Main Functions of Performance Management Software
Many organizations carry out performance reviews annually. But, for employees, it is not enough as they need to receive regular feedback in order to understand how they are fulfilling and facilitating the company's corporate goals and to know the next steps in their career growth. So, it is important to provide continuous performance assessments and receive feedback not only from the direct manager but the indirect managers, peers, and members of the team too.
In the last years, more and more popular become performance management software systems that help companies to align their staff to corporate objectives as well as to measure and evaluate the company's results on the whole and the performance of each employee on a continuous basis.
The attention of the performance management software system is focused on three main things:
- Workforce productivity
- Workforce efficiency
- Workforce progress
The software performance management system helps the company’s managers in an efficient manner:
- To write accurate and thorough job descriptions and expectations.
- To create job objectives that are aligned with the company’s mission and goals.
- To track all employee’s activities.
- To document employees' performance.
- To give appraisals of each employee and his/her work activities.
- To determine the needed training and professional development programs.
Thus, the performance management system enables improving employee engagement through feedback, recognition, and transparency.
Core functions provided by the software performance management system for recognizing employee’s potential and strengths:
- Employee appraisal – for evaluating and documenting the employee's job performance.
- Feedback control – for employees to timely know how they are doing and what changes are required.
- Competency and skills assessment – for testing employees’ skills.
- Development planning – for planning each employee’s personal development.
- Productivity analysis – for measuring the employee’s efficiency.
- Coaching tools – for supporting employees in their professional development.
- Reporting – for documenting the results of the performance management.
- Mobile capabilities – for mobile workers’ needs.
Priorities of the business change frequently and quickly. There is no warranty that business goals at the beginning of a year will be the same a few months later. Therefore, companies need to review and even reconsider their goals frequently if they want to be productive and competitive.
Modern computer technologies help organizations to collect, track, analyze, evaluate and better understand their employees’ efficiency and productivity. The resulting performance management data enables information about hiring decisions, employee career trajectory, compensation, company goals, performance reviews, and everything else that relates to the management of human capital.
Want to have easy-to-use, fast, and productive performance management software, select the one which best meets your company’s requirements and needs.
Some helpful features of performance management software:
- Easily-navigable dashboards – to bring important data into a single-organized location.
- Performance review – to organize, coordinate, schedule, plan, and store reviewed information.
- Reminders – to send supervisors a list with their permissions (if the leadership changes), a structure of overall processes, and the employees' roles.
- Feedback – to ensure structured and (perhaps) anonymous assessments.
- Performance tracking and goals – to see the progress of projects and fulfilled jobs.
The performance goals of every employee should be ideally aligned with the company's goals.
4 Common types of goals:
- Job description goals - to be continuously performed until the job description changes.
- Project goals - to be accomplished until the project is fully completed.
- Behavioral goals - to be continuously performed to help employees understand "how" required things need to be fulfilled.
- Stretch goals - to expand the employees' abilities, knowledge, and skills,
Advantages of using the software performance management system:
- Helps companies set the standards of employee performance.
- Eliminates the task redundancy.
- Enables managers to estimate employees’ productivity in ratio to determined standards.
- Facilitates feedback comes from different sources: managers, supervisors, peers, team members, customers, measurement systems, and others.
- Facilitates meaningful discussions between direct managers and employees.
- Helps the company to keep employees motivated.
- Enables tracking the employee progress within the company.
- Enables employees to plan their career growth within the organization.
- Enables conducting performance reviews.
- Integrates with compensation management and other company’s software systems.
- Enables providing the compensation in conformity with individual employee achievement.
- Enables maintaining records.
An integral part of the business managing and measuring employees' productivity is performance management. In its turn, business development planning is much more powerful if it is an integral part of managing the employees' performance. Furthermore, the employees' performance management process should not only document and deliver feedback, but be a powerful tool that effectively helps employees to develop and reach their full potential. Only, in this case, employees
can increase their value to their company and will be able to help the company's success.
The first step towards improving the company's existing performance processes is to understand what the main stages of the performance management cycle are and what basic elements are necessary for effective management of employees' efficiency.