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Марія БровінськаWork
23 January 2025, 09:00
2025-01-23
Not only performance review and OKRs. How do Ukrainian IT companies evaluate the effectiveness of specialists' work?
Global tech giants are cutting back on inefficient employees. Microsoft is planning to cut jobs soon, with a special focus on underperforming employees. To do this, the company’s managers have been evaluating employees up to level 80, one of the highest levels, for several months. And Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg has decided to raise the bar in performance management and quickly fire about 3,600 underperforming employees.
Ukrainian companies, when reducing staff, cite other reasons for layoffs. In particular, it is about optimizing the organizational structure and reducing costs. dev.ua decided to find out how Ukrainian IT evaluates the productivity of specialists and what influences this indicator. Below are interesting facts from EPAM, Ciklum and ZONE3000, as well as Railsware and P2H.
Global tech giants are cutting back on inefficient employees. Microsoft is planning to cut jobs soon, with a special focus on underperforming employees. To do this, the company’s managers have been evaluating employees up to level 80, one of the highest levels, for several months. And Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg has decided to raise the bar in performance management and quickly fire about 3,600 underperforming employees.
Ukrainian companies, when reducing staff, cite other reasons for layoffs. In particular, it is about optimizing the organizational structure and reducing costs. dev.ua decided to find out how Ukrainian IT evaluates the productivity of specialists and what influences this indicator. Below are interesting facts from EPAM, Ciklum and ZONE3000, as well as Railsware and P2H.
Andriy Semenenko, Senior HR Manager at EPAM
At EPAM Ukraine, we have developed an approach to evaluating the work of specialists, replacing the traditional annual evaluation, which was based on feedback, with a more flexible and continuous model. This process is based on collecting data on key indicators, which allows you to get a complete picture of the effectiveness and development of specialists. All metrics are compiled and displayed in a separate dashboard.
Every specialist has access to this data, which allows for openness and honesty in the assessment, improving communication between all participants in the process.
The main criterion is efficiency, which is determined by the achieved results of the specialist’s work. Clear goals and expectations are set for each specialist, which serve as the basis for evaluation by the manager.
However, we also consider other important factors, such as:
feedback — both external (from clients) and internal (from the team and colleagues) feedback;
self-analysis — this allows the employee to assess their progress and review one’s own work, which promotes mutual understanding between the specialist and the manager.
additional contribution — participation in initiatives, volunteer activities or other projects outside of core responsibilities.
professional development — changes in current skills are tracked, completing certifications and training courses, as well as acquiring new knowledge in accordance with market requirements and technological trends.
No specialist activity goes unnoticed. If necessary, the system automatically notifies the manager about important indicators that require attention.
Since 2023, we have been actively implementing solutions based on artificial intelligence for performance analysis. AI helps us systematize and analyze data, as well as generate recommendations. However, the final decision always remains with the manager, maintaining a human-touch approach. Artificial intelligence rather plays the role of an assistant and advisor, which contributes to more efficient work with all indicators. This significantly reduces the time usually spent on data collection, allowing the manager to focus more on supporting the team and making decisions.
This multidimensional system allows you to create a complete picture of the effectiveness and development of each specialist, highlighting not only their achievements, but also the potential for further growth.
Oleksandra Dovga, HR Business Partner ZONE3000
We conduct a Performance Review using a standard but effective 360° assessment and feedback tool.
The 360-degree assessment method (or 360° Feedback) is a modern tool for assessing the effectiveness of specialists, which allows you to receive feedback from several sources, creating a complete picture of a person’s professional activity. This approach makes it possible to identify both strengths and areas for development, using objective information from people who interact with the employee in various roles.
How does the 360° method work? Feedback comes from the following groups:
Colleagues (team members with whom the specialist works closely).
Supervisor (assessment by manager or team leader).
Subordinates (if the specialist holds a management position).
Clients or partners (if necessary, if there is regular interaction with them).
Self-assessment (independent analysis of the specialist regarding his/her own strengths, challenges and achievements).
The frequency of the process is once every 6 months. The result of this process is the formation of a PDP (Personal Development Plan), which identifies key areas for improvement, priority goals, and expected results.
This approach contributes to the professional growth of team members, increasing their efficiency, and achieving team and business goals.
We actively use artificial intelligence (AI) in the process of forming a PDP. Thanks to this approach, AI helps:
Recommend literature to develop necessary skills;
Select video materials, courses and webinars for training;
This approach allows you to expand the materials provided by your immediate supervisor or those in the HR department’s piggy bank.
