Maddy N 0:22
Great.
Oh, fantastic, right? So.
Then I’ll go ahead. As we discussed, right.
So hello everyone. Today we have Tanvi Mittal who is the HR head of Vlink Inc. CE has been recognised on various prestigious platform for her experience and the values that she brings to HR fraternity.
One of the thing that I would like to mention here is that she has been recognised as top 25 CHRO by HRAI, right?
And Needless to say, I know we would be having some exciting conversation with Tanvi today. So welcome Tanvi to Worxmate podcast.

Tanvi Mittal 1:04
Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much, Maddy, for the beautiful introduction.

Maddy N 1:10
So Tanvi, before we begin, right, I mean, I’m sure people would be more curious about, you know, knowing you, you know as an individual. So why don’t we begin with your quick introduction?

Tanvi Mittal 1:21
Sure. So yes, as Maddy said this is Tanvi and I’m having almost 15 years of work experience and my total experience is with HR fraternity with IT domain SPHRI certified, I am a certified POSH trainer. This is my passion where I love to create awareness about this sexual harassment, right, and apart from that Tanvi, yes by profession I am HR. But Tanvi is the person who really would like to love to learn new thing.

Maddy N 1:43
Yeah.

Tanvi Mittal 1:51
At every stage of the life, that’s the my aim, that learning should never stop. So I use my punchline. That fun should never stop in your life, right? So that’s Tanvi.

Maddy N 2:00
Absolutely no. No, absolutely.
I think that’s what is most important than we nowadays, right? I mean you just don’t trust it yourself to one aspect, but you continue to explore, you know, and you continue to learn, right. Keeping that in mind, Tanvi right. You know, I’m Needless to say, you have been managing performance for quite some time, right?
How do you see performance management in today’s you know, today’s dynamic workplace as an example. Now we have hybrid model. If we go like 4-5 years back.

Tanvi Mittal 2:33
Mm hmm.

Maddy N 2:37
Right. The the environment was very different. You like you would find all 100% attendance in office, you would find everyone in office. Nowadays it’s a hybrid model. So how do you see this, right? How do you how would you define, you know, kind of an effective performance management in today’s environment or situation?

Tanvi Mittal 2:55
OK. It’s interesting, Maddy, you know, because yes, scenario has changed, era has changed. In fact I’ll say that generation has changed, right. The things which we learn into my generation, it’s totally changed because the purpose, the requirement from the employee and employer both side is required something new.
The main change, which I believe is a positive right earlier when I started my career, I remember that performance management is only about the increment that OK, the performance will get reviewed and I will get increment. That’s the benchmark, OK. And now it’s not only increment and its review.
It is the process to develop your career, so I always train my leaders that you have to work as a coach whenever you are sitting on the table of the performance management where you are not just evaluating that what the person has done, good or bad, your role to find out the gap areas and fill those gap areas with the proper planning. So very important the change which have been from shifted from the four years ago. When you stand a hybrid and the today’s generation

Maddy N 3:39
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. OK.

Tanvi Mittal 4:05
Today’s generation also need a purpose.

Maddy N 4:09
Yep.

Tanvi Mittal 4:09
Right. They will not sit in front of you, only for the increment and just to get the feedback on their performance, they really would like to know, OK, where I need to improve. And most important, what’s your plan to improve my performance, right? So that is the change and 2nd now earlier that was a annual year process, right, sometime it’s a twice in a year, but now it’s a everyday process. If you really would like to make a effective performance management in the system, you need to bring a culture.

Maddy N 4:22
Right.

Tanvi Mittal 4:40
Where your team is getting a review, performance feedback or suggestion on the sport, they’re not waiting for the time period. So these are the two big changes and 3rd yes of now it’s a tech enabled which were missing there, right? It’s a requirement of the time. So these are the three shifts which I can observe which has changed the total game plan.

Maddy N 4:56
Yeah.
Right, right.
No, absolutely. I think you brought a very good point here, right? I mean, keeping in mind the change that you see, even you know with the you know, I mean, I’ve recently learned about.
This called, you know, I mean while I heard about Gen z, I also understand that the beta part is also coming. So which means it’s a perspective that is getting changed and that may also end up impacting performance.

Tanvi Mittal 5:20
I guess it’s true.

Maddy N 5:28
But yeah, absolutely right Tanvi right. It’s no more about increments, but it’s more about, you know, and and that’s a good point, right. I mean when people ask about the purpose, they are being very focused.

Tanvi Mittal 5:40
Yes, that’s true.

