The Sultanate of Oman celebrates Labour Day, or as it is known, Workers’ Day, at the beginning ofMay's first of each year, coinciding with the global labour movement which emerged as a result of the Industrial Revolution and developed into a rights-based movement, leading to what we now know as Labour Day.
International Workers’ Day, in essence, is the result of the violation of workers’ rights and the subjection of workers to poor working conditions, which led to occupational diseases, injuries and other issues, prompting the workforce to demand their rights – and why not? No organisation can function without the human workforce that keeps it running. With the development of laws and legislation, performance management and evaluation have become one of the fundamental pillars of work, intended to safeguard workers’ rights.
Without performance management, the organisation’s objectives for workers become unclear, raising questions about the importance of the work we do and why we do it. And even if we assume that the work and the production line are clear, the absence of performance evaluation will give the administration the authority to infringe upon their rights due to a lack of documentation of the work carried out. Perhaps the hard-working and the lazy will receive the same annual bonus due to the absence of genuine performance management. The result is a decline in the productivity of the hard-working employee, bringing it down to the level of the lazy employee, and the overall consequence is a decline in the quality of the organisation as a whole.
Why must performance be documented?
Performance management is not merely an organizational luxury; it is one of the pillars of the state’s strategic direction in its quest to raise the performance of government and private organizations to achieve the Oman 2040 goals, with the royal blessing of His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, may God preserve him. Furthermore, performance management is an investment in human capital and forms part of workers’ rights and the protection of the organisation’s rights in the current era. Through performance management, the organisation determines its growth rate and grants deserved promotions to workers or terminates employment in a manner that preserves and fulfils rights simultaneously.
Human Resources in the Sultanate of Oman: A Vision for the Future
In accordance with the stated objectives of the "Ejada" program and the strategic goals pursued by our wise government, performance management goes beyond the concept of attendance and absence to encompass efficiency management, transforming organizations to focus on measuring results rather than mere attendance and absence. The writer, Grace Hanna, points out that performance management is a broader concept than merely measuring efficiency, noting that it encompasses the employee’s general behavior and cooperation with colleagues, thereby fostering a sense of harmony between staff and the organization in line with the culture adopted by the organization. Therefore, adding criteria other than attendance and punctuality, such as:
- the amount of work completed and its impact
- the timeframe for completion
- Harmony with the team and the organizational culture and goals
These are all highly sophisticated factors that contribute to shaping the organization’s overall situation and assist management in making sound decisions.
Technology as a safeguard for rights: Many small and medium-sized organizations rely on manual performance tracking and monitoring systems, such as task schedules on paper or in Excel, all in an attempt to build a fair evaluation system that safeguards rights. However, the era of artificial intelligence and technological advancement today will significantly contribute to reducing human bias during evaluation, There are advanced technological tools that fulfil the true purpose of performance management and achieve the organisation’s objectives, ensuring everyone has a voice: the employee participates with the manager in setting their periodic targets, whether monthly or weekly, and the manager will be able to monitor performance using real data, not based on assumptions about what has or has not been achieved.
Ultimately, performance appraisal remains an essential tool for any organization seeking growth; it is the mechanism that safeguards rights and also serves as a growth metric that determines the stage at which the organization currently stands.