The next step for us is to create a competency matrix for specialists in different departments.
Sofia Kuzina, Head of HR Center of Excellence at Ciklum
At Ciklum, performance evaluation is based on achieving set annual goals and targets. We are convinced that individual results best reflect the value that a specialist creates for the team and the business as a whole. Accordingly, the performance cycle lasts a year. At the same time, we encourage managers to conduct interim check-ins with teams every quarter to calibrate goals and targets in light of the dynamics of business development.
The assessment process itself is as personalized as possible: managers play a key role in setting goals, tracking progress, and assessing the achievements of their team members. Thanks to this, we achieve greater objectivity by taking into account the specifics of projects and roles.
We do not currently use artificial intelligence. However, we are closely monitoring the development of technologies and exploring opportunities for their integration to enhance the assessment process.
For example, this year we plan to migrate the performance cycle to a new talent management system. At the same time, our priority will remain to maintain a human-centric approach, because this is how we can take into account all aspects of the cyclers' work and create a favorable environment for their professional development.
Vladyslav Pertsatiy, People Operations Lead
Whether you work for a corporation or a startup, employee performance appraisal should be simple and clear. It is not a formality for the sake of a checkmark, but a tool that brings real benefits to both the company and the team. After all, talents are much more important than the number of completed tasks. Therefore, the approach to this process should be individual and flexible, and not rely only on templates created a few months — or even years — ago.
It’s important to work closely with team leaders to understand their needs and preferences, so at Railsware we’ve created a layered approach that makes the assessment process logical, clear, and transparent.
It all starts with clearly defined goals: team and individual (e.g. OKRs).
Each team can adapt the approach to their needs, but the main rule is one: everyone should clearly understand the success criteria, the person’s role on the project, and priorities. Then there will be no situations where someone does not know exactly what is expected of them.
During the second stage, we discuss how things are going with the tasks and goals. For team goals, this is usually done in joint meetings, and for personal goals, in 1-2-1 meetings with the manager. Each team decides for itself how often to do this, but we recommend meeting at least once a month.
Then, every 3-6 months, we hold individual meetings with colleagues as part of Individual Development Planning (IDP). This is an opportunity for a specialist to share their achievements, discuss their development, and plan next steps together with their manager and HR.
And at the last level — a full performance review, which we conduct once a year. It’s more than just a summary: we analyze work results, progress in developing hard and soft skills required for the role, productivity and contribution to achieving business goals. For technical specialists, we use 360-degree feedback, and for non-technical specialists — we add an assessment from the manager and team leaders. By the way, this same approach works for evaluating newcomers during the probationary period.
We currently don’t use AI to evaluate employees. Our approach is quite complex — we collect feedback, analyze data, and take into account voting.
However, we are always open to new ideas. So if we find a tool that can help make our process faster and more accurate, without reducing it to mechanical or lacking in humanity, we will bring it to work.
Anton Knyzhka, Tech/Team Lead at P2H
The HR system for assessing skills integrates with the PeopleForce platform. Its creation was a response to the problem of an uneven approach to assessing specialists in different teams. One project differs not only in the specifics of the product, but also in the level of complexity of the tasks, which sometimes turns a middle developer from one team into a junior in another.
To avoid such situations, the company developed an internal skills matrix. Work on it started in January 2022. A list of hard and soft skills was compiled in a Google Doc without reference to the technology stack.
Skills were grouped by development areas: Ruby, testing, automation, etc. Tech leads set the maximum points, and Talent and Project managers were responsible for soft skills.
The list was reduced by almost half, a rating scale from 1 to 5 was added, with a detailed description of the levels. Some skills received a maximum score of 3 or 4 if further development was not needed. This allowed avoiding excessive screening of candidates.
The project was implemented by a SCRUM team, and the tool was officially launched in the summer of 2023. It became not only a means of assessment, but also a platform for creating ready-made teams for new projects.
It works like this: the HR manager selects a specialist and areas for assessment, and the system will automatically pull data about his role and team from PeopleForce. After that, 360° assessment forms are sent out: colleagues, technical leaders and managers give points for professional and communication skills on a scale from 1 to 5. The system analyzes the data received, allows them to be adjusted manually if necessary, and forms a final assessment, highlighting weak points for further development. The specialist receives an electronic report with results, recommendations, a detailed description of his skills and the opportunity to create an individual development plan (IDP).
The system significantly simplifies the assessment process, making it transparent and understandable even for those not involved in the technical aspects of the work. This helps the company effectively manage talent and support the professional growth of each specialist.
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