Maddy N 5:40
Right. They want to, you know, they want to ensure that they are delivering more values and it’s that’s that’s the good part of the you know, the the generation, right? I mean they are they just want to do something which makes sense to them.

Tanvi Mittal 5:51
Right. And this is the purpose of this, right? But we need in the organisation, we need that our employees should be aligned with our goal. So basically that’s the reason they need to know what the purpose, why they are existing here. That was we are also into the system but that was not systematic. Now it’s a systematic in terms of performance management system, OK yeah.

Maddy N 6:04
Again.
No, no, absolutely right. I mean, I mean, keeping this in mind, right? I mean, if I have to move on to the next, you know, important point which is more about the challenges that you you see in performance management, right, I mean the obstacles that you come across and how do you kind of handle it, right? I mean, keeping in mind both aspects, so you’ll have like sort of a, you know a, you know the generations who is starting their career right now.
With the current scenarios and dynamic scenarios and the one who have been like dealing from the last 10-15 years or 20 years, right?
These are the two perspective now you know that we are going to solve it. So generally what sort of challenges you come across in such scenarios?

Tanvi Mittal 6:47
Yeah.
So actually, Maddy, you know, in my company we have a process that in this Feb we start this process, OK for the review and the performance. So I would like to share the recent example with discussion we were having I think last week only. So it’s not related to generation, but it’s related to challenge which we were facing in the performance management. That was the biasness, OK, we were having the discussion and we just discussed that how we can remove that.

Maddy N 7:09
Yeah, right. Right, right.

Tanvi Mittal 7:20
Biasness, although it’s a tech enabled although my KRAs are also quantitative, their leaders need to give a rating, but still it depends on the leaders, right. If leader like X, the person will give more rating and if they don’t like Y, they’ll give them less rating. So what’s the solution? And very interesting solution we that time that we can have and I would like to share with all my audience that we have normalised our rating system.

Maddy N 7:27
Yeah.
Mm hmm mm hmm.
Yeah.

Tanvi Mittal 7:50
Entire rating system we have normalised. So how we have done?
OK, so we have taken a decision. That’s OK. Let’s start the process where leaders will give the rating. We have given their parameters. They’re 1 to 5. What’s the meaning of five and four and you have to give rating. You have to do.
Once we will get all the rating OK. My power BI team will sit there and they will normalise the rating.
So that that if any leader is strict and a leader is like is a liberal, that will not impact their biasness will not impact to my employees. So this is beautiful solution which we found out. In fact we did some juggling into the calculation, some standard deviation mean mode how to do. But this is very important, very very important that to remove the biasness. So this is which I would like to share with all of you that if you are working on the rating system thing from the normalised point of view for example you can have a discussion with some university, right? How they give decide that cut off and give the admissions they are very fair with all the people who are coming from the Bihar who is coming from Rajasthan and who are coming from Punjab.

Maddy N 8:50
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right, right.

Tanvi Mittal 9:00
This is one thing. Second challenge. You know the challenge when we face is resistance. Whenever you introduce something.

Maddy N 9:11
Right.

Tanvi Mittal 9:12
You will face resistance, right? So especially from the management level, because down to the team you can train, you can get the output whatever you want, but you will face the resistance from the manager.

Maddy N 9:14
Yep.

Tanvi Mittal 9:25
Here’s my personal experience, which I observed, Maddy, that we HRs always talk about our issues and our challenges, right, that leaders are not supporting leader are not supporting leader are not supporting. So what’s the meaning of that? Have you ever tried to understand their pain area why they are not supporting? Why their resistance for the change, right. So my working approach that whenever I’m introducing something into the performance management and some change, I always make sure that my leaders are aligned with my thought.

Maddy N 9:41
Yeah.
Yeah.

Tanvi Mittal 9:55
I yeah, I have a discussion with them. I share my plan with purpose.

Maddy N 9:55
Fantastic.

Tanvi Mittal 10:00
And how it can make their life easy?

Maddy N 10:03
Amazing.

Tanvi Mittal 10:04
Very important. Otherwise they will just throw out my idea into the dustbin, right? So that message has to be given if they are aligned, I’m pretty much sure rest of the team will get aligned because they have to actually manage.
Execution part will be at their end, not at my end, right? So these are the two things I think we can cover up if we can align the management with us.

Maddy N 10:24
Fantastic. No, I think it’s a. It’s a great thought, Tanvi. Right. You brought a very good point here.
You know, I think understanding other’s perspective and thereby solving the concerns or challenges, you know, and you know with that can also help in terms of how we are basically you know communicating right, our message to the other person and thereby making it more meaningful and ensuring that we have fully aligned to you know what you want to achieve. But yeah, I think it’s a great perspective that you’re bringing here, right and on the similar note, right.

Tanvi Mittal 10:47

Maddy N 10:56
Have you heard of? OKRs. Are you familiar with the OKR terms?

Tanvi Mittal 11:00
Definitely.

Maddy N 11:00
Yeah. So that talks about one of your thought, right, which is more about alignment, right, bringing alignment across the company and ensuring that people use the same language. So I mean, have you practised it or how do you see this adding more value to the organisations?

Tanvi Mittal 11:16
I must say that it’s really a great method and I have attended 2-3 webinars and seminar last week and now I can say that people are more talking about, OKR, there are two, three reasons, Maddy here. You know, we were discussing about first is a purpose that is very important for the Gen Z. They need purpose, right? And for the OKR is the only method which gives you a purpose and which tells you that if you’re writing a code how it is contributing in the success of the organisation.

Maddy N 11:33
Yeah, yeah.
Yes, yes.
Right.

Tanvi Mittal 11:47
I don’t know if you have observed the change in the era that people are more interested to work into the startups and mid-level. Why? Because they need that purpose, right? And a big names in the ocean you are just drop. What are you doing? Nobody knows.

Maddy N 11:54
Yeah. Yeah, right.
Yeah.
Yes.

Tanvi Mittal 12:05
The OKR is the one thing because if you know the goal of your organisation, which has been driven the downstairs to the departments and the team, so team knows that, OK, what what’s my purpose? Why I’m doing this right second, very important. You know when you say alignment definitely along with alignment why I love OKR because you know instead of working into the different different direction when my team is talking the same language.

Maddy N 12:31
Yeah.

Tanvi Mittal 12:31
And working in the same direction and secondly.

Maddy N 12:33
Yeah.

Tanvi Mittal 12:34
For every quarter, if they have three or four realistic KRAs.
We just adding up with my top level goal. It really makes impact, right? So these are the few reasons that I personally believe that OKR is the good method which should adopt in the organisation. If you cannot adopt systematically, but you can start approach and think from that perspective to bring into the system.

Maddy N 12:40
Right.
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
Very good point, Tanvi. It’s a very good point. I think. I’m sure it’s going to help a lot of people who listen to us right, because it’s not about, you know, achieving the perfect aspect of OKR, but it’s all about practising the important pillar of it, which is more about, you know as you referred, you know purpose and then ensuring that there is a clear alignment towards purpose because then once you bring that to the table communications collaboration.
Right. And ensuring that we are all focused towards the impact that matters most to the company. Right. At least they’ll start understanding, you know, they’ll start fixing a lot of big problems anyway. You referred about the challenges, right that people undergo.

Tanvi Mittal 13:35

Maddy N 13:41
Keeping that in mind, Tanvir right, I mean, I’m sure right, you must have come across lot of you know HRIS tool a lot of performance management tool right specifically as today’s you know topic is more about performance.

Tanvi Mittal 13:54
Right

Maddy N 13:55
What? What is that? You know, couple of things that you would like to see in any product or solution that can help you in driving performance better.

Tanvi Mittal 14:05
OK, so you are asking my pain area basically, right?

Maddy N 14:11
Yeah. Yeah, that is right.

Tanvi Mittal 14:12
They tell me, what’s your pain area and you are looking into the your software or the technology how you can solve your those pain area right. So I’ll say Maddy, there’s no doubt that currently the tools and system which we are using they are really great if we compare the four years ago and when we were managing on Excel we are juggling on Excel sheets.

Maddy N 14:20
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Right, right.

Tanvi Mittal 14:33
You know, sharing the review forms over the e-mail, getting the review forms via e-mail and then checking the 1 to 1 line. So now life has been easy, but still I believe there are lots of improvement can be happen. I’m pretty much sure that at the back end, tech companies are doing but still what I feel the first of all.

Maddy N 14:42
Yeah.

Tanvi Mittal 14:56
If we create something in the tool which can suggest.
Our employees or our leader that.
What kind of certification or course can be done to fill up this gap into the performance? This is missing into the products if you will say they will. Products will not suggest you that OK you can go for this certificate or for that certificate. This is what second.

Maddy N 15:19
Absolutely, absolutely, yeah.

