Appraisal Software vs Continuous Performance Management Software

What type of HR soft­ware is the best fit for your organisation’s culture?

When search­ing for per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware, it’s impor­tant to note that not all soft­ware sys­tems work in the same way. Each one will have a dif­fer­ent focus and will facil­i­tate your work life in dif­fer­ent ways. Before you invest in a per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware sys­tem, con­sid­er what’s impor­tant to your busi­ness, how you inter­act with your employ­ees and how you aim to man­age your employ­ees going forward.

Giv­en that most com­pa­nies are evolv­ing and mov­ing away from the annu­al appraisal, it is rea­son­able to assume that there will be an increased demand for con­tin­u­ous per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware. In this blog, we’ll cov­er the dif­fer­ences between appraisal soft­ware and con­tin­u­ous per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware. We’ll also explore how com­pa­nies are shift­ing away from bureau­cra­cy and towards a more for­ward-think­ing, flu­id per­for­mance man­age­ment style.

Mea­sur­ing per­for­mance vs improv­ing performance

There is a huge change in approach when you com­pare annu­al appraisals and con­tin­u­ous per­for­mance man­age­ment. Soft­ware designed to facil­i­tate annu­al appraisals has a focus on mea­sur­ing per­for­mance and com­pe­ten­cies. The soft­ware will dili­gent­ly track quan­ti­ta­tive data and pro­vide accu­rate graphs as a result, but the data won’t nec­es­sar­i­ly help man­age­ment and HR under­stand per­for­mance prob­lems and employ­ee engage­ment issues.

Con­tin­u­ous per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware, how­ev­er, tracks per­for­mance and uses com­pe­ten­cies and val­ues in order to improve and devel­op per­for­mance. This helps the com­pa­ny grow and achieve its goals in the long term.

Quan­ti­ta­tive vs qualitative

As men­tioned above, annu­al appraisals focus on form fill­ing and cap­tur­ing data. This is because man­agers haven’t had reg­u­lar meet­ings with their employ­ees through­out the year, so they need to take a year­ly oppor­tu­ni­ty to catch up and get as famil­iar with their per­for­mance and pro­gres­sion as possible.

The prob­lem is, when data is cap­tured so infre­quent­ly, it isn’t going to be tru­ly reflec­tive or help­ful. Employ­ees won’t feel sup­port­ed or encour­aged, and the ten­den­cy is to reduce an employ­ee to a num­ber, which is detri­men­tal to morale.

Con­tin­u­ous per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware, on the oth­er hand, is focused on enabling mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tions. This soft­ware allows for real-time feed­back, fre­quent check-ins and reg­u­lar reassess­ment of objec­tives. Rather than rely­ing on quan­ti­ta­tive data, this soft­ware encour­ages employ­ees and man­agers to devel­op a trust­ing rela­tion­ship, which is nec­es­sary for employ­ee engage­ment to flourish.

Annu­al per­for­mance reviews vs reg­u­lar per­for­mance and devel­op­ment ​‘check-ins’

Appraisal soft­ware is designed to sup­port the annu­al per­for­mance review. This means that it doesn’t have to sched­ule fre­quent meet­ings, and the soft­ware will sim­ply prompt you with reminders to sched­ule year­ly meet­ings and organ­ise forms to be filled out.

Con­tin­u­ous per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware, on the oth­er hand, is designed with reg­u­lar com­mu­ni­ca­tion in mind. The soft­ware will help employ­ees sched­ule and track meet­ings. It allows notes to be made, which can be accessed by any rel­e­vant par­ty at any time. It also allows HR to track how often one to one meet­ings are being held, to ensure all employ­ees are get­ting the feed­back they deserve.

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Box-tick­ing feed­back vs ongo­ing, real-time feedback

Feed­back — both in terms of fre­quen­cy and qual­i­ty — is also an issue when it comes to appraisal soft­ware and con­tin­u­ous per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware. Annu­al per­for­mance reviews tend to cen­tre around 360-degree feed­back and box-tick­ing exer­cis­es, which have been shown not to work.

Con­tin­u­ous per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware, on the oth­er hand, deals with ongo­ing, real-time fre­quent feed­back. Man­ag­er and employ­ee are able to devel­op a rela­tion­ship, enjoy authen­tic com­mu­ni­ca­tion and dis­cuss per­for­mance-relat­ed mat­ters on a reg­u­lar basis. On top of this, the soft­ware is designed to per­mit for real-time feed­back, which can have a huge impact on employ­ee engage­ment levels.

Year­ly objec­tive set­ting vs agile near-term objectives

This is one of the most impor­tant per­for­mance man­age­ment con­sid­er­a­tions, because clear SMART objec­tives will keep your employ­ees on track and enthu­si­as­tic about their roles. Unclear or over­ly ambi­tious objec­tives, on the oth­er hand, will demo­ti­vate employ­ees and leave them unin­spired to excel.

Appraisal soft­ware is cen­tred on the set­ting, and mea­sure­ment, of long-term annu­al objec­tives. These objec­tives tend to become irrel­e­vant over the span of 12 months. Dynam­ic com­pa­nies gen­er­al­ly find that agile, near-term objec­tives that are updat­ed and dis­cussed reg­u­lar­ly are more help­ful in terms of advanc­ing the company.

Con­tin­u­ous per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware tracks SMART objec­tives and allows man­agers, employ­ees and HR to view objec­tives and assess progress. This con­stant re-eval­u­a­tion of objec­tives keeps employ­ees in-the-loop and engaged with regards to their goals and role while giv­ing them an under­stand­ing of how they con­tribute to over­all com­pa­ny objectives.

You have a lot of choice when it comes to per­for­mance review soft­ware. To find out what we can offer you and why you should choose Clear Review, get in touch with our team today for a free demo or a 15-minute per­for­mance man­age­ment consultation.