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When tasked with finding the right performance management system for their business, many busy HR managers don’t know where to begin. They wonder which features are essential.
A quality performance management system will help you save time while improving fairness in evaluating employees. How? It improves transparency in how you review your employees and monitor their progress, giving you an objective set of metrics to help you evaluate everyone by the same criteria.
What should you look for in a performance management system? Here are eight key features that will make your new system invaluable to your organisation.
Clear metrics of success
Your performance management system should provide easy-to-understand measures of success that allow you to quickly determine how much progress an employee has made. Complex criteria make performance evaluation challenging. In contrast, clear benchmarks based on SMART goals will help your team stay on track. Strong visuals will help make employees’ progress crystal-clear as well.
An automated, intuitive process
Naturally, you’ll want a system that’s designed to be user-friendly and intuitive. A great performance management system gives you automatic prompts and reminders so you’ll never forget a task you need to complete. It also lets you sign documents via an e-signature instead of going through the hassle of printing, signing, and scanning. Plus, it lets you customise key features such as questionnaires, so you’ll get exactly the information you’re looking for. Performance management will become as streamlined and simple as can be!
360-degree feedback
A quality system lets you solicit 360-degree feedback from a broad range of people who work with each employee. You’ll gain a balanced set of feedback that helps you better understand each individual’s distinct contributions and challenges while reducing bias. Better yet, you can collect all that feedback electronically rather than having to sit down and conduct in-person interviews with each participant — which saves you a huge amount of time. You’ll easily discover areas for improvement and develop a better grasp of each employee’s strengths.
Self-evaluation tools
Likewise, your system should allow employees to complete self-evaluations periodically to assess their own progress. Self-evaluations help people think critically about their performance and where they aim to improve. Furthermore, self-evaluations encourage employees to take more ownership of their own growth, feeling more invested in managing their own performance. In turn, managers will better understand how employees have been working to improve and where they need more guidance.
Goal-setting support
Without frequent reminders about their goals, employees often lose sight of them — if they even had clear goals in the first place. A quality system lets you set dynamic goals that you can modify over time, as employees’ ambitions and competencies change. Plus, you’ll be able to set both short- and long-term goals, as well as objectives and key results (OKRs). Tracking employees’ progress toward key milestones will greatly boost motivation and engagement.
Instant feedback
Through real-time feedback, managers can address a problem as soon as it arises. They can also give specific feedback about ways an employee is excelling so that they’ll understand how to continue improving. Up-to-the-minute feedback helps you eliminate unnecessary meetings, allowing you to provide feedback in an unobtrusive way throughout the day. Giving frequent feedback will also promote a positive feedback culture, encouraging employees to share (and ask for) constructive feedback with one another as well.
A manager log
A great software program also gives managers a place to keep a regular log of how employees are performing, giving them a handy reference on employee progress. In this log, managers can track important events in their employees’ development so they’ll clearly remember these milestones.
Excellent customer service
Select a provider that excels in customer service as well. When questions arise, you want to be able to reach out and get an answer as quickly as possible, rather than waiting for days. Choose a provider with customer service staff who are happy to walk you through any issues you experience so you can get on with the important business of managing your employees!
Of course, a top-tier system must also protect the sensitive data of your employees and company. It should minimize the chance of any data leaks occurring, giving you peace of mind — so make sure your provider offers that security.
Choose a system with all of these features, and you’ll streamline your performance management process. Employees and HR staff alike will be delighted with the ease of monitoring their progress toward their goals!
Looking for a performance management system that meets all these criteria? Try Primalogik for free!
