Best Performance Management Software

Organizations use performance management software to establish standards based on organizational goals and then link employee job performance to these. The following list includes items to keep in mind when considering performance management software.

Needs and strategic goals — First and foremost, businesses should have a clear understanding of their current performance management workflows and what benefits they would like to receive from their performance management tool. Like most HR systems, performance management tools are not a one-size-fits-all solution; what works best for one company might not work at all for another. The effectiveness of a business’ performance management needs will depend on the existing structures within their departments and their particular goals.

Strategy — Businesses should make sure that their strategy is clearly outlined when speaking to vendors about potential products. This will help businesses ensure that the software they select will meet the unique requirements of their departments. They may also want to consider whether management would be willing to change their current management processes to adapt to a new software application. Implementing a new tool can be a good time to revisit old processes and determine whether making changes to accommodate a new solution might be the better choice.

Standalone or suite — Performance management products can operate as standalone products, or they can be incorporated into larger, more comprehensive HR management suites that manage other functions, such as payroll, recruiting, or eLearning. Whether businesses choose a standalone product or a suite will likely depend on their organization’s objectives, both for their performance management programs and for their human resources department as a whole. When considering suites, companies should keep in mind that the product may perform better in some departments than in others.

Customization — Effective performance management software can often be customized to fit the specific needs of an organization, whether through custom branding details or through tailored functionality. To ensure that the product will be a suitable fit for their employees and company, HR personnel should make sure that it either offers out-of-box functionality that fits the existing workflow of their organization or determine whether the solution can be customized or tailored to match their requirements.

Usability — When considering performance management products, it’s important to find one that will offer a positive user experience for staff members, employees, team leaders, and managers. A software with a streamlined interface and simple navigation will help to increase user participation and make the performance management process more efficient.

Budget — Performance management software can vary in price, so companies need to understand their budget for purchasing these tools. As with other HR software systems, HR personnel will want to calculate the ROI for all solutions in consideration.

Performance management tools can be used by any business looking to improve and promote employee effectiveness. Medium and large businesses with a greater number of employees are quick to realize the obvious need for employing performance management software. To increase the number of high-performing teams, small businesses will quickly realize the benefit from implementing these systems.

At their outset, small companies can evaluate performance standards and manage roles without the help of software, but as a tiny business grows into a small business, performance management becomes a difficult task without the aid of software. Successful performance management tools become indispensable for managers when they need to manage more than two or three employees. Small-business owners should be aware of the point when their organizations grow large enough to benefit from a performance management solution.

Performance management software enables managers to provide real-time feedback to team members on job performance. Many tools also allow for 360-degree feedback. The benefit to this type of feedback is that team members are given the opportunity to provide feedback, sometimes anonymously, to and about their supervisors. This ensures that both managers and team members become aware of areas that need improvement while encouraging transparency and productive dialogue, as well as identifying coaching opportunities.

As small businesses start to grow, it can become more and more difficult to align personal goals with organizational goals. Performance management software can help with this. By distributing company-wide goals within a performance management tool, employees have a better idea of how they can create personal goals with the company in mind.

Growing small businesses are in a constant state of change. This being the case, people are often moving into new roles as they are created. Many performance management tools have features to aid in achieving succession planning and career development goals. This type of functionality is helpful in staying ahead of the curve and not allowing one organizational change to significantly affect the entire company.

Some performance management tools also include functionality for employee engagement. This can be incredibly beneficial for small businesses as they begin to grow. As teams become bigger and bigger, it can be difficult to determine which employees are engaged and which are not. Performance management tools that come bundled with employee engagement features are great for making every employee in an organization feel more valued and engaged.

Development planning — Provides a platform in which managers can set performance expectations and give employees regular, quality performance feedback. These tools let managers identify skills that need to be developed and create a plan for tackling ongoing training and education.

Career succession planning — Ensures that both employees and the organization understand the career path each employee is taking internally. This facilitates internal growth and development so employees can contribute as effectively as possible to the organization.

Performance tracking — Provides management and employees with transparency into employee progress.

Goal management — Enables SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) goals to be aligned throughout the organization. Goals can be created and/or cascaded down by managers. Goal management functionality also facilitates the tracking of goal progress.

Reviews and feedback — Performance reviews can be created using templates or libraries. Performance management software simplifies the delivery of these review forms to employees. Reviews can come in the form of a mid-year review, annual performance review, 360-degree feedback, and a self-evaluation form, to name a few. Additionally, managers can employ their performance management toolkit to compare employees’ performances to make promotion and compensation recommendations and decisions.

Compensation — Allows for customizable rules regarding bonus and merit pay distribution within the organization.

Succession planning — Manages talent pool to ensure key individuals are being prepared for key roles.

Career and development planning — Helps managers and individuals identify career paths for employees as well as develop training programs and courses for competencies and certifications needed for career path movements.

Platform customization — Allows administrators and managers to customize the platform to accommodate their unique performance management processes. Includes the ability to create custom objects, fields, rules, calculations, and views within the platform.

API integration — Application programming interfaces, or APIs, typically enable integration of data, logic, objects, and such with other software applications. Some performance management solutions provide specifications for how they will communicate with other software.

Internationalization — Enables users to employ solutions regardless of language and currency used.

User, role, and access management — Grants access to select data, features, objects, etc., based on the user, user role, or user group.

Performance and reliability — Ensures that software is consistently available (uptime), which allows users to complete tasks quickly because they do not need to wait for the software to respond to an action they took.

Reporting — Enables reporting of all data contained within the system. Typically contains standard reports as well as the ability to create ad-hoc reports.

Dashboards — Generates an easy-to-read, often single page, real-time user interface that displays a graphical presentation of the current status and historical trends of an organization’s key performance indicators (KPIs). Enables instantaneous and informed decisions to be made at a glance.

Other Features of Performance Management Systems: 1-On-1 meetings, All-in-one HR suite, Company goals and OKRs, Continuous feedback, Public praise, Requesting feedback, Standalone