How Can We Motivate Telecom Employees to Complete Their Coaching Forms on Time?

Hi All, I work in the Telecom sector, and we have quarterly coaching conversation forms as part of our annual appraisal cycle. Currently, 25% of employees have not completed their 1st-quarter coaching conversation form, so we need to brainstorm ideas to encourage these employees to complete their forms.

Example of Current Initiatives

For example, a diagrammatic email has been sent by the PMP team to these employees, and it could be added as a task in their profile. Therefore, I kindly request you to provide some ideas for the same.

Regards, Namita

Performance Appraisal Policy and Coaching Conversation Forms

Have you made a policy on Performance Appraisal? If yes, is the subject of "Coaching Conversation Forms" (CCF) included in this policy? If so, has it been clearly mentioned who will raise this form, when it will be raised, who will approve it, and what the due date is for it to reach the HR department? If the policy guidelines are impeccably clear, have you communicated them to all the staff, and have they understood it?

You need to correct the policy if some of the points mentioned above are not included. At this stage, issue a private circular addressed to the defaulting employees on the submission of the CCF within a week. If they fail to do so, it would be considered misconduct, and disciplinary action would be initiated against them.

Responsibility of HODs

For the slackness in the submission of CCF, HODs are also responsible. Why have HODs allowed this delay, or are they also a party to this delay?

Submission of CCF for Q1 and Q2

If the CCF for Q1 is yet to be received, then what about CCF for Q2? What is the due date for the submission of these forms? You may issue one more circular for the submission of CCF for Q2 within a week.

HOD Meetings and Organizational Culture

Does the HOD meeting take place in your organization? If yes, how frequently does it take place? If you are the HOD of the HR Department or any other person, whoever the HOD is, why did he/she not raise this point in the HOD meeting? What was the holdup? Why was the delay acceptable to the leadership?

If we read between the lines, the incident could reflect on your organization's culture. Possibly, employees live in a myth that they are indispensable, and the submission of CCF need not be given priority as it is an "HR-related activity." Your larger challenge is how to remove this myth from their minds. One of the methods, as stated earlier, is to invoke negative discipline.

Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar

Thank you for your reply, Mr. Dinesh, and I appreciate your views.

Building a Culture of Completion

The idea here is not to force people to complete these forms, but it needs to be built into the culture of the organization. Negative and positive reinforcements are fine when the organization is small, but when the employee strength is above 8k+, these cannot work. Also, circulars are a kind of old-school method of providing information. We cannot keep issuing circulars every month reminding employees to complete the coaching sessions.

Innovative Approaches to Engagement

For example, we can create desktop wallpapers for everyone with the coaching week highlighted, send one-on-one emails to managers and subordinates, etc. We are looking at such options to get employees to adopt the new process.