Tanvi Mittal 15:25
Real time feedback. So I have seen so many portals I have to cut Demo so you can you can set your process. OK quarterly you can you are able to give the feedbacks half yearly annually or monthly but taken scenario where you are working with someone and you really like something and you just would like to give a feedback which should get recorded into the review annual review system. That system I am not able to get.

Maddy N 15:50
Yeah, yeah.
Got it.

Tanvi Mittal 15:52
Where I can appreciate or I talk more about appreciate instead of penalty, right, because my working style. I say if you really would like to introduce something, then start to give people appreciation who are adopting instead of penalise those people who are not adopting.

Maddy N 15:58
Yeah, yeah.

Tanvi Mittal 16:10
Right. So.

Maddy N 16:10
Right. Absolutely right.

Tanvi Mittal 16:12
This this bring the positivity right. These are the two things which I believe and 2nd if I don’t know, it’s my realistic expectation or not. But why are this performance management system? Why are this tool if I can have that, you know, proactive.
Sense that what’s going on?

Maddy N 16:35
Yeah.

Tanvi Mittal 16:35
Right. Whether my team is aligned, my team is not aligned. Are they aligned with my goals? You can say retainership, right? Which can help me for the retainership if I can get to know proactively those senses might be that will be more helpful because today’s scenario, the major challenge to retain this gen Z right they are getting so many options and they they just snap a finger, they fluctuate from here to there.

Maddy N 16:45
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Tanvi Mittal 17:02
So if I can get these kind of things from the system, that would be really helpful. And I always say that my system should be not only evaluation the purpose of development. So that’s the reason I I have given a coaching to my leader that they need to work on this nine box model where we are talking about the performance and potential both simultaneously because the major challenge after the review process and after then all the feedbacks, we don’t know what now what I do with this rating.

Maddy N 17:31
Yeah.

Tanvi Mittal 17:32
Just shut down the system, close the file and move the next year. Or actually I need to use this rating.

Maddy N 17:38
Yeah, yeah.

Tanvi Mittal 17:38
So post mechanism is more important whenever we are having this performance management process in the organisation right? So if we can get any software which can help me for the post impact right? How to develop my team.

Maddy N 17:55
Yep. Yep. No, I think it’s a great point that you’re bringing here, Tanveer, right. I think that’s a very valuable point because I also experienced it a lot of times. You know, once the entire cycle is done right, what happens it is done, it is closed and put it in a box, right. And the next day we begin from where we left last time, right. So the process remains same. You know? So it is like, oh, you know it, it’s just part of the process. So I am supposed to do it. I’ve done it.

Tanvi Mittal 17:56
That would be more helpful.
Agree.
Right.

Maddy N 18:26
And I’ve moved on, right? I mean that shouldn’t be the case, right? We have learned something through the process. And how are we applying that learning to make it more effective and make it more better every time? Right. I think that’s what.

Tanvi Mittal 18:27
Today.
That’s the reason we use the performance management system, right? We never use a performance review system, right? We’re not using the appraiser system. We are using performance management. We need to manage your performance which starts when you come into the organisation at the time of hiring and it remains in the system till you are in the system. So that is the entire cycle is a part of performance management.

Maddy N 18:41
Exactly.
You I really liked the way you have very easily differentiated between performance review system and performance management system. It’s a great definition by the way Tanvi right. I mean while there is a very thin line, but I think the way you have described it, I think it should help a lot of people understand the difference between these two systems. Because are you just doing a review or you are also ensuring that while conducting a review you are also continuing to manage it and improve it, right?

Tanvi Mittal 19:09
Thank you.

Maddy N 19:26
On the same note, right?
You know, can we keeping these aspects in mind, right?
You will find a lot of you know, a lot of HR leaders are coming and joining and they’re also like as you initially you started on the note of like a startup culture, right? That we are finding.
Around us, right.

Tanvi Mittal 19:45
Mm hmm.

Maddy N 19:46
What would be your advice to those leaders to continue to, you know, manage performance? What approach this would be adopting so that you know it can help the organisation?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tanvi Mittal 20:19
So Maddy few things before I share any advise right I share that the questions which I get sometimes from my HR fellow right. They say that Tanvi, this is just a process, right, management never support. They say this is the annual process which we need to complete and actually the end end is we need to give the increment. How much increment we need to give this is the purpose of this. So first very, very important and it’s not only performance management, I would like to say as being an HR, it’s very important that your thought is aligned with your organisation, thought your organisation goal. You need to understand your business right. And for that it’s very important that your management is aligned with your thought. So whenever you are introducing anything.

