Gallup summit to look at 'human' side of firms

Gallup Organisation, a human nature study group and human resources consultancy, is conducting its first India Performance Management Summit in Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi till July 16.

At the summit, Gallup Organisation will share its research and experience in performance assessment, and show what great organisations do differently and where many companies go wrong. The issue of the human and emotional side of an enterprise that makes an organisation work will be discussed.

Gallup approaches performance management by looking at monitoring, evaluating, rewarding, developing and influencing the performance of an employee or a group of employees.

"Usually, performance management systems fail because they lack objective measurement and do not include any development/improvement programmes that generate a return on its investment," Guido de Koning, Gallup's performance strategy practice leader and principal consultant, said.

"Once the measurement is right and an initial evaluation of current team performance levels is complete, the real fun begins: helping each person and each team get better. And that takes an improvement plan initiative built at the local team level around current performance levels, performance targets, and team needs. Our summit will highlight that," Koning said.

"Effective implementation will determine an individual's job performance. For example, if there is an issue of role clarity, no employee refers to the job description document. What determines his performance levels is the performance metrics and what his/her pay is tied to," he added.

Sita Vasudevan, management consultant based in Gallup India, said; "Improvements in performance, at both the individual and corporate level comes one step at a time - by focusing on individual managers and employees. Rather than spending time helping their associates become 'well-rounded', many of the world's best managers have instead invested time in learning about the individual strengths of each of their associates. The HR departments of the corporates should focus on that."