Dear Colleague,
Your Question : With the advancement of tools & technologies at our bay, We have come in the era of Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning. Now, everything is done online & surely it helps in many aspects.
Reply: Yes, in todays world every thing is automated / on-line/ digital and Technology based. We are living in an era that our life is integrated with lot of Technology usages which had become part of life and inevitable. We experience AI, Robotics, ML, 3D Printing and so on and everything is rapidly moving ahead whether we like or not. It is absolutely order of the day and the future is much digital oriented.
Your Question : What is your view on performance management & employee engagement, when its done through a platform which is purely based on latest advancements?
Reply : What I understand from your question is slightly different. What I presume is that when every work is automated what is the role of Performance Management and Employee Engagement. How it is relevant in this digital scenario when everything is done by Technology more and less by Human.
In this situation, it is a big question before us when most of the jobs are done by the Machines and Technology what role the Performance Management is going to have. My way of looking it at this is very positive. More and more technology is used, more and more automation happens the skill level of Human engaged will also increase and what was done by an ITI holder in the past now may required an Electronics Engineer to do or Instrumentation Engineer has to do. Here the more complexities in the Technology requires higher order Technical skills wherein the more and more robust system of Performance Management is very well required and it will not diminish but it will further strengthen unless until the last Human is employed to operate. Here the KPIs and KRAs will be in a bit of higher order and more of technical where the impact of operation and profit is depending on the Human element controlling or monitoring the Technology. Hence the Performance Management system has to be revamped in a higher order using technology, the measure, the tools, the KPIs will be much technically to be designed and adopted as Performance Management System will also continue along with technology advancement.
In case of Employee Engagement, where more and more Technology and Advancement happens in your Operations in day to day working, then more and more exciting employee engagement interventions with much deeper design and innovation may be required. What we do on the current Employee Engagement Initiatives may not work in a situation where Technology dominates the Human. But more robust Engagement Plans are to be designed coping with the changes that happens around the Role and Jobs and Candidates' Profile and more ahead to innovate and trigger the much suitable and advanced Engagement Plans for the Talents by unlearning what is being done now.
In my view, whatever the advancement of Technology happens around, the PMS and EE systems will continue with more deeper designs and much closer and closer.
For example when Manual Laboratory Tastings were used in Factories, we had PMS and EE for the so called Lab Technicians and when we gone for Robotics in Labs with insertion of Robots also we have PMS and EE for those Robot Engineers with completed new ways of looking at PMS and EE.
This is how I look forward.