Focus Areas Managing and Rewarding Performance

KRAs a tool to boost up the employee productivity

Jun 3rd 2010
By Bhaskar Bhattacharya

I know what is expected of me at work? is the first question of the patented Q12 Questionnaire of
the Gallup Organisation Employee Engagement Survey. The Q12 Employee Engagement Survey of the
Gallup Organisation is one of the most widely used tools used by the organizations worldwide to
measure the employee engagement / organization health / employee satisfaction. While developing the
Q12, Gallup has found that the foundation of any employee engagement is the understanding of the
expectation of the organization by the employee. If the employee is aware, what the organization
expects from him, half the battle is won.

That is the reason why the question on expectation is put at number one followed by other questions on
performance, reward and compensation management, infrastructure, recognition, growth etc. In any
organization, the discontent starts when there is a mismatch between the mutual expectation of the
employer and the employee. In organizations, where the employee engagement scores are on lower
side, you will find that the employees are unaware about the organization expectation.

The success and failure of an individual in a organizational set-up depends upon his performance. Today,
the organizations are also working on a T-20 pattern, where a employee is expected to perform from
day one itself like a batsman in T-20 Cricket Match where he has to score run from 1st ball itself. For
performing from day one, one has to know the clearly defined goals and objectives

Keeping in view of this important aspect of Employee Engagement, in our organisation, we have laid
emphasis on the KRAs (Key Result Areas) from the first day of the new employee. The moment a new
employee landed up in the organisation for joining, the first thing we do is to take him through the
entire Performance Management System (PMS) including the KRA and Goal-Setting Process. In the cases
of replacement joining, the duly filled-up KRA Sheet of the past incumbent is shared with the new
employee and explained in detail. HR further facilitates a meeting with the HOD for further clarity and
understanding of the KRAs. HR ensured that the KRAs are clear to the new incumbent and the HOD as
well. In the cases of new position joining, HR get the KRAs prepared from the HODs before the joining
and afterwards the same process is adopted as for the replacement joining.

For organization-wide awareness about the KRAs and the organsiations performance, a unique step has
been taken by the HR in the form of small group workshops for the 1200 employees (excluding
workmen and operators). The workshops were conducted by the HRD Head and Other HR Vertical
Heads. The groups sizes were in the range of 25-28. The workshops were made interesting by including
goals-setting games like ball in the bucket, building castle by cards etc. The workshop started with
sharing of some of the corporate success stories of Dr Reddys, Hero Honda, Kotak Bank, M & M, Marico,
Dabur, Titan etc followed by the explanation of the companys current level of performance and
brainstorming for not so great performance. Once Benchmark and current performance are discussed,
we take them through the entire goal-setting process by giving them live illustrations, clarity on related
terms like objectives, goals, KRAs etc. During the presentation of this section, the facilitator shares few
of the duly filled-up templates of the KRAs of different departments.

Immediately after the conceptual session, a goal-setting game Ball in the Bucket is conducted for the
participants divided into 2-3 teams. The game includes goal setting planning and execution. After the
game is over, faculty deliberates the observations to team where they have gone wrong and how they
can move in the right direction? As the game is very interesting participants enjoyed a lot and this
become the talking point of the workshop

Once the conceptual part and the goal-setting game are over, the time is for the live goal-setting. All the
participants formed groups as per their department / vertical / function and discuss the broad based
departmental goals, answer the questions like why their department exists? what is the expectation of
their customer departments ? how their department can contribute in the top-line and bottom-line of
the organization. During the group discussion the group members brainstorm on the following
a.department contribution in the performance of the organization b.how to improve upon the
departments performance c. based upon the department objectives, how to derive the SMART Goals
for the individual linking to the department and the organization. At the end of the live goal-setting
session, each individual have a draft duly filled-up SMART KRA of the self.

Within the seven days of the workshop, the HODs finalise the KRAs in one-to-one discussion with the
individual and submit it to the HR for further action. Once the duly filled-up KRAs are submitted to HR, it
is now the time for the Quality Audit of the KRAs. The Audit is done by the team of cross-functional
HODs. The parameters are Alignment, Completeness, Evaluation, Measurement, Stretch and Process.
The physical audit is followed by tele-audit from the field employees to know that to what extent they
are aware of the Goal-setting process. Once the Audit is over it is presented to the team of HODs with
improvement guidelines and action plans

At the end, it is a firm believes that, Only people who have goals, succeed because they know where
they are going.

*Author is currently working as a GM HR & Admn, ABG Cement Ltd. The article was written when he
was working as DGM-HR, MIRC Electronics Ltd (Onida)



2 Comments

By Rakhee Nagpal
Mr. Bhaskar, this is a best practice which organisations need to implement from day one of joining of
the employees. Would appreciate if you could share details on goal setting process.

By Kumar Abhishek
Bhaskar,This is fantastic and a part of best practices to be replicated.Kumar Abhishek