Total Rewards COVID-19 Recording: Microsoft's Pete Manias - 7/23/20

In response to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak and its unprecedented impact to business and employers, i4cp holds a weekly series of standing calls to help Total Rewards leaders navigate this unpredictable time.

COVID-19 has helped make nearly every facet of how organizations and HR operate more virtual than in the past, including performance management.  

On i4cp’s July 23, 2020 Total Rewards Leader COVID-19 Response Series call, total rewards leaders from Capital One, Dutch Bros. Coffee, Electronic Arts (EA), Intel and many others joined Q&A guest Peter Manias, senior director of compensation at Microsoft, to discuss performance management in an increasingly virtual world.

Some highlights:  

• The majority of organizations had begun taken their performance management practices virtual in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, if not earlier. Today’s first instant poll found 78% of participants saying their company has taken performance management practices virtual, either prior to or during COVID-19, with another 19% saying their organization has yet to do so, but is considering it.
• COVID-19 has forced increased work/life integration on many employees who are now working remotely. Companies are addressing this new reality and the potential challenges it presents for employees, such as affording additional leave for those with caregiving responsibilities, for example.
• Some of the performance management practices that companies have adopted in the wake of COVID-19 will be more permanently embedded in their approach to performance management. Q&A guest Peter Manias, for example, outlined how Microsoft is rethinking how it determines an employee’s opportunity for impact over the course of the year, and making compensation decisions that account for an individual’s personal circumstances and how they affected that employee’s ability to impact the organization throughout the year.
• Overall, COVID-19 hasn’t led most organizations to make significant changes in their approach to performance management, with 54% of instant poll respondents indicating as much. Among those indicating that the coronavirus pandemic has led to changes in their firms’ 2020 performance management approach, the largest number (38%) said they are making adjustments to performance targets.

In addition to this recording, please see these resources: