Consultant Interview: Nabil Boulos
In 2017, the Performance Magazine editorial team interviewed Nabil Boulos, Chief Planning and Strategy Officer at Alchem Consultant, Egypt. His thoughts and views on Performance Management are detailed below.
One very difficult obstacle people face when working in the area of Performance Management is integrating Performance Management at the different levels of an organization.
Trends
- Which were the 2016 key trends in Performance Management, from your point of view?
I believe that the key trends in Performance Management in 2016 were professional development, increased communication and interactions at the expense of yearly reviews, as well as rapid development of software tools.
- What are your thoughts on the integration of Performance Management at the organizational, departmental and employee level?
Integration is gaining more importance as it focuses on aligning all the levels of an organization towards the corporate strategy, to put more emphasis on strengthening the link between personal and organizational performance.
- Which will be the major changes in managing performance, in the future?
I think that in the future, the major changes in managing performance will be a movement towards dropping performance ratings, more emphasis on shorter term objectives, and on instantaneous feedback.
Research
- What aspects of Performance Management should be explored more through research?
The aspects of Performance Management that should be explored more through research include systems, tools, metrics that have to do with integration within the organization. These should be in focus for more exploration through research, while also keeping in sight the increased dependency on Big Data and how to properly use this.
- Which organizations would you recommend to be looked at, due to their particular approach to managing performance, and their subsequent results?
A few organizations that I think have had an interesting approach to managing performance, as well as great results due to it are Siemens, Vion (Vimplecom), Vodafone, and Telecom Egypt.
- Which of the existing trends, topics or particular aspects within Performance Management have lost their relevance and/or importance, from your point of view?
I believe that two aspects of Performance Management that have started losing their relevance are performance ratings and yearly appraisal. Both are starting to be replaced by newer and more efficient trends and aspects.
Practice
- Which are the main challenges of Performance Management in practice, today?
One very difficult obstacle people face when working in the area of Performance Management is integrating Performance Management at the different levels of an organization.
- What should be improved in the use of Performance Management tools and processes?
I came to the conclusion that metrics and accessibility need much more improvement in order to ensure accuracy, relevance and above all else, employee engagement.
- What would you consider as a best practice in Performance Management?
Two best practices in Performance Management are related to adapting the frequency and methodology to a business’s nature, and achieving stakeholder engagement through well-designed systems and tools.
Education
- Which aspects of Performance Management should be emphasized during educational programs?
In my opinion, the main aspects to be emphasized during educational programs are close monitoring and strengthening of collaborations.
Personal Performance
- What are the limits that prevent practitioners from achieving higher levels of proficiency in Performance Management?
Some of the main limits that prevent practitioners from achieving higher levels of proficiency in Performance Management are: a lack of stakeholder engagement and of integration at the organizational level, as well as failure to build proper data and an inflexibility of their company’s structure.
- What is your opinion on the emerging trend of measuring performance outside working hours?
It’s an interesting topic, but I believe that it needs to be further explored, as its metrics and correlations have not matured yet.
- What personal performance measurement tools do you use?
I mainly use performance appraisal management dashboards.
Specialization Specific Question
- Consultant Point of View: What are the processes and tools you look at, in order to differentiate a successful performance management system, from a superficial one?
The principal processes and tools I look at in order to differentiate a successful performance management system from a superficial one are the ability to manage data and the ability to integrate it throughout the process of linking performance to compensation.
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Tags: Consultant, integration, Interview, Organizational Performance
