What's Hot in Performance Management Technology

Change in business is inevitable. Shifts in culture, the transition of the manager's role away from being a manager to coach, as well as the demand for greater autonomy all lead to a change in company culture and organizational processes. Perhaps the biggest factor promoting change, however, is technology. Just as HR tools have gone mobile in the last few years, so too will performance management.

In the move to embrace these changes and upgrade their performance management technology, organizations are running into one common obstacle: how to make it useful and convenient to use. Building or purchasing software to improve work performance is straightforward, but making it so that employees want to use it can be difficult. Tools must be customizable, comprehensive, automated and easy to use to encourage employee utilization.

Here’s what to look for in the latest in performance management software.

What’s hot in technology

• Tools that aid with dynamic goals
  • Goals are no longer static, once-a-year items. As companies move to dynamic goal-setting, they also need software that can allow for changes on the fly.
  • According to a McKinsey 2018 survey, 62 percent of employees who view their companies as having an effective performance management process also report revisiting goals at least twice a year or more.
  • Goals should be aligned with the organization's overall business strategy.
     
• Tools that aid in setting up and guiding conversations or check-ins
  • Informal performance conversations and check-ins can greatly increase employee engagement but may be difficult to implement. How should these meetings be initiated? What defines the structure of these conversations? What action items will result from each check-in? Having the proper software to both schedule and record the results of these conversations can make the process less of a chore.
• Tools that aid in feedback
  • Increasing the number of informal check-in meetings can also result in more feedback. There has been a large-scale increase in the use of feedback and pulse survey tools, leading to development of “continuous listening” as a new trend. Organizations are switching to comprehensive enterprise feedback architectures that receive feedback from employees through a number of different channels, including surveys, performance conversations, appraisals, etc. Organizations need tools to keep track of feedback gleaned from these events.
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• Tools that aid managers in coaching and best practices
  • Continuous performance management relies heavily on managers being effective coaches, which makes training all the more important. According to the McKinsey survey, 74 percent of employees who view their managers as capable coaches also say their performance management system is effective. Conversely, only 15 percent of those who say their managers are not capable coaches report being satisfied with their performance management process. Sixty-eight percent say that ongoing coaching and feedback from managers has a positive impact on their performance.
  • Training and best practices integrated into PM software is a huge bonus.
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• Data analytics
  • Continuous performance management goes hand-in-hand with data analytics. Moving performance management to continuous processes provides greater amounts of data and at a higher quality, while better data aids in making performance decisions. Having data integrated into a performance management solution is a shortcut that should not be discounted.
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• Real-time dashboards
  • Real-time dashboards are one of the most demanded tools today. Embedded analytics dashboards are even better.

Technology allows organizations the ability to keep their employees informed, whether it’s HR self-service or performance. An informed employee is an engaged employee, and the ability to manage these processes on mobile or at home on desktop is fast becoming the industry norm. How does your organization compare with these trends? Are you keeping up or lagging behind? Now is the time to take stock and see how to take advantage of these technology and process developments.