PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In this report, we have collected information and data about the
performance management at one of Pakistans largest mobile network
companies; Mobilink. The techniques, methods and mediums Mobilink
use to improve the performance of their employees so they can
contribute towards the success and goal achievement of the company.
One of the many keys to success of Mobilink is their performance
review structure and how their human resource department works to
evaluate their employees work standards. Not just this, Mobilink lays
great emphasize on feedback to employees so they can improve their
deficiencies and work even better.
Furthermore, we have also
described how Mobilink has played an important role in using
information technology to improve their performance management.
Therefore to say that Jazzs employees are performing at the very top
level is not an understatement.

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
Firstly, we start by explaining the term Performance Management.
Performance management can be described as the continuous process
of identifying, measuring and developing the performance of
individuals and teams and aligning their performance with the
organizations goals.

Basically, performance appraisal can be explained as a three step

process: Setting goals, performance appraisal and feedback on that
performance. To achieve certain goal for a company, the management
encourages employees to improve their performances and appraises
them on it. Furthermore, feedback is provided to the employees to
inform them that whether their performance is up to the standards or
not.
Thus we can say that performance management is a broader term, a
complete process that includes measuring and evaluating employees
performances by providing them feedback on it.

MOBILINK-INTRODUCTION AND HISTORY

Mobilink is the first GSM-based cellular operator in South Asia, [6]
operates the leading GSM network in Pakistan and provides a range of
prepaid and postpaid voice and data telecommunication services to
both individual and corporate subscribers. It employs about 8500
people across Pakistan and has served more than 38.2 million
customers as of 1st Quarter April 2015. [7] Its head office is in
Islamabad, and the current President and CEO is Jeffrey Hedberg.
Mobilink has started operations in 1990 as the first GSM cellular mobile
service in Pakistan with a joint venture by Saif group and Motorola Inc.,
who later sold it to Orascom Telecom, an Egypt-based multinational
company and then they also further sold it to Vimpelcom Group, a
Russian Company.

MOBILINKS PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Mobilink has probably mobile network, and probably the Pakistans
most advanced Human Resource system. They have spent more than
10% of their annual revenue on training and performance enhancing of
their employees of the last decade. Using various methods to evaluate
performance, presenting employees with SMART challenges and
providing timely feedback have helped them so much that now more
than fifty thousand creative minds work for them. As Faheem Nawaz,
HOD Employees service, HR says:

"We need people to know how theyre doing, and weve evolved what
might at first seem like a completely complex system that shows them
where they stand. Along the way, we learned some startling stuff.
Were still working on it, as youll see, but I feel pretty confident were
headed in the right direction. And with any luck I can save you some of
the headaches and missteps we had along the way."
Now we will discuss how Mobilink management sets effective goals for
their employees.

SETTING EFFECTIVE GOALS

The first step of this technique is setting specific goals. Employees of
Jazz are usually given a task at hand which they have to complete with
a certain time and report back to their supervisors who then check
their performance. Second step is that these steps are measurable
which Mobilink fulfills by allotting timelines and dates to their
employees to complete the tasks at hand. For example, if new package
has to be developed or innovations are needed for an already existing
model, employees will be given a week or month to complete the job
depending on the nature of the work. Third step is that these goals are
very challenging but not impossible. This term is defined by Mobilink
management as Mobiliness. Lastly, all the employees are to
participate in these tasks as they are evaluated on their individual as
well as group performance.

METHODS OF PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT BY

MOBILINK
Some of the well-known and famous methods used by Mobilink for
performance evaluation and management are:

SELF-EVALUATION
The self-evaluation is the first step in the performance review, and
where the employee evaluates himself in a five criteria (on five grades
ranging from never demonstrates all the way to always

demonstrates and invited to share examples of his actions that

support these grades), and highlights his main accomplishments for
the last cycle (in a text field limited to 512 characters). These
accomplishments are then presented by the employee to the HR
department of Jazz with pervious work records as proof. The five grades
of this process are:
12345-

Always demonstrates
Demonstrates
Sometimes demonstrates
Less demonstrates
Never demonstrates

This means that how much the employee rates him/her in terms of
their performance, meeting goals and objectives, coordination with
peers and etc. Always demonstrates is the best rating meaning that
employee fulfills all the above mentioned criteria. Never demonstrates
on the other hand means the employee is not good enough.

360-DEGREE FEEDBACK
Jazzs 360-degree review process serves the purpose of giving
managers a holistic picture of their direct reports; since they may carry
a biased and restricted impression of reports impact and behavior
(some employees may be great at managing up a fake picture of
their contributions, for example).
The process starts with a back-and-forth between employee and
manager, so as to pick a representative, fair sample of peers to
participate. The employee suggests a shortlist that is discussed and
validated with the manager, taking into account how close the peer
was to the employees contributions, and how well he/she can assess
the employees performance.

Peers are expected to give assessments in three different media:

strengths, or things that the person should keep on doing, and
weaknesses, or things that the person should consider working
on/developing, and finally, commenting on the employees contribution
to specific projects. These two open-ended fields (positives and
negatives) have evolved from a larger form a few years ago.
Mr.Faheem, HOD of HR, observes in his Work Rules that the
simplification reduced aggregate time spent on this step by more than
25%, while improving the share of participants who perceived it as
useful from 49% to 75%.

