Performance review system
Collen was preparing to schedule Elena’s annual performance review. Elana is a junior accountant and has been working for RightTax for 5 years. Collen had taken over as their supervisor this past year. When reviewing the past year’s records, Collen noticed that there had been a decline in Elana’s performance. Customers were complaining as requests were not being responded to in a timely manner, and Elana’s monthly reports contained numerous errors.
For the past 10 months, Elana had been working from home. RightTax had decided that employees could perform their work remotely and therefore offered this option to its workforce 12 months ago. Over 80% of staff had opted for this type of working arrangement and, thus far, Collen had not heard from other supervisors that there were performance concerns about their employees. However, while Elana attended all scheduled online meetings, Collen found it difficult to connect with Elana as emails weren’t promptly returned and phone calls were not answered right away. Calls always went to voicemail.
Collen wondered if Elana’s recent poor performance had something to do with his supervisory style. Or could it be that Elana just wasn’t suited to working from home? Collen also wondered if the annual performance review could be conducted online (this is how their biweekly meetings were done), or if Elana should be asked to come into the office for this conversation? The performance review was scheduled for next week, so Collen knew that decisions had to be made quickly.
- What could some of the reasons be for Elana’s poor performance over the past 10 months?
- Why does a company’s performance review system tend to fail when employees are allowed to work from home?
- If Elana is to continue working from home, how should Collen alter/change the performance management strategy and plans to ensure better performance outcomes?
