Performance evaluation is undergoing a major transformation in most organisations. The bell curve is being dumped and firms are replacing annual reviews with frequent, informal check-ins between managers and employees. While individual appraisals continue, team performance too is being measured.

With collaboration the buzz word in companies today, it’s natural that team performance is coming under scrutiny. As jobs become more complex, organisations have to rely on teams to accomplish tasks.

As Priyanshu Singh, Country Manager and MD, Adecco Group, a staffing firm, points out, “Business goals are designed to be achieved with the efforts of an inclined team. A single individual can never impact a business outcome on his own.”

The way team work gets measured varies. In some cases individual performance in a team and contribution to group outcomes is evaluated, in others it reflects only an assessment of the firm’s performance.

BankBazaar, an online marketplace for loan comparison, introduced a team-based feedback model, a team-based peer assessment model, and a team-based peer positioning model last year. Says Sriram Vaidhyanathan, Chief Human Resource Officer, BankBazaar, “New-age product organisations are all about cross-functional teams. The work matrix in a conventional organisation even a few years ago was very siloed, which is not the case any more.”

Keeping that in mind, BankBazaar started cross-functional and cross-team peer reviews as formal feedback once in six months. “Essentially, teams can communicate clearly about what works and what doesn’t. Moreover, because of the cross-functional nature, one particular product roll-out usually has people from across teams working on it at any given time. Depending on the product they are running, these teams may have different short-to-medium term tenure, after which they will again reorganise for a different project,” says Vaidhyanathan.

At PwC there is a rewards and recognition mechanism to recognise and reinforce collaborative behaviour. “Our appraisal and performance review process is based on real-time feedback. While the ‘what’ is measured by goals/KPIs, the ‘how’ is a function of our values and competency framework. Collaborative behaviour with teams, across teams and with clients is a critical input while assessing performance and development needs,” says Jagjit Singh, Chief People Officer, PwC India.

Investing in teams Of course, before appraising the teams, a lot of effort goes into team-building and creating a collaborative culture. As Singh of PwC points out, the Indian educational system tends to celebrate individual performances (it’s changing now) and most people joining the workforce are highly individualistic. Often the first experience with team projects begins at B-Schools and firms are forced to invest a lot in team-building activities.

“Effective team-building means more engaged employees, which is good for the overall culture of the firm,” says Singh.

Arnav Agarwal, Director, Samsung India, affirms that “team-bonding and team-building are the most important investments made by any organisation for its people.” He says team-building exercises help build trust among employees “and in many cases mitigate conflict.

At PwC, Singh says, experience-related team-building activities are offered across the spectrum – from integrating new people into the organisation, to setting up a common ambition, and to building high-performing teams that pursue a common set of goals. “When done well, this creates a positive business outcome measured either in terms of improved client satisfaction or improved market share,” he adds.

Creative collaboration Team-building aids can vary from the serious to the absurd. From solving abstract puzzles to donning inflatable sumo wrestling suits, there is no end to the creativity of such efforts. In the digital age, it uses a lot of tech tools.

Microsoft at its Hyderabad centre connects with employees through a web radio series, which also facilitates a deeper connect with leadership. The channel engages listeners through contests and other activities.

Microsoft has also created spaces to foster better team work. In the Hyderabad campus, Collab Lab aims at greater collaboration between business units, offering employees a unifying space to brainstorm and develop new solutions.

Adecco’s Singh insists that team-bonding activities should be “a regular feature added to every company’s annual calendar, as they not only allow employees to take some time out from their daily work, but create an environment where they can learn to work together and trust each other and come up with strategies that can contribute to achieving their goals.”

Leaders lead the way Team-building exercises include leadership too in many places. At Samsung, senior leaders are always a part of them. “The idea is to increase synergy across hierarchical levels, resulting in two-way communication that is more open. This eventually leads to increase in efficiency and better team work amongst employees,” says Agarwal.

Stating that such activities also strengthen problem-solving abilities, creative thinking and leadership skills, Agarwal adds that they “can also help form some great memories that they can later share. This is a great way to improve communication and morale.”

PwC’s Singh points out that for leaders it is necessary to be seen as role models, “so, it is imperative to collaborate and share relationships, ideas and knowledge beyond boundaries; seek and integrate a diverse range of perspectives, people and ideas; give and ask for feedback to improve ourselves and others.”

PWC deploys experiential learning around team-building techniques and situational leadership to develop a broad range of leadership styles. “It is always about us than I, with a clear tilt towards driving team goals instead of personal ambition,” Singh adds.

Leadership presence should also be in alignment with the activity. The manager should be there with the team, not out on vacation.

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