OBJECTIVES AND KEY RESULTS (OKR)

OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results. It is a method of defining
and tracking objectives and their outcomes. Its main goal is to connect
company, team and personal objectives to measurable results, making
people move together in the right direction. This is how OKR works.
First, you set up an Objective. Then you set up a number of "Key
Results" that are quantifiable that will help you hit your objective. OKRs
are not used by management to determine promotions. But they can
be used by employees to keep an eye on what they've accomplished.
For example,
OBJECTIVES:
Improve SIM sales by 10% this year
Increase the number of prepaid packages offered
KEY RESULTS

Starting balance of Rs 300 in each prepaid sim.

Activation of sim in one hour after its purchase
Reduced prices of packages
Increase the duration of packages
Add a variety of features to new packages

COMPUTERIZED (ONLINE) PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

This is by far, the most widely used method by Mobilink for
performance appraisal. Supervisors evaluate the performance of
workers like salespersons, receptionists, clerical workers, customer
service employees etc. and then send it online to the Human Resource
of the company. The HR managers of the company then evaluate that
information and provide feedback to the employees about their
performances. On basis of that information, rewards and bonuses are
awarded to the employees and they are appraised. Furthermore, the
old appraisal forms that were used are not being used by Mobilink
because the management thinks that they are time consuming and in
this modern era, online evaluation is cost effective and time saving at
the same time.

PROMOTION
Now this is where Mobilink has been very impressive over the years
and their employees have seldom complained on promotion criteria. As
we interviewed Mr.Faheem, he told us in depth that promotions are
mostly done on annual basis. Firstly calculation meetings are held
within the management of the firm where with the help of supervisors
and HR managers, employee evaluation is done. If a certain employee
meets the required standards, he/she is promoted according to their
respective designation. This is one method for promotion used in
Mobilink.
Second method used for promotion is called the promotion interview.
These interviews are held semi-annually and annually between a
supervisor/HR manager and the employee. IN these interviews,
employees are rated on their previous works during the year and if
they have met certain required standards, they are promoted
respectively. In this method, sometimes issues arise because the
employee thinks that he/she is more than capable or are not rewarded
fairly. In such a case, their performance records are sent to senior HR
managers to evaluate and provide feedback accordingly.

Lastly, as discussed above, objective and goal achievement is the

priority of Jazz. Employees who have achieved their annual goals are
rewarded and promoted accordingly. Employees, who fail to do so, are
not promoted and are required to improve themselves in the coming
year. In this way, only the deserving employees are promoted.

DEALING WITH APPRAISAL PROBLEMS IN MOBILINK

Sometimes, certain problems arise in a company when employees are
not rewarded properly or they feel they are being ignored. Mobilink has
been very diligent in managing such situations because their HR
department works efficiently to manage such situations.
To tackle problems such as unclear standards, Mobilink management
write detailed comments or sentences about the employees
performance so they do not get confused at their evaluation. If
someone is being considered good performer, it means that he/she
has been working efficiently and with quality. If fair performer term is
used, it means the work is satisfactory but not of the top level.
Central tendency issue is resolved by ranking or self-evaluation. When
the employees will self-evaluate themselves, they wont label
themselves as average or above average. Everyone will have a
different answer. Similarly, supervisors use ranking system to rank
different employees on the basis of their performance rather than
putting them on a scale.

Lastly, biasness is an issue that cannot be completely removed. But

still, Mobilink management tries their utmost best to remove any
gender, racial or age basis by implementing EEO rules. The HR
department is very strict against any sort of biasness in the company
and action is taken against supervisors who get biased against a
particular employee.

APPRAISAL INTERVIEWS
To make their decisions clear to the employees, supervisors and HR
managers conduct appraisal interviews so that employees should know
as why they are accepted or rejected. Some interviews that Mobilink
conduct are:
1- Satisfactory-Promotable: Here the management informs the
employees that their work performance has been good enough
and they will be promoted on their performance.
2- Satisfactory-Not Promotable: Here too the employee has worked
fairly and satisfactorily. But its still not up to the standard to
promote him/her to a next position so they need to improve
themselves even more.
3- Unsatisfactory-Correctable: Now in this case, the employee hasnt
worked up to the required standards and will not get promoted.
But with certain training and improvement, they can get to that
required level. So they wont be dismissed.
4- Unsatisfactory-Uncorrectable: Lastly, the work performance of the
employee has been really bad and they cannot even improve
with any training. In this case, Mobilink will let go of that
employee because the company demands merit and quality.
This proves that Mobilink is really committed towards their
employees and their promotion and appraisal is not biased at all.
Furthermore, employees that have any complains are explained
thoroughly by their supervisors and HR managers so they do not
misunderstand the company. In this way, only deserving
candidates are promoted for better positions.

CONCLUSION
In the end, we would like to thank Mr.Faheem especially as he took out
time from his very busy schedule and sat with us to conduct this
interview. He provided us with in depth information about the

performance management of Mobilink and how the HR department of

the company works efficiently and effectively to help employees
improve.
Furthermore, we also found out that the company uses many methods
to evaluate the performance and does not only rely on one method.
Jazz has also used Information Technology affluently to measure the
performance of candidates and provide them with timely feedbacks.
Also appraisal interviews are conducted so the employees know what
they have achieved or why they are being fired.
To conclude this report, we will say that Mobilink has one of the best
HR departments in the country and is located in Lahore, Karachi and
Islamabad offices. Their performance management methods are up to
the mark and their management sets SMART goals for their employees
so they can meet the performance standards required.