5 Ways Small Businesses Succeed with Performance Management Software

How does per­for­mance appraisal soft­ware help SMEs thrive?

Small busi­ness­es are the back­bone of the UK econ­o­my. SMEs account for 99.9% of all pri­vate sec­tor busi­ness­es and yet, unfor­tu­nate­ly, it has been shown that only a quar­ter of these com­pa­nies are actu­al­ly invest­ing in soft­ware and cloud computing.

Mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy can be a huge dri­ver of inno­va­tion and per­for­mance for SMEs, help­ing them to grow faster. In this day and age, in order to com­pete and thrive, com­pa­nies need to stay up to date with tech­no­log­i­cal advances, as well as the ben­e­fits such advances can offer.

As an exam­ple of how the right cloud-based tech­nol­o­gy can trans­form small busi­ness­es, we have out­lined what per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware can do for your com­pa­ny in real terms.

1. Cloud soft­ware is help­ing to lev­el the play­ing field between small busi­ness­es and glob­al conglomerates

It has been shown that cloud tech­nolo­gies are now lev­el­ling the play­ing field between big com­pa­nies and SMEs. This means that what real­ly sep­a­rates cor­po­rate giants from small­er busi­ness­es is inno­va­tion, cre­ativ­i­ty, and deter­mi­na­tion, rather than resources, pow­er, and money.

Costs are con­sis­tent­ly decreas­ing for qual­i­ty soft­ware, mean­ing small­er com­pa­nies are able to be increas­ing­ly effi­cient and pro­duc­tive. In order to oper­ate over­seas and pro­vide a prod­uct or ser­vice to a world­wide audi­ence, it is no longer nec­es­sary to hold phys­i­cal resources or offices in a num­ber of loca­tions. Using the ben­e­fits of cloud tech­nol­o­gy, busi­ness­es can com­mu­ni­cate with cus­tomers and make sales from their base, allow­ing them to tap into lucra­tive new mar­kets. Using a vir­tu­al shop win­dow, com­pa­nies are able to wel­come glob­al buyers.

Addi­tion­al­ly, using soft­ware such as per­for­mance review soft­ware, com­pa­nies are able to ensure that their work­force is up to stan­dard and per­form­ing effec­tive­ly, mean­ing SMEs can ensure stan­dards equiv­a­lent to those of lead­ing companies.

2. Per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware saves valu­able admin time

Time is mon­ey in a busi­ness, so it’s impor­tant to save time wher­ev­er you can. Many busi­ness­es find that HR process­es can be time-con­sum­ing — and if this is the case for your small busi­ness, per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware can real­ly step in to light­en the admin­is­tra­tive bur­den and pro­vide high­er lev­els of effi­cien­cy and automation.

Clear Review per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware offers HR and senior man­age­ment instant vis­i­bil­i­ty in terms of per­for­mance data across an organ­i­sa­tion. It gen­er­ates reports instant­ly that detail the qual­i­ty of objec­tives being set, progress against them and how often check-ins are being held. This means HR and senior man­age­ment can analyse progress against per­son­al devel­op­ment, goals and train­ing needs. Using this infor­ma­tion, busi­ness­es can make deci­sions regard­ing pro­mo­tions and bonuses.

3. Cloud tech­nol­o­gy is spurring the growth of SMEs

With cloud tech­nol­o­gy, infor­ma­tion is acces­si­ble any­where and at any time, and the respon­si­bil­i­ty for IT main­te­nance, sys­tem issues and soft­ware upgrades lies with the ser­vice provider. This means min­i­mal stress for a grow­ing busi­ness, which can also ben­e­fit from hav­ing inte­gral data at their fin­ger­tips, no mat­ter where they choose to work.

Cloud tech­nol­o­gy is also usu­al­ly very scal­able, mean­ing that you will be able to upgrade to include new fea­tures and mod­ules as your busi­ness devel­ops, rather than invest­ing all at once. All of this means that cloud com­put­ing can be a real game chang­er for SMEs, catalysing growth and innovation.

4. Cloud-based per­for­mance appraisal soft­ware could save SMEs money

Some com­pa­nies might choose not to invest in per­for­mance review soft­ware due to con­cerns over expense. After all, small busi­ness­es need to be care­ful with their mon­ey. How­ev­er, in the long run, cloud-based per­for­mance review soft­ware such as Clear Review could save busi­ness­es a lot of mon­ey. Accord­ing to a recent Euro­pean Com­mis­sion report, cloud com­put­ing can result in 80% of com­pa­nies reduc­ing their costs by 10 – 20% — an amount of mon­ey that can make a tremen­dous dif­fer­ence to a grow­ing business.

5. Per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware helps to track goals and objectives

When you’re man­ag­ing a small busi­ness, you want to make sure every­one is on the same page. You need your work­force work­ing in the same direc­tion, toward the same com­pa­ny goals, each know­ing and ful­ly under­stand­ing their SMART objec­tives. You also need a method in place to track goal progress and ensure every­one is on track.

Per­for­mance appraisal soft­ware allows man­agers and employ­ees to set and track objec­tives. HR can check in to ensure every­thing is going smooth­ly. Mean­while, employ­ees can ask for real-time feed­back at any point, mean­ing they are more able to get on with their work in a con­fi­dent, effi­cient man­ner. When this is the case, you can be sure that your com­pa­ny is full of deter­mined, ambi­tious and hard-work­ing indi­vid­u­als who are all engaged and dri­ven to make your com­pa­ny succeed.

If you are sold on the ben­e­fits of HR soft­ware, find out what to look for in per­for­mance review soft­ware. You can also see Clear Review in action by book­ing a FREE per­for­mance appraisal soft­ware demo today.