a player in strategic roles. This could also imply that performance management systems may be primarily viewed as administrative and onerous system and processes. One explanation why employee performance management is “underutilized” is that its different intentions are frequently ignored [4] . As in any performance management setting, for organizations to adapt to new employee performance management practices imposed by Covid-19, performance
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Table 1. Adaptations in employee performance management.
Source: Adapted from [16] .
objectives ought to be feasible, considering especially the difficulties of the external environment and the challenges workers face while working from home [17] . As such, performance goals ought to be fully communicated, practical and under the employee's control. Moreover, they ought to be adaptable, reviewed and updated more frequently than usual, and ought to be changed as the organization takes a different path and strategic focus. According to [22] , with current Covid-19 crisis the forced based distribution has to be changed to choice based distribution for performance and employees should be compensated accordingly. This is done to strike a balance between managing the costs whereas at the same time retaining the effective employees. Workforce should therefore be provided the flexibility and choice in their jobs [35] . In terms of productivity, whereas before, employees were expected to produce X number within eight hours, may be now it could be 12 hours [36] . Hence, managers must play a guiding role in enabling employees get adapted to the new normal as best they can. Managers are required to reset their expectations of employee performance and productivity [36] . An effective performance management system is essential for optimum employee performance and productivity. Organizations that have clung to traditional performance management processes that rely on annual or bi-annual reviews have had to swiftly transition to a more flexible system that provides ongoing support, motivation, and development. Evidence shows that, managers have to shift their approach from trying to enforce every employee to work for the maximum of their limits, to the one with personalized choice performance contracts for each employee; and pay accordingly [22] .
In addition to typical and known management purposes (e.g., advancement, compensation, and other individual choices), employee performance management serves other key hierarchical objectives (Aguinis, 2019a) [4] . They are as per the following: (1) convey and improve strategic priorities (for example purposes of strategy and communication), (2) support worker development (3) plan and keep a top notch labor force and (4) gather data to help in making decisions (for example document purpose) (Aguinis, 2019a) [4] . Hence, when carried out as per evidence-based practices, employee performance management is appropriate to assist organizations to address the many employee performance management challenges brought on by crises such as Covid-19. In fact, performance management cannot only help organizations meet HR (Human Resources) challenges during a crisis, but, perhaps just as importantly, it can help them thrive after the crisis is over. It can be noted from [17] that adaptive performance is particularly significant during emergencies and fast change, as the capacity of workers to learn and develop rapidly is basic to the survival of the organization. Adaptive performance incorporates the accompanying eight aspects: (1) managing crises and emergency circumstances; (2) managing work stress; (3) creatively solving problems; (4) managing uncertain and unpredictable work circumstances; (5) learning job roles, procedures, and techniques, (6) show interpersonal fitness, (7) exhibit cultural fitness, and (8) show physical fitness. In support, Høgden (2021) [37] asserts that while measuring tasks, OCB and counterproductive performance becomes difficult, whether during or after a crisis such as Covid-19, adaptability becomes a key skill that should be addressed through transformational leadership to enhance and conduct assessments to determine employee performance levels. Employee performance ordinarily follows an exceptionally skewed distribution, where the contribution of a couple of high-performing workers is essentially higher than the majority [38] . It has been shown that to acquire and keep competitive advantage to endure the Covid-19 emergency, holding these high performers by conducting stay interviews to retain top performers for their more prominent effect contribution is significant (Aguinis, 2019a) [4] . To this end, performance management system ought to incorporate retention interviews. The focal point of retention interviews is to find what causes star workers to choose to remain in the organization and to give information supervisors can use to implement activities to retain them [4] .
In many organizations, performance reviews are done exclusively by managers and employees themselves [39] . As a matter of fact, below 20% of workers are likewise surveyed by colleagues (Vozza, 2020) [40] . In any case, as per a study by [13] , multi-source employee performance management system (otherwise called 360-degree systems) has numerous advantages for organizations during a crisis. In addition to supervisors and employees themselves, multi-source feedback systems include performance data from peers, direct reports, partners, suppliers and vendors. Their research shows that it is most useful for developmental purposes (i.e. employee development rather than evaluation). The scholar [26] also support this and shows that when people work remotely, multi-source performance feedback systems can help employees communicate with other colleagues through platforms like weekly virtual performance meetings, one-on-one performance feedback and virtual project teams feedbacks. This will enhance their emotional attachment to teams and the organization―including a sense of belonging. Additionally, when performance is not easily observable, input from more performance touch points is required to gain insight into employee strengths and weaknesses.
Another impact of Covid-19 is that organizations have been compelled to virtual performance meetings as opposed to in-person meetings. According to [26] , virtual performance meetings have become more sensitive and difficult when in-person meetings are not possible. Multi-source systems therefore facilitate communication and feedback because employees are less likely to become defensive when feedback comes from multiple sources [26] . According to [41] , the pandemic presents a unique opportunity to activate a multi-source feedback system to provide additional care and support to employees. The implementation of such a system is likely to expose workplace divisions and conflicts caused by the pandemic. However, the authors warn that multi-source feedback systems (like 360 degrees) will be mere messengers. As they point out, alternatives that do not even know what these divergences might be; could do more damage in the long run eventually. Organizations therefore need to adapt performance management and use simple, concise, relevant, informative, comprehensive, and clear metrics. [42] recommend the well-established Net Promoter Score (NPS) measurement in marketing to introduce Performance Promoter Score (PPS), which is particularly useful for measuring performance during crises. PPS consists of just a few simple but powerful questions: “How likely are you to recommend a friend or colleague to work with [name of person, workgroup, or organization]?” “Why do you provide the ratings you provide?” and “What does it take to increase the score by one point?” PPS can be used to measure individuals (employees, managers, etc.), work groups, functions, and organizations. Organizations should collect performance data from multiple sources, use PPS to support management and development functions, and provide more frequent performance reviews than usual [42] . In addition, an advantage of PPS is that it can be used to measure the performance of individuals, as well as the performance of groups and collectives of various sizes (e.g., functional units, departments).
6. Conclusion and Recommendations
Covid-19 crisis has created significant challenges for performance management. Under these difficult circumstances, many organizations choose to downgrade or even forgo performance reviews and ratings altogether. The fact that these practices are discontinuing shows that many organizations are not implementing state-of-the-art performance management systems, but episodes of it, mostly performance appraisals. In a way, Covid-19 may have just exposed the less priority and value performance management holds in different organizations. Going forward, if people managers can wholly appreciate the value and output of employee performance management, many organizations would be able to thrive on PM matters even during pandemics. However, in the absence of a good performance management system organizations cannot make fair personnel decisions (such as layoffs, bonuses, raises, and promotions) to effectively motivate and attract employees, retain top talent, develop employees, gather information to allocate resources appropriately, and address Human Issues Resource Disruption ( [4] ; 43]). In contrast, performance management is uniquely suited to address the many HR challenges brought on by the Covid-19 crisis, as it serves important administrative, strategic and organizational maintenance, and documentation purposes. It can be concluded that employee performance management could have hadmyriad contributions in organizations during the Covid-19 era, had it not been halted. Good employee performance management enhances extra-role behavior, or OCB, worker engagement protects the organization from exposure to legal risks associated with lawsuits of unfair employment practices and helps organizations clarify definitions and responsibilities of each job.
To address employee performance management challenges in the era of Covid-19, the following recommendations are suggested:
1) Managers should clearly and fully communicate performance expectations and goals to subordinates. When performance expectations are clearly communicated, it helps team members understand what managers/supervisors want them to do, why they want them to do it, and how their performance will be measured. This can help to eliminate or reduce confusion, frustration and conflict, and ensure that employees are aligned with organisation’s vision and strategy. Additionally, this can help to address performance management issues brought by Covid-19.
2) Due to challenges associated with measuring performance during crisis as witnessed during Covid-19, organisational managers should adapt performance management and use simple, concise, relevant, informative, comprehensive, and clear metrics. In this regard, [42] Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Performance Promoter Score (PPS) measurements are essential as they are particularly useful for measuring performance during crises.
3) As argued by [44] , managers with adaptive personality tend to have increased self-efficiency levels to lead during a crisis, which in turn results in increased motivation to lead. Furthermore, it is argued that managers with increased motivation to lead during Covid-19 crisis are observed to have enhanced adaptive performance. Therefore, in order to address employee performance management challenges during crisis like Covid-19, managers should measure adaptive performance and adopt choice based distribution.
4) Furthermore, it is recommended that managers should incorporate job retention interviews in their organisational strategies to retain top performers during crisis. Research has shown that a well-executed employee retention strategy not only reduces turnover but also ensures that employees feel valued, motivated and satisfied, all prerequisites for getting the best out of them at work ( [45] [46] ).
5) Implementation of a multi-source performance management system has also proved to be a veritable means for addressing employee performance management challenges in times of crisis. As [17] observed, a multi-source system facilitates communicate and feedback, because employees are less likely to become defensive when feedback comes from multiple sources. Moreover, use of multi-source feedback system can also provide additional care and support for employees in times of crisis as experienced during Covid-19.
6) Furthermore, organisations should collect performance data from multiple sources, and use PPS to support management and development functions, and provide more frequent performance reviews than usual during crisis.PPS is beneficial to organisations as it can be used to measure individuals (employees, managers), work groups, functions, and organisations.
7) Managers must play a guiding role in enabling employees as enablers to performance. As stated by [47] , one of the effective ways of achieving this is by delivering relevant information to employees quickly and reliably. Also, managers should stay in constant touch with supervisees to enable and support their performance deliverables. The management support includes an enabling working environment through resources.
8) Lastly, it is recommended that organisations must continue practicing performance management in the workplace, to wean the benefits of safeguarding organisations from legal risks and for the benefits of organisational citizenship behaviour. According to [25] further recommends that organisations should find ways to embed engagement strategies into the overall organisation’s policies to achieve the highest possible levels of performance from their employees. These evidence-based practices cannot only help organisations meet challenges during a crisis, but also allow them to thrive after the crisis is over.
7. Limitations and Further Research
The study has certain limitations that should be noted. First, the study is limited to adaptations to employee performance management in the era of Covid-19 pandemic. As such, only issues and concepts associated with measurement of employee performance (e.g., performance planning, appraisal, performance feedback, and development) were examined. It is important to highlight that employee performance management is just one arm of human resource management functions. Future studies could examine other adaptations introduced in other aspects of HRM (like training and development) during Covid-19 so as ascertain their impacts on organizational efficiency. This could provide a broad view on the impacts of HRM adaptations introduced to address the effects of Covid-19 on organizational performance. Second, the study used secondary data gathered through desk review for analysis. Future studies could integrate primary data to obtain employees and managers opinions on the impact of Covid-19 related adaptations on both employee and organizational performance.