The Top 5 Performance Priorities for 2021 - How to have employees perform their best in the new year - Centrical
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The Top 5 Performance
Priorities for 2021
How to have employees perform
their best in the new year
1
Introduction
Each year Gartner offers its take on the key priorities for managing employees effectively. So they perform their best.
For 2021, the research and advisory firm identified 5 priorities that reflect the year we’ve just lived through and the challenges and opportunities likely
to be found in the one the lies ahead. In priority order, as determined by a panel of 800 executives surveyed by Gartner, they are:
Priority Priority Priority Priority Priority
01 02 03 04 05
Develop critical skills Handle organizational design Build the strength of current Envision the Manage the
and competencies and change management and future leadership future of work employee experience
The purpose of this eBook is to examine each priority from the perspective of how they can impact employee performance in 2021. However, and importantly,
these observations are intended to help managers, like you, determine what needs to be done in your organization to optimize the performance of your employees.
2
PRIORITY #1
Develop critical skills and competencies
THE REASONS
The microscopic COVID-19 virus had a gigantic impact Gartner found that about 40% of employees will need
on business overall in 2020. One area profoundly new skills post-COVID-19. So, it’s unlikely the scrambling
affected was employee learning. In the early days to improve employee skills won’t end when the virus is
of the pandemic, the focus was on establishing the under control or better managed.
infrastructure needed for employees to work from their
homes. Then came the procedures to ensure they stayed
on task. That was followed by initiatives designed to keep
employees engaged in their work and with their teams.
Most recently, efforts are growing to keep productivity at
40%
a high level, especially as the pandemic drags on.
of employees will need
#
As much of that work was underway, learning activities new skills post-COVID-19
stopped or were severely curtailed. For one thing, in- *Gartner
person classroom-based training was out of the question.
And for many oganizations digital remote learning was
not fully available or designed for self-paced, or other
easy consumption methods. In addition, and significantly,
the health crisis forced changes in employees’ roles and
responsibilities. Even as 2021 begins, job duties continue
to change, driving the need for reskilling and upskilling
higher still.
3
All that suggests that to be able to compete and thrive
in 2021, companies should invest to improve employee
knowledge and skill levels. Which is why building critical
skills and competencies is a 2021 priority.
THE 2021 PERFORMANCE NEEDS
→ Conduct a skills assessment to find out what your employees can do and how well
→ Make certain those skills align to business objectives and strategies
→ Refine or develop employee skills to ensure alignment
→ Enhance and extend remote digital learning
→ Implement or improve mechanisms to aid learning retention and application
→ Utilize real-time performance management to enable employees and their managers to take corrective actions
in the now – when it matters most, not retroactively
→ Have learning take place in the flow of work, dynamically, for faster, better learning outcomes
Learn more here…
4
PRIORITY #2
Handle organizational design
and change management
THE REASONS
As 2020 began, organizations held with some pride the durability of their structures, workflows, and networks. As the months of
that year passed, those elements didn’t meet the needs or weren’t able to flex with fast-changing conditions wrought by COVID-19.
Few of the executives Gartner polled indicated their organizations are able to respond quickly to changing needs. And when
organizations aren’t agile, neither are the employees. This creates what’s been called “work friction.” Lots of apparent motion
but little progress or productivity.
“Work friction” occurs when these situations occur:
#
i i i i
Misaligned work design Overwhelmed teams Rigid processes Trapped resources
Employees hack Workloads rise in a Things take too long Budgets are locked
processes to get jobs done relentless fashion, causing and receptivity to new in, limiting pursuit of
where none existed employees to experience approaches or ideas is low unexpected opportunities
burnout or quit or handling unplanned-for
challenges
5
Two of the surveyed executives offered comments that sum up why handling organizational design and
change management is a 2021 priority.
“Our managers aren’t “Our employees are fatigued
equipped to lead change.” from all the change.”
Saying your organization is agile won’t suffice. With change, you must walk the walk.
THE 2021 PERFORMANCE NEEDS
→ Design work with a future-forward orientation, one that means employees can be responsive to change –
operationally, in the marketplace, and with customer needs
→ Anticipate such changes and be able to adapt in approach and by activity
→ Reduce “work friction” by:
o (Re)Aligning priorities, assignments, and goals in an ongoing manner to adjust to the way work happens
o Clarify work benchmarks, goals, role boundaries, and priorities for success
o Focus on flexible work designs over efficient ones but make sure they’re able to flex in ways that eliminate
roadblocks to performance and progress
o Move resourcing decisions closer to the point of need
Learn more here…
6
# PRIORITY #3
Build the strength of current
and future leadership
THE REASONS
Your workforce is likely made up of four generations.
1/2
of employees trust their leaders
Each with their own workstyle, needs, drives, and sense of
and managers to navigate
commitment to your organization. Their managers, to be
effective leaders, need to be able to deal with diversity –
< a crisis well
and not just differences in age. In 2020, handling different
types of employees was almost as important as handling
different types of change, that often appeared suddenly.
of senior corporate positions
10%
Unfortunately, less than half of employees trust their at US companies are held
leaders and managers to navigate a crisis well. Considering by women from a racial or
what most workers have been through in 2020, that is a ethnic minority
harsh condemnation of many running companies and
teams. Interestingly, it appears diversity plays a part in that
perception. As just 10% of senior corporate positions at
US companies are held by women from a racial or ethnic of senior corporate positions
18%
minority and only 18% by men from a minority group, the at US companies are held by
lack of trust might be undermined by a lack of diversity men from a racial or ethnic
in the leadership of such organizations. minority
7It’s not a stretch to see employee belief in management
grow if it reflected the looks and views of the workforce.