Maddy N 20:34

Tanvi Mittal 20:44
Do not take that. Leaders will not accept and the leaders will not support HR. Please remove that bias from your mind and leaders also would like to grow your organisation.

Maddy N 20:53
Yeah.

Tanvi Mittal 20:53
So I understand their pain area and whenever you are providing any solution take their suggestions. Also might be the system will be better and I always say you are the people who you are facilating and organising and designing. Actually execution has to be done at the other side so they know the real challenge in and real pain areas. You need to understand that this is very very important. Second if leaders can do if it because it depends on the costing and all then try to have the tech enabled solution.

Maddy N 21:09
Yeah.
Yeah.

Tanvi Mittal 21:23
We should remove your biasness, right? And yes, I would like to say if you can have have more quantitative KRAs instead of a subjective, that will remove the biasness into the system because when you give the rethink right, instead of just to typing a message and.

Maddy N 21:26
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tanvi Mittal 21:44
As being an HR, do not think that you are HR play a role of marketing. Sometime HR needs to be a marketer.
To share their thoughts, to share their ideas to the another table. OK. If you are strong and if you are confident about your ideas, your suggestion it is PMS performance management system in any another initiative. Be a marketer for your initiative. If you are confident then only you can make another people confident so you don’t think that you are HR and you can’t do marketing. You have to do marketing.
That I will say.

Maddy N 22:18
That’s a very good point, Tanvi. I’ll tell you right, collaboration between HR and marketing could go a long way, right? Because a lot of times what happens, you know we come up with lot of process. We come up with policies you referred about POSH, you are a POSH consultant. You understand the you know the pain you know in this area and you know I mean it’s just not about keeping the information in a document.

Tanvi Mittal 22:20
Yeah.

Maddy N 22:42
It’s more about taking them out, making it more meaningful for people.
Uh, encouraging them to participate, encouraging them to understand, you know, so it’s a it’s a I think it’s a very valuable point that you’ve shared and I really liked it specifically when you say, you know, you also have to be marketer because it is just not about you knowing all the in the sense of marketing, right? You don’t need to know the integrity of marketing but understand how are you also, you know marketing yourself. I mean we.

Tanvi Mittal 23:03
Right, right.
And yeah, sorry I’m interrupting, but I would like to say Maddy, one more thing here that you know, we are only talking about transparency. Are we actually keeping a transparency in the organisation? That’s really important, right? So in my position we have set up a culture that there’s nothing transparent except salary that is. Yes, that’s a confidential. Everything is transparent. That’s right. Every policy is everything processes because.

Maddy N 23:19
Absolutely.
Amazing.

Tanvi Mittal 23:32
Actually, we all have to work together. So if we cannot have trust on you, then you cannot have trust on employer as simple as.

Maddy N 23:34
Fantastic.
Oh, absolutely. I think it’s a great point that you brought and great that you know, we are discussing on the subject, right, because generally people think from a performance stand management standpoint, OK, we need to think about 2-3 areas only. That’s it done right. When they when that comes, when the when the cycle comes they just jump onto it, they want to complete it. But I think in today’s conversation you brought some very amazing point Tanvi.

Tanvi Mittal 23:41
It.
OK.

Maddy N 24:05
You know, I’m glad that we could discuss on those aspects and I could, you know, speak to you and you know kind of, you know, gain your experience. I’m sure it’s going to help a lot of lot of leaders, right and.
Absolutely. Needless to say, you are adding a lot of value to vlink, right? And we would love to, you know, catch up with you sometime in future as well to see how exciting the journey looks like. You know in the future. And I’m sure you would continue to as you are an explorer, you would like to seek new things, learn new things. I’m sure you would be applying a lot of new things in the organisation. So thank you so much for your time Tanvi and being part of our podcast.

Tanvi Mittal 24:23
Thank you so much.

Maddy N 24:44
I really enjoyed our conversation, so you know.

Tanvi Mittal 24:45
Thank you. Thank you, Maddy, for inviting me on your platform and give me opportunity to share my thoughts.

Maddy N 24:52
It’s it’s amazing, right? I mean, it’s amazing. Specifically, you know, I think I I you know, we should be changing the title of our podcast to one of the statement that you mentioned saying that there’s a difference between performance review and performance management. People really need to learn this. So on this note, you know I’ll be ending the podcast, but thank you so much for your time Tanvi it. It’s great talking to you.

Tanvi Mittal 25:12
OK.
Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, bye. Bye.

Maddy N 25:18
Bye bye.