Q&A: What does performance entail in the workplace?

Question: What does performance entail in the workplace?

Answer by XFIRE, who works in an oil and gas company

Performance entails a lot of things in the workplace depending on the organization, job role and expectation, and the people (boss, subordinates and colleagues).
Many organizations have different ways of appraising their staffs – some use grade system; some use KPI’s (target setting); while others use ranking system. I won’t bore you about the details but lemme list a few factors that affect performance:

1) People: From experience, managing people especially your boss, is the most important factor. You need to understand the expectation of your boss, and try to make his job a lot easier. Also, you need to have the ability to influence without authority to achieve results, especially when dealing with peers.
2) Visibility: Be visible. This is where communication skills and creativity come to play. Make your impact felt. Let senior colleagues and managers notice you. Perception matters a lot.
3) Key Performance Indicators (KPI) – commonly known as targets. Many organizations set periodic KPI’s for their employees depending on job role. Ability to meet and exceed your KPI’s influences your career growth.

4) Quality of work output – You can easily distinguish yourself from your peers based on the quality of work. As we often say ‘the reward for good work is more work’ i.e. added responsibility
5) Initiative – the ability to show initiative is also important. The ability to give an extra push inorder to get work done is key.
Other silent factors that sometimes influence performance are nepotism, eye service, ethnicity and favouritism. This can not be totally eradicated in the Nigerian setting, but people progress beyond those obstacles.