However, being able to relate is one thing. Being able to act
decisively – be it in a time of crisis or not – is quite another
thing. Here too there is evidence that development of
mid-level managers is poor. Compounding that is the well-
documented reality of far too many newly-minted first line
managers are in their jobs with no managerial experience
or training. When employees have difficulties with their
direct managers attrition is three-times more likely to happen.
Moreover, managing in 2021 will require honing skills that
were roughed out in the prior one. Few managers, at any
level, had training for or experience in leading remote
teams. Here trust is truly crucial. And that makes building
the strength of current and future leadership a 2021 priority.
THE 2021 PERFORMANCE NEEDS
→ Take steps to make leadership more diverse, more inclusive
→ Develop training and mentoring programs for first line and mid-level managers
→ Have senior managers engage with lower tiers to gain first-hand insight into the employee experience and
identify those worthy of being fast-tracked to greater responsibilities
→ Communicate with frequency top-down, bottom-up, level to level, and any variation thereof to get and keep
everyone aware and able to trust
→ Recognize and reward performance at all levels and celebrate it to reinforce the sense of team, particularly with
a workforce spread across offices, homes, and the field
Learn more here…
8PRIORITY #4
Envision the future of work
THE REASONS
“We saw two years of digital transformation in two In more ways than not, the future of work has arrived
months.” That’s what Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CE said even as a new year looms over the horizon.
about COVID-19. Massive change was made in a minimum
amount of time. Before making any self-congratulatory Nadella’s comment dealt more with the implementation
fist pumps, know that 62% of executives queried by of automation, digitalization, and application of Artificial
Gartner indicated their companies do not have an Intelligence. Technology. That’s one part of the future of
explicit future of work strategy. work. The other is the people who’ll use or be aided by
the technology.
You’d think after 2020 a future of work strategy would
be a must-have. Apparently it’s not. To a degree, that’s
understandable. Afterall, many operations took a short-
term view: get through the pandemic. Looks like that was
also short-sighted. Industry observers feel COVID-19 will
have a lasting impact on the future of work.
62%
#
of executives do not have an
The problem is how much of what COVID-19 has created
explicit future of work strategy
in the world of work will alter, forever, pre-pandemic
strategic goals and plans plus what immediate actions and
longer term adjustment must be made.
9Here are some of the ways the future of work is
already here.
→ More employees are working from home and will
continue to
→ Employers are playing a greater role as a social safety
net, involved in a range of functions, from child care
to mental well-being support
→ Companies are making greater use of contingent
or gig workers to handle heightened variability in
workloads
THE 2021 PERFORMANCE NEEDS
It’s obvious the pandemic acted like a massive inflection
point. Great shifts in how things are done, where, and by
whom occurred. For a future of work strategy to succeed → Utilize innovative management methods that engage remote workers
the vision must look well beyond the next year. And that’s
→ Use employee data not to monitor but to motivate and manage to higher performance as well as employee
why envisioning the future of work is a 2021 priority. and customer satisfaction
→ Make the data transparent and accessible to the employee from anywhere at anytime
→ Make organizational resiliency as important as efficiency
→ Expect more crises and build flexibility into the company and the workflows of employees
→ Decomplicate organizational design
→ Identify future of work trends relevant to your business and apply if beneficial
Learn more here…
10PRIORITY #5
Manage the employee experience
THE REASONS
Workplace flexibility began to take hold in 2020 because to communications and performance management -
many companies found that WFH worked, and plenty depending on whether they’re always WFH or in a hybrid
of their employees liked it. There was a benefit to model.
bringing people together periodically. From a pure
work standpoint, certain activities lent themselves to an Such instinctive, spontaneous aspects of office life, like
office environment, like team bonding and celebrations, grabbing a cup of coffee with a colleague to talk through
client engagements, collaboration, and onboarding or a problem becomes a multi-step process that begins
specialized training. Working at home has been better with checking calendars. Sometimes it all becomes too
suited for heads-down work as well as personal or family much. But that can’t happen. Which is why managing the
care needs. A third location, in the field, afforded a change employee experience is a 2021 priority.
of scenery or simply convenience.
Nonetheless, with different employees working in
different places, at different times, for different reasons,
preserving company culture has become a big
#
challenge. In addition, variability into place of work has
also caused employees to have various ways of defining
a positive employee experience. Further, the employee
lifecycle is different – from recruiting and onboarding
11THE 2021 PERFORMANCE NEEDS
→ Put in place or heighten employee engagement activities to keep focus sharp and involvement high
→ Create remote onboarding programs that are as engaging and effective as on-site ones
→ Tailor the onboarding process to the individual to speed time to proficiency and instill your company’s culture
and values early
→ Optimize your organization’s health and well-being strategies and offerings
→ Educate managers on being cognizant about workloads among team members and create mechanisms to aid in
identifying and managing them
→ Make goal-setting a joint effort between manager and employees to create a sense of ownership
→ Manage performance with real-time data for instant feedback to boost relevance, responsibility, and results
→ Communicate one-on-one, to teams, across units often and honestly
→ Recognize and reward individuals and teams and promote peer acknowledgement
Learn more here…
12About Centrical
Centrical helps Fortune 500-type companies drive engagement with existing systems and
processes to help build performance-driven cultures centered on achievement by employees,
whether they work in the office, at home or in the field. The Centrical employee engagement
and performance management platform combines real-time performance management and
personalized microlearning with advanced gamification to help align employees with company
goals and facilitate conversations with managers about targets and performance to drive
transformative business outcomes.
centrical.com
To learn more and see if Centrical employee engagement
and performance management is right for you
email sales@centrical.com
or call (US) +1 800 538 4263 or (UK) +44 20 3318 6424
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