An Alarming Trend in Employee Behavior

An Alarming Trend in Employee Behavior

As an employee, regardless of industry or designation, what do you think is one of the most stressful parts of your job?

To an industrial electrician, replacing a damaged insulator on a 500,000-volt live electric powerline while dangling 300-feet above the ground could be stressful. To a CEO of a Fortune500 company, working on near-impossible-to-solve manufacturing problems could be stressful. But what is that one thing that is stressful for both? Hint: It comes once every year.

Yes, you guessed it right! Appraisals.

Since the 1960s, appraisals were conducted in the same way they are majorly conducted today – once a year, ending with disappointing results. Multiple researchers have consistently concluded that employees experience moderate to high stress before and during the appraisal process. One research done by the Neuroleadership Institute found that 90% of all employees said they felt discouraged after knowing their appraisal results which later resulted in diminished engagement.

So, in simpler terms, appraisals may be defined as a psychological machine that takes in happy, motivated employees and churns out discouraged, stressful, and unengaged employees. This is a huge problem.

THE TREND (A PROBLEM)

For the past 60 years, everyone was more or less okay with this system. Everyone did their best and didn’t think much about how things work. However, in recent years, a trend emerged in the markets that bypassed the system; finally freeing employees from the shackles of despair and unhappiness.

“Landing a new job before their performance could be evaluated at the old job.”

On the surface, this could be viewed as a big win. Employees stay happy and motivated and give their best without worrying or stressing about a raise or a promotion. That’s what any company would want, right? Happy employees, who give their best? Sometimes, yes. But most of the time, this is a clear indication of an oncoming disaster. Especially for companies that are small, new, and growing.

Companies spend a lot of time and resources on new hires. Weeks of training are usually given to new hires to ensure consistent, high-quality output, and it can take months before the employee becomes fully autonomous and efficient. After an employee has reached this stage, it may take a few more months to get a full return on investment – time, money, and efforts invested in making that employee fully capable of performing their job. This is called “the gestation period”. This gestation period can easily take more than 1 year, as it does in most cases.

If an employee leaves in the middle of this phase, the investment is considered a loss. If this pattern continues unchecked for a long time, the business at some point in the future suffers tremendously.

The second big problem with this trend is that attrition rates go through the roof – attrition rate is the rate at which employees quit. This attrition situation not only affects the business but affects other employees too. Work culture is disrupted, existing employees are over-burdened, and morale is reduced, causing stress and burnout. All these factors impact the business severely.

THE SOLUTION

Employers have found a solution to this problem, but there’s a catch. The solution is simple: break the 1-year cycle. Big giants like Adobe, Google, Microsoft, GE, and Accenture have successfully replaced the yearly appraisal process with a more frequent and less formal "check-in" process that usually happens every quarter or two months. This “check-in” covers all the essential topics like expectation, feedback, growth, and development. This worked wonders for Adobe.

The catch here is implementation. It’s a new and difficult change that needs to be implemented correctly. If not, it can most certainly come across as micromanagement.

Exela HR Solutions can help you implement this change because we know exactly how it’s done. HR is what we do — day in and day out. We have a team of experienced HR professionals, each an expert, dedicated to their slice of the HR pie to make sure all your HR tasks are carried out correctly and on time. Not only that, but we bring the best HR practices and robust HR technology to your company, minimizing employment-related risks and helping you take even better care of your employees.

• Fast and Efficient Talent Acquisition Process: Our well-built networks over the years allow us to find the right talent for your business as quickly as possible. This includes requisition management, sourcing and applicant tracking, interview assessments, offer management, onboarding management, and more
• Global Payroll Processing & Full Employee Benefits Administration: Our powerful HR technology that will back your organization, has the ability to deliver time global payouts. We also manage employee benefits like variable-component, hazard pay, overtime, etc., so your employees never get less than what they deserve.
• HR & Business Partner Services: Dedicated HRBPs for your employees to make sure every issue or concern of theirs is addressed effectively and on time. This includes grievance management, leave management, engagement activities and surveys, travel and expense management, rewards and recognition management, workshops, coaching and mentoring, virtual focus and open house meeting management, and more.

Try Exela HR Solutions today!