“At the beginning of every year- calendar or financial depending on your organization, every employee will go through a new performance cycle” – Juliet Mpiima, HR Manager Vivo Energy Uganda. As organizations strive to improve, grow and maintain their market leader position every year, they renew their commitments through the setting widely important goals, which are them cascaded through to the last employee.
The goal setting process acts as a guideline for employees to follow so that they can work towards achieving the target set by the organization. Goal setting feature is the major component of personal development literature and necessary for each employee and organization. Juliet shared that for Vivo Energy Uganda, this process has defined every individual’s, and team’s contribution towards the success or failure of the organization’s goals. We encourage ownership and accountability of individual performance and the goals are compiled by you, and continuously monitored by you with guidance from your manager to ensure alignment with the organizational goals.
The process of creating these goals is called the Line of Sight that flows from the company’s strategic goals to department goals and lastly to the individual goals. Using the analogy of light rays, she explained that if all the clear beams of light rays converged in one spot, they would burn or penetrate through, opening up and unblocking any challenges to give way for growth. This is what happens when there is an alignment of the various team goals towards a common widely important company goal. Image: Performance review steps at Vivo Energy All these actually exists in most of the organization as a common norm of performance management, however the continuous monitoring of actual performance against plan is where the rubber hits the road.
Vivo Energy Uganda’s culture emphasizes continuous performance discussions, identification of early triggers, recognition and celebration of milestone achievements throughout the year. Every employee, and team should be able to know if they are winning or losing at any one time. The check in for what are we is the focus of the month, for the week and for the day is what keeps the Line of Sight, a clear light beam. And with real time feedback on how he/she is performing, an employee will be more engaged and more likely to deliver on their commitments.
This is one of the ways to keep your employer brand as a recommended and exciting place to work.